Celebrate diversity: post-Eurovision thoughts

Hello, wonderful people!

If you are not from Europe (or, well, Australia), you have never heard of Eurovision. But if you are from here, you know the drill - it's a widely entertaining and controversial annual guilty pleasure, three nights of junk food and drinking games, political scandals and sometimes, shockingly, even music.

Eurovision Song Contest was created in 1956 to unite Europe, that was still recovering from the war. Now, this is the longest-running annual international TV song competition and a childhood tradition for many of us. 

Each year the competition is hosted by a country that won it the year before. And this year it took part in my home city for the second time since 2003 - the year when Ukraine started participating in the contest. The slogan of this year was Celebrate diversity and I was very pleasantly surprised to see the level of participants. And even more surprised to see the level of organisation. Kudos, Ukraine, you've done very, very well.

* I am not going to touch upon the gender balance of the hosts, just because I basically have nothing to say. Yes, one one hand it's weird and not really diverse to have three guys hosting a show of this level and with this slogan. But on the other hand, it's man and a woman each year, and each year it's the same - he is hitting on her, she is making fun of him. Is that diverse? I don't think so. But I'd love to see three women hosting Eurovision in the near future. 

But, considering this year's topic and the general atmosphere, it's very disturbing to see the things some people are writing about the winner - Salvador Sobral from Portugal.  It starts from being on drugs, having mental health issues and finishes at the "great" argument about him being "just weird".

2016 in pictures

Hey, guys! Happy New Year! 

One of my favourite New Year morning traditions (besides eating leftover salads with a spoon while watching old movies) is to look back at the past year. Yes, I usually don’t do it before midnight (maybe I just want to make sure that the old year actually retired and will not get offended?). 

My last year’s post you can find here – 2015 in pictures. 

So, here we go. Many things had happened in 2016, good and bad, it was quite kind to me personally. I got to travel much more than I ever did, I got great opportunities, I worked hard and I’m quite happy with myself. I also got very aware of some of my limitations and started my own personal self-education – mostly on the topics of self-love, self-respect, not putting myself down and not letting anyone else do it.

I’ve met many wonderful people and sadly parted ways with some others. So let’s look into it month by month. 

My article about the life of Palermo

A few weeks ago I got an offer to write an article about Palermo and the way it embraces diversity for a Ukrainian cultural magazine. 

Of course I agreed. Palermo became my second home two years ago, and I have a lot of admiration for the way people here find ways to live together quite happily, even in the face of economic crisis, all types of migration and high levels of corruption. 

Sicily is one of the most diverse regions in Europe - not only due to migration, but also to comparatively low prices and developed civil society, that brings here many international volunteers, interns and Erasmus students.

So I wrote an article about all the projects I personally am involved with and the ones I know about, about block parties and Palermo Pride, about Catholic church that invites Muslim community to pray, as they currently have no mosque and works with LGBTQI organisations to organize manifestations against hate crimes, about international volunteers that make workshops on urban gardening for children from underprivileged neighborhoods and many other things that I see with my own eyes every day.

Unfortunately the article is available only in Ukrainian, but if there's any interest in this topic, I'd love to write something regarding this topic also in English. 

You can read the article by clicking on the link:

PALERMO: THE PLACE FOR EVERYONE