Since we won this year’s Eurovision song contest, our lives have been filled with touring and making new music, spreading Ukrainian culture around the world and raising awareness of the war in our country. Representing your country is always a huge responsibility, but especially so in such a difficult period.
In Kalush Orchestra, we emphasise rap with folklore motifs and Ukrainian authenticity, so it was important for us that we kept the lyrics for our song in Ukrainian. In the entire history of the contest, we had never heard of a rap group winning; we wanted to show that rap combined with Ukrainian folklore is cool.
The reception since our Eurovision win has been overwhelming. Over the summer, we performed at Glastonbury. It was the first time any of us had travelled to the UK, so it was a surreal experience. We’ve now toured around most of Europe, and recently completed our first concert tour of North America. Almost all dates were completely sold out, and we even added extra dates in New York and Toronto.
In Los Angeles, we met Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been actively supporting Ukrainians since the early days of the war. He invited us over to his house and came out to greet us with a pet donkey. We talked about the situation in Ukraine and thanked him for his support and shared how important it was to us. It was a pleasure to meet such a legend; I grew up on his movies.
We display a QR code at all of our concerts, which everyone in attendance can use to donate to the official state fund for preserving Ukrainian culture. Across all of our fundraising efforts so far, we have raised 54m Ukrainian hryvnia (£1.2m). We auctioned our Eurovision winners’ trophy at the end of May – which raised $900,000 (£740,000) for the armed forces of Ukraine. And we held a raffle for the pink bucket hat that I wore on the winning night – 31,000 people entered and it raised more than 11m hryvnia (£245,000). Using our platform as a means to help end the war as soon as possible is our main drive.
Every time we hear news that Russian forces have fired missiles into Ukraine again, we immediately pick up our phones to call or write to our families and friends. Now, we often cannot contact them because there is no light or power in Ukrainian cities due to constant shelling. We are very worried about them.
All men of draft age should be in Ukraine, ready to take up arms if necessary. We have special permission to leave due to our fundraising efforts but every time we return to our country, we have to apply for permission again. Everything we do, we do for Ukraine, and through our fundraising we believe that we can not only make a cultural difference but also an economic one. Though we are not fighting on the battlefield, we believe that we are cultural soldiers for Ukraine. Russia is trying to erase our culture. We want to be proof that they could never do that.
• As told to Safi Bugel
