Crimean Tatars Celebrate Eurovision Win, Russians Cry Foul

Many Russians, whose Eurovision Song Contest entry won the popular vote but finished third when the national juries’ votes were added, said they felt robbed of the win because of political bias.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 was condemned by the West and strongly opposed by Crimea’s Tatar minority, who now face persecution in the Moscow-ruled Black Sea peninsula.

“This song is about our tragedy … and I hope that people heard this,” said Emine Ziyatdinova, a 27-year-old Crimean Tatar who was among those celebrating the win in a Tatar restaurant in Kiev.

Jamala’s song, “1944,” recalls how Crimean Tatars, including her great-grandmother, were deported during World War II.

In the space of three days in May 1944, all 200,000 Tatars, who then made up a third of Crimea’s population, were put on trains and shipped off to Central Asia upon Stalin’s orders, suspected of collaborating with the Nazis during their long occupation of the peninsula during the war.

Thousands died during the grueling journey or starved to death in the barren steppes upon arrival. In the decades after the war, the Soviet Union developed Crimea as a naval base and a tourist destination, dominated by ethnic Russians along with Ukrainians.

It was not until the 1980s that the Tatars were allowed to return to their native land. Jamala, the stage name for Susana Jamaladinova, was born in the Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan in 1983. She now lives in Kiev.

The lyrics of her song don’t touch on Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and Jamala insists there’s no political subtext. But there’s no doubt the lyrics are powerful. She starts the song in English, singing “when strangers are coming, they come to your house, they kill you all and say ‘we’re not guilty.’“

Russians believe anti-Russian sentiments in Europe swayed the vote. Their entry, Sergey Lazarev, had all the right ingredients for a Eurovision winner: a song with a thumping techno beat, a catchy refrain and a buff man in a tight shirt riding on an iceberg.

“This is a political contest, 100 percent,” said Anastasia Bagayeva, who watched the contest from a Moscow restaurant. “This is not fair, but this is the current time.”