Jamala's arrival home

18 May 2016 at 12:49 CEST

The winner of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest

With her victory in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, Jamala made people of Ukraine happy and proud. After her arrival at Boryspil International Airport, the singer found herself in front of the crowd of fans and journalists, all eager to congratulate the singer on her achievement. Many welcomed Jamala home by singing the Ukrainian national anthem and giving her flowers in national colours.

Jamala was so touched and overwhelmed with such a warm welcome back after two weeks in Stockholm that she even cried. The singer has never expected and dreamt to see and experience this. She thanked everybody for the support that she felt during Eurovision and for the warm reception at the airport.

"It was the most difficult time in my life. The rehearsals were going on from morning to night, and I had lots of interviews. I was afraid that my voice didn’t have time to have rest since I was either singing or speaking," said Jamala, just having stepped off the plane.

Gallery: Jamala, warmly welcomed in her home country, Ukraine

We really needed this joy, this victory. For me it means that my story was heard. Europe believed in us and voted. Justice exists. When you do something from a pure heart, you will definitely be heard.

Timur Miroshnychenko: "We will definitely make something special".

Timur Miroshnychenko, TV presenter and Ukrainian commentator stepped off the plane with an empty bottle of champagne. He told the media how exciting it was until the last second since no one knew who would win. The whole Ukrainian delegation lacked the right words to express how they felt when the results were announced.

Timur adds: "The Swedes have made the most amazing show. It was something unreal and it was definitely the best Eurovision in terms of audience interest. I do not know now how to make it next year at least not worse than it was. But definitely we will make something special".

Following her victory in the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, Jamala crowned People's Artist of Ukraine by the President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko.

Zurab Alasaniia: "We’ll look for the opportunities to fulfil everything."

The Director General of the national broadcaster in Ukraine (NTU), Zurab Alasaniia, described the first steps that should be done on the way to hosting the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest: "It will be an audit of what we have to, what we want and what we can reach to find a balance between all this. It will be the first working meeting, the first communication with the European Broadcasting Union, they will outline our tasks and assignments. They will take their part and we will here take ours and we’ll look for the opportunities to fulfil everything".

Over the coming weeks the EBU's Executive Supervisor for the Eurovision Song Contest will meet with representatives of NTU to discuss plans for the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest. The provisional dates are 16, 18 and 20 May 2017.