The awards ceremony during the festival closing gala in Vitebsk

Three days for the contest, three songs – one in the native language of the composer, an international hit song and a Slavonic hit song and certainly drive and excitement of the song competition… All of that was part of the 26th International Song Contest Vitebsk 2017, which became history with the Slavianski Bazaar ending gala on 17 July.

The intrigue, which was hotly debated in Vitebsk the day before, is now clear – the grand prix has not been awarded this year. In the final round Vlad Sytnik from Ukraine and Yegor Sharankov from Belarus scored the same number of points. According to the rules of the contest, the winner has to be ahead of competition by at least three points. As a result, the judges had to recast their votes. The winners of the Vitebsk 2017 song contest were announced during the solemn closing ceremony: the first prize went to Vlad Sytnik (Ukraine), the second one to Yegor Sharankov (Belarus), and the third prize to Nevena Bozovic (Serbia).

Emotions of the contestant and episodes to remember from the key festival contest are covered by the chronicled report…