News - Ukraine: Two Korean awards for Ruslana | Eurovision Song Contest News - 2010 Oslo, Norway 

Ruslana, the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest winner for the Ukraine, visited Seoul, South Korea, last weekend, where she starred at the main musical event of the continent, Asia Song Festival, held at the Sky Box stadium. Apart from performing two songs -including her Eurovision hit Wild dances-, she received no less than two awards, one of them the most important prize of the evening.

The Asia Song Festival brought together artists from 14 different nations from the continent, who starred in front of 45 thousand viewers in a 3-hour long show.

Ruslana was invited to the event as a 'Special Guest Star'. The Ukrainian singer won two awards at the Festival. The first of them was 'The Best Artist Award of The Asia Song Festival 2009', the main award of the event. The second special award –for the contribution to the cultural exchange between Ukraine and Asia in the realms of music– was given to Ruslana on stage by Mr. Yu In-chon, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Korea.

Ruslana stated that “We were quite nervous before heading to the stage. How will our music be received by the Korean, Japanese, Chinese –the entire Asian audience, since for them we are representatives of a completely different culture? Ukraine for them is as distant and mysterious as, for example, Malaysia or Indonesia for us Europeans. However, the passionate welcome we received from the 40 thousand people at Seoul’s main stadium doesn’t just inspire us, but literally compels us to keep coming back over and over again to Korea and other Asian countries in the future".

“I will do my best to strengthen and enrich the Korean-Ukrainian friendship, since Korea has become a bridge of mutual understanding and closer relations between the peoples of Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia”, emphasized the artist.

Ruslana, the only non-Asian singer attending the event, was also invited to take part at the next edition of the Festival, to be held in 2010. Besides that, the 2004 winner revealed that she is considering a musical collaboration with a widely popular Korean star in the beginning of 2010.

Finally, Ruslana devoted kind words to the host country: “I am exceptionally impressed by Korea. It is a very nice country of beautiful and kind people. Frankly, not everywhere even in Europe you can find such sincerity in human worldview. Korea’s natural symbiosis of ultramodern technological development with beautiful ancient traditions leaves no one indifferent and compels one to return to Korea over and over again”, said the Eurovision star.

Watch Ruslana performing Dance with the wolves live at the Asia Song Festival: