Life after Helsinki 2007 Eurovision

Kazakhstan seems to be eager to join the Eurovision family while fans are a bit divided. This blogger would welcome them with open arms if they keep their promise and bring some national flavor with their songs. Zhanar is one of the leading ladies in business and has expressed her will to do the honors, after all she already won the substitute Turkvision song contest 2014 with Izim körem .  Her career started in a succesful girlband KeshYou while releasing also solo stuff and since 2014 she's been delivering solo hits like Ala ketpedin , Ayta bersin  and  Sen meni tüsinbedin .

Reporters without borders have published their annual Freedom of speech index in the world, read the whole list and info here . As a Finnish blogger I am happy to see Finland at the top for the third year in a row. All in all there are 9 Eurovision countries in the top-10, the one exception being New Zealand at #8 (and Liechtenstein at #7, but they have been flirting with Eurovision for so long that it almost counts like one of those countries that actually did take part in the past, Andorra, Monaco ...) as the Netherlands, Norway, Luxembourg, Andorra, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden complate the top. Very northern and Nordic isn't it? The Big5 are spread a bit on the top half of the list: Germany 17th, United Kingdom 29th, Spain 36th, France 37th and Italy 57th. Italy, Hungary and Greece get a special attention on the text. On the lower places, out of 179 countries are Russia 148th, Turkey 154th, Azerbaijan 156th and Belarus 157th. Is someone surprised? Even lowe...

Turkey is still snobbing Eurovision and launching Turkvision , where countries and regions with Turkish minorities can take part. This idea is nothing new as France did the same with Francophonic countries and regions already in the 1990's as Francovision - and yes, have you heard about it? It didn't last long, but it sure was fun seeing entrants from likes of Port-au-Prince (Haiti) and Lafayette (USA) and African states battling it out with with songs from Paris and Bruxelles and such, if I remember correct. It seems to have such a success that there's basicly no trace of it on internet :-) Anyways, it was very Eurovisionary affair. And it hasn't been going so well for the Asiavision either, has it? Only proves there's nothing like the real thing, is there? Anyways, Turkey is trying the same now and those interested can enjoy some music from Tataristan, Uzbekistan and all those other countries ending with "-stan" or similar, Crimea and so on. A...