Junior Eurovision, a matter of state in Armenia

• Eurasia Armenian leader maintains power despite losing the war

Armenia is

.

The scars of the mountainous Caucasus mark both the relief of this small nation, slightly smaller in size than Catalonia, and the character of its three million inhabitants, whose GDP

does not reach 4,000 euros.

And yet, Armenia hosts tomorrow the

of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest, the children's version of one of the musical contests with the most repercussions in the world.

have been invested

in the organization and holding of the event, which is now in its twentieth edition.

It is a fortune that places the Eurojunior practically at the same height as the cost of some adult Eurovision festivals, such as those held in 2016 in Stockholm -another 13 million- and in 2022 in Turin -15-.

And more than half of the budget has been

country's public television, organizer of the event.

What critical voices in Armenia itself have accused of waste is justified by its authorities, on the one hand, in the economic return generated by hosting a festival of these characteristics and, on the other, and above all, in the fact that Junior Eurovision has become its

for the Armenian Executive .

Not only to try to ensure that the images of the country that are going to reach corners of the five continents serve to

, seriously damaged by the covid pandemic, but also to convey a face that begins to erase the heavy Armenian stigmas: its past as a Soviet republic and the endless latent war with neighboring Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a territory that is disputed by both countries and that has caused two wars since the 80s with thousands of deaths.

Neither the extreme poverty suffered by one in four Armenians nor the tension of the country -which claims to be one of the cradles of Christianity, its great hallmark- with a Muslim Azerbaijan always backed by Turkey, will have any place in Junior Eurovision.

We are facing a contest whose bases claim its apolitical nature and, in addition, tomorrow, we insist, is a competition between children.

However,

this Sunday.

Russia exclusion

On the one hand, in the imposing setting of the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concert Complex in the capital, Yerevan, the flag of Russia, the great protector of Armenia, will not wave, also in the aforementioned Karabakh conflict.

Because the

also leaves him out of the children's Eurovisual version.

Instead, one of the most exciting performances, as already happened with the senior edition in May, will be that of the girl representative of Ukraine.

The war-torn country was, not by chance, one of the first to confirm its participation in this Eurojunior, thus reaffirming its presence in the most important international forums at a time when the enemy is trying to annihilate its right to exist as nation.

And what the EBU, which created Eurovision in 1956 to reconcile and bring together European countries in which the embers of the Second World War had not yet been extinguished, has not been achieved, is something that would have deserved the appellation of historical as that

.

In summer, the bells rang when the Azeri authorities hinted at the possibility of sending a representative to the Eurojunior in an important gesture of rapprochement with their great enemy.

But everything blew up when, in September, there was a new episode in the escalation that from time to time breaks the

by Nagorno-Karabakh, this time with more than a hundred dead.

The tension also raised fears about the feasibility that the pan-European musical contest could end up being held, as it is finally going to happen.

That the contest is a matter of State is underlined by the fact that the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinián himself -a journalist by profession- has served as director of the organizing committee of the Eurofestival.

And from his Cabinet they have not stopped giving instructions so that the contest leaves all of Europe, and the world, with their mouths open.

We will see.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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