OVSC35

## OrbisVision Song Contest #35  *Under The Same Skies*

 4 Turkish folk songs: "Elmaların Yongası", "Demedim mi", "Kasap Havası" and "Üsküdar'a Gider İken"
 **Grand Final:**
 Tarkan performing "Şımarık"
 Hadise performing "Şampiyon"
 maNga performing "We Could Be The Same"
 Sertab Erener performing "Every Way That I Can"

## Participants

### Returning

 American Samoa
  Andorra
  Armenia
  British Virgin Islands
  Chile
  Croatia
  Estonia
  Greece
  Hungary
  Ireland
  Italy
  Jamaica
  Luxembourg
  Nigeria
  Spain
  Yemen

### Withdrawing

 Aruba
  Cocos Islands
  Cyprus
  Czechia
  Ecuador
  Germany
  Isle of Man
  Israel
  Liechtenstein
  Lithuania
  Mali
  Netherlands
  North Korea
  North Macedonia
  San Marino
  Switzerland
  Tunisia

## Voting

### System

Each country awards a set of 1 - 7 points, followed by 8, 10 and 12 points for their top 3 favourite songs

### Winner

 Hungary
 "Only Love Can Save Us Now" by Kesha

After their landslide victory in Kaunas, OVSC came to the transcontinental city of Istanbul in Türkiye for the first time!

This is the first time the contest was hosted by Türkiye as well as only the second time a transcontinental country hosted (18th time for Europe, 9th time for Asia). Istanbul was also the first host city to be a transcontinental city.

The contest consisted of 3 shows, 2 semi-finals and a Grand Final.

44 countries have confirmed their participation.

The winner was Hungary, with the song "Only Love Can Save Us Now" by American singer and songwriter Kesha. This was Hungary's first time taking home the trophy, and the 17th time a European country won the contest.

## Location

### Host city

Istanbul is a very large city of fantastic history, culture and beauty.

Called Byzantium in ancient times, the city's name was changed to Constantinople in 324 CE when it was rebuilt by the first Christian Roman Emperor, Constantine.

The name "Istanbul", perhaps surprisingly, comes from Greek and could be translated as a corruption of "to the city".

While the term had been in widespread use for centuries, it only became the official name of the city upon the foundation of the Republic of Türkiye in the 1920s.

The most populous city in Europe, Istanbul forms the financial and cultural centre of Türkiye and confidently straddles the borders between Asia and Europe as it has for millennia: this is the result when you mix ancient Christendom, a medieval metropolis and the modern Middle East.

    Situated on either side of the Bosphorus, Istanbul retains its metropolitan status: the city's population is more than 14 million people, making it one of the largest cities in the world.

Lauded in antiquity as "the second Rome", this is a city where you most certainly should *roam* — culture and excitement lie around every corner and more than 2,000 years of history await you.

Byzantium was founded on the European bank in the year 667 B.C. by Greek settlers from Megara, who settled in a deep and well-protected gulf known as the Golden Horn.

    In the 5th Century B.C. the city was occupied and destroyed by the Persians, to be reconstructed by the Spartan Pausanias in 479 B.C.

In 409 B.C. it fell into the hands of the Athenians, but four years later they were conquered again by the Spartans until the Athenian reconquest in 390 B.C.

Byzantium formed a part of Alexander the Great's Macedonian Empire, until the year 279 B.C. when the Celts imposed a tribute, it was relatively independent.

In 191 B.C. it was recognised as a free city, although in 100 B.C. it was taken as a possession of the Republic.

In 197 B.C. the emperor Septimius Severus sacked the city and destroyed its walls, but later decided to reconstruct them in the image of other Eastern colonies, doubling the walled area in the process.

Constantine the Great began to build a new Rome in 324, and in 330 it was consecrated as Constantinople, becoming the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire.

For its inhabitants, it was always a Roman capital. Built upon seven hills, as Rome was, it was divided into fourteen regions, ten of which were inside the walls.

The first Hagia Sophia cathedral, built by Constantine II next to the Grand Palace and consecrated in the year 360, was severely damaged in 532, which led Justinian to build a new cathedral

Due to its strategic position between Europe and Asia, Constantinople controlled the route between these two continents and passage between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

That meant that for centuries it was the major medieval urban centre in Europe, while the Western part of the Roman Empire was engulfed in a profound political, economic and demographic crisis.

The city grew, from 30,000 inhabitants in the time of Septimius Severus, to be home to 400,000 during the reign of Justinian.

In the 9th and 10th centuries, with the East-West Schism in the Catholic Church, Constantinople began another renaissance period, and the city continued to be an important cultural and commercial centre in the Mediterranean.

        Constantine XI, the last emperor, died defending the city, and it was known as Constantinople until the fall of the Roman Empire in 1453, and in Europe until the 20th century, when the name became known as Istanbul.
After long years of conflict with the Turks, who had already conquered the rest of the Byzantine empire, Constantinople fell to Mehmed the Conqueror on the 29th May 1453, and the Hagia Sophia was transformed into a mosque. This date marked the end of the middle ages.

During this period the city underwent a profound cultural transformation, as it changed from a Byzantine Imperial city to an Ottoman one, and from Orthodox Christianity to the Islamic religion.

    Although some churches were converted into mosques, many were conserved and new mosques were built on the outskirts of the city to commemorate the reign of the sultans.

On 29th October 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established the Republic of Türkiye, and the capital moved to Ankara.

In 1930, Istanbul officially adopted its current name, and in the 1950s and 60s came a great structural change.

A large number of Greek descendants, belonging to the large Greek community left for Greece after attacks on the Armenian, Greek and Jewish communities in 1955.

In the 1960s, at the cost of a number of historic buildings, Istanbul built a modern public transport network.

    In 1963, the Ankara Agreement was signed, the first step in their process of integration into the European Union.

During the 1970s Istanbul experienced a major demographic growth, due to emigration from Anatolia, and the offer of work in the many factories built in the outskirts of the city.

This created a real estate boom, and many of the outlying towns became absorbed into the city proper.

Today, Istanbul is one of the most visited tourist destinations in Europe, and every year it's visited by more than a million people.

### Venue

The Sinan Erdem Dome, formerly known as the Ataköy Dome, is a multi-purpose indoor arena that is located in Ataköy, Bakırköy, Istanbul on the European side of the city.

It has a seating capacity of 22,500 for concerts.

For the sport of basketball, it has a seating capacity of 16,000, and for the sport of tennis, it has a seating capacity of 16,457 people, making it Türkiye's largest multi-purpose indoor venue, and the third largest in Europe (although it is not the third largest in Europe in capacity for basketball use).

The arena is named after Sinan Erdem (1927–2003), who was the President of the Turkish Olympic Committee, from 1989, until his death in 2003.

The Sinan Erdem Dome hosted the knockout stage and final of the 2010 FIBA World Championship (now called the FIBA Basketball World Cup). During the event, most of the arena's 16,000 seats were placed on temporary stands, which were built on top of the arena's permanent stands.

The Sinan Erdem Dome has also hosted the following major sporting events: the tennis 2011 WTA Tour Championships, the EuroLeague's 2012 Final Four, the tennis 2012 WTA Tour Championships, the 2012 FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m), and the tennis 2013 WTA Tour Championships.

The arena is also the host site of the major basketball events, the 2017 EuroLeague Final Four and the 2017 FIBA EuroBasket's final stage.

## Participating countries

### Semi-final 1

Poland, Türkiye and Australia will vote in this semi-final. Qualifiers are marked in blue.

### Semi-final 2

Finland, South Korea and Christmas Island will vote in this semi-final. Qualifiers are marked in blue.

### Grand Final

1. ↑  Contains some phrases in Spanish.
2. ↑  Contains some phrases in English.