Ukraine’s superstar Ruslana, who with Wild dances famously won the Eurovision Song Contest for her country in 2004, performed her first concert in Western Canada on Tuesday (30th August). The Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton was the venue, and Ruslana played to a full hall for what she described on Facebook as one of the best concerts of her life.

Ruslana will next visit the TCU Place in Saskatoon tomorrow (Friday 2nd September) for a concert. Tickets can be purchased via tcutickets.ca.

Born Руслана Степанівна Лижичко (Ruslana Stepanivna Lyzhychko) in Lviv in 1973, Ruslana is Ukraine’s best-selling international recording artist of all time. An outstanding social activist and a former Ukrainian Member of Parliament, who was honoured with the International Women of Courage Award from the US Secretary of State in 2014, Wild dances, which won the Istanbul-hosted Eurovision Song Contest of 2004 with a Grand Final total of 280 points, took Ruslana and her ethnic style of pop music to a global audience.

Ukrainians around the world are celebrating Sviato 25 – the 25th anniversary of Ukraine’s Declaration of Independence from the Soviet Union. Edmonton boasts a strong Ukrainian community, and Ruslana was a star attraction at a large event in the city’s Churchill Square, which also marked 125 years since Ukrainian settlement in Canada.

Sviato 25 Committee member Darka Tarnawsky told the Edmonton Journal:

The whole reason for (Ruslana) being here — this celebration of the 25th anniversary of independence — is something that’s very important to her because she has a great love for Ukraine and she fights very hard on a lot of levels for its freedom and its growth as an independent country.

Ukraine captured their second Eurovision Song Contest victory in May with Jamala’s 1944. Be sure to watch ESCToday for the host city announcement, as Ukraine prepares to open its doors once again to Europe’s finest musical extravaganza.