The gavel has gone down on Kalush Orchestra’s glass microphone trophy, after the Ukrainian band auctioned it off to the highest bidder in aid of the Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation, which helps support the Ukrainian Army.
The Eurovision 2022 trophy sold for $900,000 to the WhiteBIT cryptocurrency community.
Kalush Orchestra frontman Oleh Psiuk streamed the auction live on Instagram.
“Friends, you are unreal! Thanks to everyone who donated,” Oleh wrote on his Instagram story following the auction. “Never before has so much money been raised during a stream.”
View this post on Instagram
The money raised will go towards buying three PD-2 drone systems for the Ukrainian Army.
The “unmanned aerial system” can be deployed “for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, artillery fire spotting and correction, and general support missions.”
The drone can hover over a target and drop cargo including “essential medications, ammunition supplies and rescue kits.”
The Eurovision 2022 trophy wasn’t the only prize on offer. Kalush Orchestra also staged a raffle for their signature pink bucket hat, which Oleh wore onstage in Turin.
Unlike the trophy, which was awarded to the highest bidder, it cost only 200 Ukrainian hryvnas (roughly 5€) to enter the raffle to win the iconic pink bucket hat. Donations were collected on Monobank up until today, with one donation of 200 hryvnas equalling one entry.
A grand total of 11,000,000 hryvnas were collected in the raffle for the pink bucket hat, which is almost 350,000€. The winner of the bucket hat was selected at random from amongst the donors during the live-streamed auction.
“Thank you, thank you, to everyone who donated, thank you to everyone who helped with the organisation and implementation of this cool project!” said charity founder Serhiy Prytula on an Instagram post following the auction.
View this post on Instagram
“We won the Eurovision Song Contest and now we want to help Ukraine to win the war,” Oleh said as he announced the auction on May 25th. “I want to sell this bucket hat and all the money will go for Ukrainian Army.”
“Every euro of your donation can save the lives of Ukrainian soldiers,” said charity founder Serhiy Prytula.
Just saw it, if anyone’s interested in having a chat with Ihor from Go_A & Kalush Orchestra, he’s auctioning a video call in a fundraiser here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CeTrR0vjWLA/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
The current highest bid is just 800 UAH which is around 25 EUR.
As i said all along, they never won cuz of quality. This contest was made for peace but now it’s winner have decided to use it for a support in war weapons. This is discusting!! This is not making them better as the one who started the war. This is double standards and so dissapointing. And someone want to host it in support of ukraine next year?? Well don’t invite them then. How is this even allowed by EBU. I feel we’re gonna have one of the last eurovision shows this decade?
As a Ukrainian I am very happy that we now know see the real face of Europe reading those comments. That is all. Thank you. We thought you were better.
Everyone supports ukraine, but when it’s being blood spilled how can we? Do u see us supporting russia or israel?? No. Anyways, if u had alina as a winner instead i would be totally satisfied with the win, cuz that was real emotions and quality. And she probably wouldn’t give the trophy as a warsign. But a show that is to promote peace turns into promote war instead is not right. It is really doubled standard. If they would use the win money to economy in war. Thats not right and u should understand that even though a war is… Read more »
What do you suggest? Do you realise that if we give up putin will go further and invade other European countries? We are now the shield. Or that if we have some kind of peace agreement now they will come back more prepared in a couple of years. And more people will die. The only way to peace is to defeat ruzzia. You are wrong.
As a fellow Ukrainian, just no! Yeah, I know there’s a lot of trolling online and it’s hard for us in our state but we all saw the overwhelming result of the televote! *That* was the real message not the online hate or bickering. It’s especially important now to stay united and not let bitterness drive a wedge within Europe
Besides, didn’t Suspilne pay 300,000euros participation fee in the amids of a brutal war? Didn’t they make public their will of hosting the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 for 15m euros? I mean at least, just let EBU know officially that you can’t host Eurovision when it’s blatant like that.
But I understand them too. Remembering how messy was the organisation of 2017 contest, with all the authoritarian derives behind and Ukrainian production team resigning, this kind of unprofessional attitude doesn’t surprise me. Especially as they have the excuse of war now.
1)contract for participation fee was signed before the start of new wave of moscowites aggression 2) the final result of Y2017 esc organization was not worse than in other years
Euh, the war in Donbass is going on since 2014. Ukraine did actually withdraw from Eurovision in 2015 because of that.
And still, they are planning to participate and host the next Eurovision edition! Besides, I think Suspilne journalists who were forced to resign after months of their hardwork are not probably thinking like you.
you have very poor knowledge of situation in Ukraine so better keep your mind with you
+Im sure Suspilne unofficially considers the option to give up the contest
Now as the Eurovision trophy is something rentable, I bet that next Eurovision winners would do the same thing. 1m euros is not bad, you know.
So for this they wanted to win the contest to exchange the trophy for droms-weapons? This is the wrong message, they could buy medicine or food…or help refugees…
Unbelievable. There is really something wrong with the EBU.
The drones can be used for many things as the article said
Besides if Ukraine army stopped defending the country the war would be already in Poland??
Unless Kalush O. broke the rules of what can be done with the trophy after they won it, they can do whatever they want with it. They chose to sell it. If you don’t like that, then buy it from the new owner and you can do whatever you want with it. As for forcing people to vote not because of politics, that won’t ever happen. People have the freedom to vote for whatever reason they want to. If they want to vote because of politics, let them. If they want to vote because of the contestants’ sexiness, race, and/or… Read more »
They are rules for keeping a trophy Is that in handbook somewhere?
I don’t know if there are any rules except what local laws say, like not using it to commit a crime.
I agree with you CarlosM and I don’t think most people voted for “politics” anyway. I think they voted because of the impact of the song, staging, and those six lads singing their hearts out. Especially Timothy.
I am against the war in Ukraine, or in any other country. On the other hand, Eurovision is created to unite people in peace and music and I still think that both Russia and Ukraine mustn’t be part of it until the end of the war. I mean the same for any other country in a war in the future. From my point of view it will be harmful for Eurovision itself. Imagine next Eurovision in Ukraine who might still be in war. And they are strict in that they want to orgagnize it. I think that for safety reasons… Read more »
I’m also curious if Ukraine would win it again if they’d would be still in war next year. Like they’d win every year until the war ends and Ukraine is reconstructed.
Lmao Is israel winning every year despite a ongoing conflict? Ebu has Never even disqualified despite all the crap that’s been going on there
WE HAD WAR FOR 9 YEARS!!!
did we win 9 times???
Okay People, it seems that this is hitting some people hard. What makes the victims of this war different from any other victims in previous wars? What makes wars between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Georgia and Russia, Israel and Palestine, war in Yugoslavia any different? Nothing! Innocent died and are dying as we live in this moment! In all previous contests, EBU didn’t expel countries in war, except for FR Yugoslavia in 1993. In all those editions, except for the boycott of certain countries, Georgia didn’t participate in 2009, Armenia didn’t participate in 2012, no bans. No boycott of 2019 edition… Read more »
would be better to ban your country too, because such dumb ppl like you live there
This war to end, but how in the hell can buying a weapon drone end a war. Russia is one of the biggest countries. I don’t support russia but russia has much more chance winning this war. Thank god they haven’t nuked yet.
Some of these comments are frankly shameful and I’m embarrassed for those of you who’ve left them. Be better.
agree
900k is actually really low, that can barely buy a decent military drone. better than nothing but it’s hard to believe no one bidded for more
900k with pretty much 0 promotion outside of ukraine is still pretty good. most of the bidders were from ukraine either refugees or diaspora, the guy who won the hat is in a refugee centre in Czechia
What is wrong with some of the people in the comments? How can you not understand that a song contest and whatever no politics rules it has is of zero significance when compared to a country being invaded for fun? How exactly does it affect your life that Kalush won and that they auctioned off their trophy? I’m very passionate about Eurovision myself, but these levels of having no life are ridiculous and you should probably grow the f up. Literally nothing is stopping you from still enjoying the contest and the songs, regardless of how political it gets, except… Read more »
Did they buy votes? Did they make shady deals among juries? The rules are that you win if you get the most votes, and they got the most by far, and did so following the rules, so how does the trophy not belong to them? People “feel like the best song and performance didn’t win” every year. According to “people”, Måneskin’s music is just noise with no musical quality, Portugal won because people felt sorry for the singer, Austria won because Lgbt; Jamala won because of Crimea, Netta won because of female empowerment, Ukraine 2004, Serbia, Turkey, Greece won because… Read more »
EBU is to blame as they opened this Pandora’s box when they let politics rule the contest. All they had to do was to set clear boundaries between music/art and politics/war. But they didn’t, they went all in and now we have this.
The one to blame here is Russia.
The EBU shouldn’t involve in politics. I remember in 2015, on the 100th remembrance year of the Armenian Genocide they denied Armenians to mention that something like that SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. Really? And this same EBU now fully involved into war politics taking part of one side and mocking another? What is this????
How exactly would you suggest they set these boundaries?
Now we have to come to terms with the fact that the contest has a political nature (at least from now on) to act accordingly and prevent similar situations getting out of hand in the future.
Btw, does anyone know if EBU is gonna do something else about the vote swapping or is the aggregate votes everything they’re gonna do?
Now we have to? Eurovision has been always political. Neighbours giving points to neighbours. If unspeakable evil like this is roaming behind everybodies doorstep literally, you can’t pretend that everything is okay. Maybe yeah, if there wasn’t a war then somebody else might have won but Ukraine needs to be supported every possible way right now. They need to be in the center of attention, believe it or not but all of our future in Europe depends on Ukraine. Slava Ukraini
Disgusting!!!
For me the crosses a line I think as to what the contest promotes and stands for which you me is connecting people through music. Also one of the elements Iv loved in the last few years is seeing artists grow and develop. I’m not saying I’m against the auctioning of the trophy but it directly turns their win into much more of a political message. For me Eurovision is about the songs and creativity and inspiration of art and performance and part of that is being able to tell your story. To directly raise money for war effort makes… Read more »
Nothing political about trying to help your country not get invaded.
Being political is when people bicker over issues from long periods of time without actually doing anything to address them. That one’s how politics is.
Politics is about how society should be organized and the methods appropriate to achieve the goals. So politics does come into play.
But yes I fully admire them for making it to the contest and going above and beyond to make a difference both as an artist and as someone directly involved in being in a war situation.
From the look of things, it’s more about whose idea is better than the rest and no one comes out of their constant politicking and bickering a winner.
You cannot say you support Ukraine
and at the same then be upset about auctioning off a piece of glass to help to save ukrainian lives.
I don’t think people understand how serious that war is, its not just the safety of Ukraine on the line, but also the other neighbouring countries of Russia. And lets not forget the reason Eurovision started after all, it was to bring people together after the war.
Your uncomfortable feeling when watching hamster wheels is less important than Ukraine lives.
Yes the seriousness of the war is huge and how it can spread and the power is truly frightening. I genuinely feel privileged that I am not directly effected but also have had sleepless night of worry – I’m a very anxious person in life. I also work with some children who are from Ukraine currently In the creative arts and their story’s are heartfelt and reach out across the language barriers to assist their settlement into school. So I do have a small connection and heart. I guess I wrote from a privileged point of view. It’s that direct… Read more »
Everybody is directly effected. Obviously some more than others, but still. Mental health. Inflation.
I’d change that to “in”directly, if I could.
Just one more thought. The fact that people here encourage this act scares me about the future of ESC and the world in general. This contest was created to promote peace and unity, but for the first time, the trophy was sold so WEAP*NS can be purchased. It’s only 3 months and we have already gotten used to having a war???
Can’t you see the symbolism and the degeneration of this contest?
Also, Uk*aine wants to host next year and spend millions of dollars, still they had to sell the trophy just to earn some thousands of euros.
They are being attacked? They are being killed?? They did this to help defend their home.
I see this exactly as the purpose of the contest.
EU gave them an option. They decided to continue with the war
they should have just handed off their country? Think before you speak
The purpose of the contest??
It’s a beautiful decision by Kalush for their country
I’m not a troll, is lazy thinking to accuse people left and right of being trolls, I just think is appaling, and makes my blood boil, the fact that in the year 2022, we have a winner speach about freeing some guys that are full of Dolphy H. tatoos. Congratulations EBU! You came full circule from 1956 till now.
He said “Save Azovstal” not “Save Azov”, to be precise. Azov is the name of the sea and the region around it, hence the naming. At the moment the Azovstal factory was being defended by the Azov regimen of the NGU as well as marines from the UAF 36th marine brigade, and there were also still some civilians inside.
If they buy drones, can they be called Leo? Just a little nod.
See the Russian bots are out in full force on the below thread.
Fun fact: people with different opinions from yours are not bots. They are people.
They are people with 0 compassion
I think this is actually a very good decision on Kalush’s part. While the funds gained from the auction are used for acquiring weaponry… remember that it is to defend the nation against the Russian army who have been relentlessly assaulting Ukraine for months now.
I hope that this deed will assist the nation well, and I hope for Ukraine to gain an upper hand in the future.
I think there’s nothing wrong with selling your hard-earned trophy, to be honest. You are essentially helping your country fight off the intruders. But I also understand that having Ukraine this year increased the amount of political involvement with the contest, possibly more than ever before. I think that’s okay, too. I don’t believe that people are genuinely against others fighting for their country, I just think they are annoyed because this whole thing seems like something that could have been done, discussed, approached, and executed differently and at a different place, not the international song contest. Both sides are… Read more »
SONG contest ?
Reading the below comments male me lose trust in humanity. Are you all Russian trolls, or can you not imagine your country being invaded, your family and friends being killed and your home being destroyed?
same
and us Ukrainians thought you had some kind of European values. Now we know the truth
Why are you complaining? That’s the winner you all voted for. 400+ televote points, you remember that?
Enjoy the show and vote less political next time. 😉
It’s funny how people say that this time ESC was so politica but yet year after year both televoters and juries vote for their neighbours which they have good relationships with or they vote for their countries they were once from. At least this time Europeans followed their heart and showed that at least they are united, that can’t be said about many leaders in Europe.
Absolutely vile.
I am fully sympathetic to the Ukrainian cause… but selling the trophy to buy weapons to me sends a really terrible message and is not something Eurovision should be about. The auction money could’ve gone to medical aid, helping refugees – so many actual humanitarian causes that work towards peace, not more bloodshed and armed conflict.
So you think Ukraine should just sit there and let Russians kill them? Think before you speak.
Ukraine NEEDS WEAPONS to defend their people. What do you think happens when they run out of weapons? Have you seen what they did in Butša?
Zelensky has a bit of money in his account, they should ask him
I mean you can turn it however you want. Defending ukraine can also be seen as working towards peace for europe supporting the message behind the eurovision song contest.
Mr Wonderful is coming. You suupport Ukraine but you want them to protect themselves with candies and sugar…
Come on!! I agree that this is a song contest and here is not the place for this topic, but they, as winners, can do whatever they want with their prize.
And according to their situation, with friends and family dying, it is easy to understand their choice.
In any case, they wouldn’t need to use those drones if Russia stops invading their home.
Not some Eurofans getting angry about a piece of glass (or whatever the trophy is made of). The trophy is just a symbol. I am surprised it does not happen more often and more trophies aren’t sold for charity. I hope the collected money helps the cause. Slava Ukraini.
On ESC stage Kalush spoke about the guys from a z o v, have you seen the tatoos those guys have? The worst. Search on f b video.
Fake!
Love how some brainless naive “anti-politics” Eurofans are getting angry at this news on Facebook, especially those on the Eurovision Fans Facebook group.
One pathetic person even asks Ukraine to be banned from Eurovision just because they donated the money from the trophy to help the Ukrainian army to fight off Russian invasion. Wow.
Europe is hopeless
Wow this is fantastic, a really honourable and selfless thing to do, that their only thought was how they could use this to help their country in any way possible.
I also love how they have specified that they will use the money to support their country from a humanitarian perspective, delivering medication and supplies to those who need it.
Well done guys ??
Btw, those ?? are actually a clapping emoji that didn’t show up correctly for some reason
I still rest my case that if all the people who voted for them would have donated they might even got more euros then auctioning the trophy
It’s sad that they couldn’t keep the trophy for themselves, but kudos to them for helping their country in this horrible situation! 🙁
I think I heard in the monthly recap YouTube video that they would get another trophy. 🙂 Don’t know if that’s fair to the other artists; Emmelie’s trophy is broken and she didn’t receive a replacement.
Who makes these trophies? I much preferred when it was a different trophy, specially designed by an artist from the host country every year. Not so replaceable, more special, not factory-made.
Just as every Eurovision edition now looks just like the previous ones, so do the trophies. I would prefer a clumsy but charming edition such as Rome 1991 to the generic and copy/paste Turin 2022 (not that it has anything to do with the host broadcaster, of course).
to anyone saying “duh, people are dying, get over it!”. Where were all of you when Israel won the contest, and women and children were dying bc of the israeli bombings? oh yeah, singing Netta’s song. Talk about hypocrisy
Okay, Russian troll. You can stop now.
not russian, but mediterranean. Greek, for more information 😉
Okay, wrong ethnicity. But you’re still a troll.
nope, I happen to know my priorities. The same way I condemn Russian invasion of Ukraine, I condemn Israel actions over Palestine, something most eurofans seems to “forget”. And at the same time, I know Ukraine’s victory this year was politically biased (look at the televote result), will probably force Ukraine to host the contest spending money and resources that could be properly used to rebuild their country, and that’s it.
I think I love you
be careful, or they’ll accuse you of having sympathies with a russian troll
That depends if KAN was used by its government in the same way Putin’s own government has been using state media to control the media narrative.
Considering there’s a high degree of editorial independence that the broadcaster has, its membership in the EBU has not been put into question.
People didn’t complain about israel 2019? That’s a new one for me.
If we’re gonna cancel out Israel as well… there’s a whole lot more to cancel out within Eurovision. Azerbaijan would be out… and heck… why not Germany as well? They were behind WW2 and people don’t talk about that in Eurovision anymore, despite our mustachioed man murdering and torturing countless innocent people. Following your logic, we should pull out all the stereotypical aggressive historical events within Europe ever and beyond, and apply it to a contest where for once a year, people can celebrate together no matter where you’re from. Wouldn’t that make the contest fairer? No, because then the… Read more »
I really hate cryptocurrency, but I hope this does some good.
Anyone critisizing this should check their priorities.
If piece of glass and a pink hat can help to defend human lives, then they should absolutely do it and there’s no shame in that!
Children are literally dying and people complain about “funding a war”
thank you! I am loosing the hope for Europe as a Ukrainian
for god’s shake give me a break. Now Eurovision has officially financed a war
sake***
Get over it. The weapons will help protecting the lives of ukrainian people.
Are you mad that you didn’t win the hat?
The hat looks like an upside down bowl, it’s ugly?
? = Laughing emoji btw
Oh no Ukraine’s army has gained 900k to help itself from P##in’s unjustified, horrendous attack! What a travesty!
They’re using this money to help their country idiot.
and to help the whole Europe too. putin will not stop on Ukraine.
disgusting how Eurovision went from a fun SONG contest to financing a war. hope ukraine never “wins” it again
Not financing war, defending innocent people!
You care more about a piece of glass trophy, than human lives?
shame on you
They will win in 2023, 2024.,..
we had war for 9 years. Did we win 9 times?