Delegation hosts Levent en Laman – Estland

16-12-2021

Levent Akkaya is a real Eurovision fan. He has already been on location for six editions. “It’s my outing,” he says. Now that the festival is taking place in Rotterdam, that outing has fallen away. Levent therefore decided to watch the national finals. One of the countries he visited in March 2020 was Estonia. Now he can receive this country’s delegation in his city of Rotterdam.

“It is very special to have the Eurovision Song Contest in your hometown. It is a pity that it is such a slimmed down form due to the corona crisis. But I think it’s nice to see how the city is decorated: it’s really chic and done with care.”

The artist who will perform for Estonia has already seen Levent live. “Uku Suviste had already participated in the preliminary rounds several times, but each time did not come through. When he finally won in 2020, Eurovision was cancelled. Fortunately, he won the preliminaries for this year again, so he can still perform on the world stage.”

Levent hopes he can join the delegation in the green room. “There is room for six or seven people here and there are not that many. I’m not counting on anything, but it would be super cool!”

His co-host for Estonia is Laman. She has little connection with the country. “Coincidentally, my ex-sister-in-law is from there. And I speak Russian, but that turns out not to be necessary. The delegation speaks English so well.” Now that she is so intensively involved with the land, interest is growing. “A city trip to Tallinn sounds like a lot of fun!”

Text: Anne Klapmuts

Photo: Joyce de Vries