VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
ARCHIVE OF THE OFFICIAL SITE
OF THE 2008-2012 PRIME MINISTER
OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
VLADIMIR PUTIN
Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:
Vladimir Putin: Mr Mutko, the federal targeted programme to boost grassroots sports will continue until 2015. We are currently looking at ways to improve it. Which aspects of the programme do you think should be expanded or amended?
Vitaly Mutko: Mr Putin, the improvements will have to be made within the context of the instructions you gave us at the conference in Vladimir.
First of all, we have decided to make major changes in our very approach to grassroots sports development. At the beginning of this programme, there were only 12 participating regions. This number has grown to 71 after the conference you chaired. In fact, there are only a few regions left; if they join, then every constituent entity will be covered by this programme.
Second, we adopted a requirement for participating regions to have their own development programmes. As a result, 63 regions have adopted such programmes which has significantly boosted the total number of sports facilities in the country over the past four years. They have added 243 facilities; overall, there are thousands of facilities in the country, capable of serving 6.7 million people at the same time.
There is certainly a difference across regions and from facility to facility. With swimming pools, for example, the difference across regions is a 7% margin, and with gyms, 52%.
The number of people regularly engaged in some physical fitness and sports activities has significantly grown over the past few years. For example, about a million people got involved in 2009.
Vladimir Putin: How many Russians are doing regular sports?
Vitaly Mutko: 26 million, or 17%. According to the Strategy, we need to involve up to 40 million people by 2020 through the programme. This primarily concerns young people and children. The programme stipulates high growth rates.
The plan for this year is to build 322 sports centres under projects co-financed by the federal budget. These will be very different facilities from what we have now. We have reported to you on the tenders we've organised and that we selected a uniform draft for all these centres to be built in different regions. These will be multipurpose centres with a multiuse gym (for volleyball, basketball, and even football), a swimming pool, and a second floor with other facilities.
This is how we will be doing it this year. For example, we take the Ryazan Region, which includes 23 municipal districts and build one such centre in each of the districts. There are five of them there now. The location of such centres will be gradually expanded.
The programme also focuses on high performance sports. There are 45 Olympic sports now. The problem is there are federal centres for only 17 of them. In the next 18 months we need to include new winter sports such as freestyle skiing, snowboarding, biathlon and skiing. A special federal centre is being built in Toksovo.
Vladimir Putin (leafing through papers): I see here - the Perm Territory.
Vitaly Mutko: We are building major sports facilities for the first time there. There will be five hills, the whole range from 40 m, to 70 m, 95 m, and 120m. We haven't built anything like that for 20 years. We'll have a cutting-edge centre for ski-jumping and Alpine combination sports.
Vladimir Putin: In the Sverdlovsk Region.
Vitaly Mutko: We will build another series of ski slopes for the youth sports centre Aist in Nizhny Tagil. Several ice arenas will be built in Novogorsk - for short track, figure skating, hockey and curling. If we also use the Ergaki mountain range in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, we should have a full range of facilities for practicing winter sports in 18 months.
Vladimir Putin: What about Lake Krugloye north of Moscow you mention here?
Vitaly Mutko: Lake Krugloye. We would like to invite you to visit it in late July. There will be a sports centre equipped with practice facilities for the summer Olympics in London. We'll have all the required facilities for water sports, including diving, synchronized swimming, water polo and swimming. We would also try to fit in a fencing gym. Fencing is growing now. Russia is regaining its previous statute as the Olympics approach. In other words, the programme covers two important aspects, grassroots sports and high performance sports.
Mr Putin, we would like to ask for your support to add two more sections to the federal programme. The first one is the so-called growth points policy, aimed at fulfilling the instructions you gave after Vancouver. We would like to define growth points for each of the 83 Russian regions, which would be the specific sports the region will be responsible for developing.
For example, the Krasnoyarsk Territory will be responsible for biathlon, ski racing, and speed skating. We'll include it in the programme to assist the regions in building the required facilities.
We also have 14 sports and fitness colleges providing higher education degrees. But their facilities need upgrading. We also want them to be used as research-based facilities to support the regions' growth points sport, not just as educational facilities.
There are 14 colleges, the St Petersburg Lesgaft Institute of Physical Culture being the oldest. We are already building a winter sports centre there, with facilities for freestyle and snowboarding. Volgograd will be responsible for swimming and track and field. The Smolensk Academy of Physical Culture and Sport for short track, and Rostov State University for as many as five different sports. Essentially, we have already started determining the growth points.
Vladimir Putin: We need to build a large office building in Sochi for the 2014 Olympics, 50,000-75,000 sq m. At this point no one can tell me how we are going to use it after the Games. It's a large building. The construction will be financed with borrowed funds. But it will be an unusual loan. You must know about it. Don't you?
Vitaly Mutko: Yes, I do.
Vladimir Putin: It will be a difficult facility to build. Therefore, we could provide additional privileges to investors. But could we later use it to house some sports-related services? In this case, we could entirely finance the construction from the budget. Anyway, the investment terms and conditions offered for this project now are very slightly different from budget financing. Will you consider using it for some of the facilities you were talking about?
Vitaly Mutko: Mr Putin, we will soon be ready to present to you a large programme called Heritage, related to the Sochi Olympics. We are planning to move part of the Olympic facilities to central Russia once it is over.
Vladimir Putin: What about those you are not moving?
Vitaly Mutko: We suggest using them to house the International Olympic University, which is...
Vladimir Putin: ...which is also being built in the centre.
Vitaly Mutko: We are ready to report to you. We have vast opportunities and needs too. We'll soon present to you the Southern Federal Centre development project. We have completed the first stage of the project.
Vladimir Putin: How about using it for some sports educational institution, or a branch of an existing institution? It will be located amid first-class facilities for summer and winter sports. Please consider this. I would like you to think about it and make a proposal.
Vitaly Mutko: Certainly.
