Russia's Kazan to host Universiade 2013
On May 31, Russia won the right to host the Summer Universiade for the first time in 30 years. Students between 17 and 28 years of age from 141 countries will take part in this sporting event, considered to be second in importance only to the Olympic Games. The Summer Universiade consists of 12 compulsory sports and up to three optional sports chosen by the host country. The Summer Universiade 2013 will be held in Kazan, the capital of Russia's Republic of Tatarstan.
The decision was taken by the Executive Committee of the International University Sports Federation (FISU) headquartered in Brussels. Kazan was chosen ahead of Gwangjiu in South Korea and Vigo in Spain, as the latter two won three and four votes, respectively, while most of the 20 committee members voted for Kazan.
According to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Universiade will make an excellent prelude for the 2014 Sochi Olympics. The Summer Universiade is the biggest project in the history of Tatarstan. The initial budget was 604 million euros. 82% of the funding will be provided by the federal budget, with the remaining part shared by the budgets of Tatarstan and its capital.
Celebrations of Russia's summer victory have barely ended when Farid Mukhametshin, leader of the Tatarstan division of the United Russia party, publicly appealed to Prime Minister Putin seeking more funding. According to Tatarstan's Cabinet, the event's budget will total 880 million euros.
In June, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov expressed a high opinion of how Kazan was preparing for the international sporting event, saying that 39 of the planned 48 facilities have already been completed. Last fall, however, Kazan Mayor Ilsur Metshin made public his own calculations, saying that 28 of the 64 installations have already been completed, while there are 36 more to build. The cost of building new metro stations in Kazan, required to carry the guests arriving for the event, were also included into the expense budget. The initial budget therefore went up by almost 300 million euros. Earlier, part of the expenses was expected to be covered by private investors, but now that seems out of the question. Kazan authorities hope the financial crisis will be over before the main works begin. "The construction time of some facilities may be altered, but the Governments of Russia and Tatarstan confirm their obligations to host the Universiade 2013," Tatarstan's Prime Minister Rustam Minnikhanov said recently.
