President of Tatarstan attended a Tatarstan Ministry of Youth Affairs, Sport and Tourism's end-of-year meeting

Tatarstan Ministry of Youth Affairs, Sport and Tourism has today held an end-of-year meeting at the premises of Culture Ministry. President of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, Kazan 2013 executive directorate director general, Vladimir Leonov, Volga State Physical Culture, Sport and Tourism Academy rector, Yusup Yakubov, were attendees.

Tatarstan youth affairs, sport and tourism minister, Rafis Burganov, delivered a keynote report.

Speaking of the preparation for Universiade, Tatarstan governor noted a lot of work had been done, including a renovated airport whose capacity had been increased to 2.5 million passengers a year, intermodal transportation and three more metro stations that would soon be opened. The city was changing, he added, although much more work related to the transport and road infrastructure was ahead.

Buildings located in the city’s centre needed to be preserved, since it was their uniqueness that was of interest to tourists, R. Minnikhanov went on to say. The number of tourists wishing to see the Kazan Kremlin, historical centre, Sviyazhsk and Bolgar grew, he said.

The constructed sports facilities needed to benefit republic’s residents, he went on to say, while their employees needed to be well trained.

Personnel training was an issue of utmost importance, President of Tatarstan said. The recently constructed huge state-of-the-art complex, Universiade Village International Information Centre, should after the games be managed by the Volga Physical Culture Academy, which should become a federal centre of athlete training and retraining.

Besides, the president said, “we need to come to each courtyard”, meaning that mass sports playgrounds were called for.

“We have a sufficient supply of serious facilities, we have spent a great amount of money. In the next 3-5 years, we need to focus on mass playgrounds, to both involve adults and children,” R. Minnikhanov concluded.