Russian Youth Volleyball Cup Final to take place in Kazan

The competition's final will feature 8 teams divided into two groups. Group A includes Dinamo-Olimp (Moscow), Zvezda-Yugra (Surgut), Belogorye-3 (Belgorod) and Kuzbass-2 (Kemerovo). Group B will have Fakel (Novy Urengoy), SDYuShOR-Lokomotiv (Novosibirsk), Krasnodarskie Hawks (Krasnodar) and Zenit-UOR (Kazan).

The Zenit-UOR team's roster includes the blocker Ivan Demakov, who by the age of 20 has already won the national title and the Russian Super Cup as a member of  the Zenit-Kazan team's first line-up. Ivan Demakov earned the Youth League's bronze in 2012 and was recognised as the best blocker of the CEV Youth Volleyball European Championship.

Kazan is considered to be the unspoken capital of Russian volleyball. The Zenit men's volleyball team won the Russian Championship in 2009–2012, and secured the bronze medal in the 2012/2013 season, while the Dinamo-Kazan women's squad have been crowned champions for the last three years in a row.

Volleyball was included in the programme of the first Summer Universiade in 1959 where Soviet student athletes took gold. 23 out of 25 editions of the World University Summer Games had volleyball competitions. Over the entire history of the Summer Universiade, the national teams of the USSR and Russia have mounted the podium 21 times. Besides, with seven championship titles under its belt, the women's volleyball team is an absolute champion in terms of Summer Universiade victories in FISU history. During the Summer Universiade 2011 in Shenzhen (China), Russia's men's national squad won gold medals, whilst the women's team got bronze.

Volleyball is one of the 27 sports included in the programme of the 27th Summer Universiade. The Russian Youth Volleyball Cup Final is a test event in the run-up to the Games.

The volleyball competitions of the Summer Universiade 2013 will be held from 6 to 16 July.