Kazan to get 26-km car automobile ring road by 2013

KAZAN, the Republic of Tatarstan, October 21 (Itar-Tass) - Russian
Transport Minister Igor Levitin has promised to build a 26-kilometer
automobile ring road in Kazan by the 2013 Youth and Student Games.
"Kazan's streets are not allowing to host the 27th World Student
Games as of yet," the minister told Tatarstan's President Rustam
Minnikhanov at a meeting held in Kazan earlier in October.
"A thousand-year-old city with narrow streets and lanes suffers from
constant traffic jams. The federal authorities have launched a program оf
construction of a 26-kilometer-long Ring Road inside the city. It's going
to be the first road in Russia to operate without a single semaphore,"
Levitin emphasized.
"The transport infrastructure is being carried out at an
accelerated pace," Kazan's Deputy Mayor Irshat Minkin said.
A federal program of preparations for the 2013 World Student Games
provides for the construction and reconstruction of about 60 kilometers of
roads, the building of 12 transport interchanges and 23 overland street
crossings and pedestrian subways. Some of the facilities have already
begun operation. The construction of a second river crossing has been
launched near the central bridge over the Kazanka River.
The volume of capital investments in implementing Kazan's
transport infrastructure projects amounts to almost 39 billion rubles, of
which 14 billion rubles will be spent this year; 12 billion rubles in
2011, ten billion rubles in 2012 and the rest of three billion in the
first half of 2013.
Minnikhanov said that sport facilities wouldn't be the only thing
to ensure the success of the games. A lot more will depend on how the
urban transport will be organized. "We should create a competent
transportation system. For that we need to mobilize all our forces, draw
up monthly schedules for each neighborhood and strictly comply with all
those timelines.
Almost 400-500 comfortable buses will be needed to transport
athletes, coaches and sport functionaries at the 2013 World Student Games.
This bus fleet will later be used for servicing the 2014 Olympic Games in
Sochi. The selection and training of the bus drivers has already started.

. Olympic University to open in Sochi.

SOCHI, October 21 (Itar-Tass) - The International Olympic
University in Sochi will enroll the first students in February 2013.
Lev Belousov, the University's general director, said that the
University had already started to develop curriculum for the training
courses whose duration will range from two months to two years.
"The University will start working in full measure after the 2014
Olympic Games. We are going to use the most innovative methods and
advanced technologies, including distance learning," Belousov went on to
say.
By that time, a single digital platform of training will be created.
It will be based on the accumulated potential of the world leading centers
of business education.
A decision to build the Olympic University in Sochi was adopted in
June 2009. Its co-founders are the Russian Ministry of Sports and Tourism,
the Sochi 2014 organizing committee, the Russian Olympic Committee and the
Interros Company - the project's investor.
The construction of a university building began in the territory of the former health improvement center named after Maurice Torez last June.
The area of the educational and administrative complex will exceed 15,000 square meters and the classroom will be able to accommodate up to 500 students simultaneously.
There will be 150 professors.
A total of 500 million dollars will be invested in the construction of the Russian International Olympic University in Sochi.