According to a spokesperson for the Federal Narcotics & Psychotropic Substances Control Department, the aim of the rally is to raise public awareness of drugs-related problems and to promote healthy lifestyle.
Eight cars are taking part in the Moscow-Vladivostok rally. Each has a crew of three. The crew members include representatives of Moscow's Drugs Control Department, the Orthodox Center of St. John of Kronstadt, the event's organizing committee, and the media, the source says.
In the next fifteen days, the participants are to cover a distance of over nine thousand kilometers, making stopovers in large cities along the way, such as Penza, Samara, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, Chita, Blagoveshchensk, and Khabarovsk.
During the stopovers, rally participants will speak to the press and take part in charity events at local orphanages and drug rehabilitation centers.
"The Federal Narcotics Control Department hopes it will be able to study and generalize regional public organizations' experience in dealing with drug abuse and to single out the most efficient of drugs prevention programs launched across the nation," the Department spokesperson said. According to him, the rally was supposed to start on July 11, but was postponed till today for technical reasons.
The Federal Narcotics Control Department and the John of Kronstadt Orthodox Center are the organizers of the rally.
