Saransk Mayor: I Guarantee 100% Safety for All World Cup Fans

SARANSK (Sputnik) - Mordovia Arena, a brand-new stadium in Saransk, a 300-thousand capital of Mordovia, is fully ready to host the FIFA-2018 World Cup. Located some 650 kilometers to the east of Moscow, Saransk is considered as one of the most ecologically-friendly and safest cities of Russia.
Sputnik

A French movie star Gerard Depardieu picked Saransk as the best place to live in Russia and even bought an apartment there when he was thinking about staying in this country for good.

The Saransk city manager Peter Tultayev promised that all visitors (there will be four FIFA-18 matches held at Mordovia Arena, and some 200 thousand visitors are expected) will feel safe and comfortable.

"I guarantee 100 percent safety, we are all normal people here, there are no bears walking along the streets, and we'll be very happy to meet all our foreign guests", he told a team of journalists, who visited Saransk in May.

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Saransk is actively promoting sports now, and the state-of-the-art 44-thousand-seat football stadium Mordovia Arena will also serve as a home stadium for the local FC Mordovia. It will also be a key venue for all kinds of sporting events, concerts and other mass activities. According to the Saransk legacy program, after the FIFA World Cup Mordovia Arena will be transformed into a more compact stadium. Some of its temporary structures will be dismantled. The capacity will get down to some thirty thousand spectators.

During FIFA's Russia-2018 cup the Saransk Arena will host four matches within the group stage matches, including Peru's opening game against Denmark.

The stadium was built on the banks of the Insar River and a nice recreation zone in the area will also be available for visitors. A few minutes away from the stadium a fan zone at Sovetskaya square with a huge screen is being set. The downtown area, with a new five-star Sheraton hotel among other, is also located along Insar and not far away from the Arena venue.

As Alexei Merkushkin, deputy chairman of the Mordovian government told journalists, the oval-shaped compact stadium was designed to be a sunny and joyful place. Designers used a bright range of colors, combining orange, red and white. This combination is associated with Mordovia's traditional art and folk craft traditions.

"The stadium has a unique architecture and it's also quite compact, even the furthest seat is relatively close to the field," Merkushkin said.

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