Marat Safin opens sports complex in Nizhny Novgorod region

Sports complex Zvezda (Star) opened in the town of Pavlovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Governor Valery Shantsev and advisor to the President of the Olympic Committee Marat Safin took part in the opening ceremony.

Zvezda has become the 20^th sports complex. The governor said that it would not be the last one.

"Our goal is to have such complexes in every district of the Nizhny Novgorod region. In 2005, we analyzed the sports base of the region. As for swimming pools, for example, we only had 4 percent of the required norm. As for the gyms, their percentage in the region was 27 percent of the norm. To put it in a nutshell, what we had was far from being enough. Today, the situation has changed considerably. If there is a sports complex in a district, up to 70 percent of schoolchildren attend them. The number of local citizens that began to do sports has increased 2.5 times," Valery Shantsev said.

A sports complex similar to Zvezda in the Nizhny Novgorod region can accept 1,000 people daily. Each of such complexes can provide over 30 kinds of sports activities. Such complexes appeared in the region four years ago. Over 12 million people have visited them since then.

Marat Safin said that it was difficult to find similar projects anywhere else in the world.

"I've spent a lot of time in Europe and America, but there were not many places where I could see such social networks of sports complexes. In just four years, they have built 20 sports complexes in the Nizhny Novgorod region. It became possible in spite of the crisis and other difficulties. This is simply perfect I think," Marat Safin said.

It is worthy of note that Zvezda became the second sports complex, which opened its doors in the region at the end of November. On Saturday, Valery Shantsev took part in the opening of Kolos sports complex in the Lukoyanovsky district of the region.

There will be two sports complexes built in each of eight districts of the Nizhny Novgorod region before 2015 within the scope of the initiative of governor Shantsev and United Russia Party.