DOHA, December 13. /TASS/. A team of volunteers from Russia, serving at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, has organized a Day of Russian Culture for their colleagues representing other countries, Anatoly Savinov, one of the event’s organizers, told TASS.
"Some 2,000 foreign volunteers, serving at the World Cup, are accommodated in a single hotel," Savinov told a TASS correspondent. "They came here representing dozens of different countries. We wanted to treat them with a large-scale presentation of Russia and to organize a holiday."
According to him, the Russian Embassy in Qatar helped them with the organization of the event. A musical group was invited to perform Russian national folk music and songs during the event.
"We have provided meals to all guests, artists performed their shows, organized active games and different competitions. It was fun," Savinov continued.
"We have been handing out - either as presents or competition prizes - [Russian-made] Alyonka chocolate bars, traditional gingerbread cookies, Matryoshka dolls - everything that we managed to bring here," he noted.
"We [Russian volunteers] have also jointly cooked pirozhki, pancakes, Vinegret, Olivier and a host of other traditional Russian national dishes," Savinov added.
It was an open air event organized on the athletic grounds of the Volunteers Village, which was decorated with the national flags of Russia and also bore banners having English-language transliteration of complicated Russian words for the guests to try to pronounce.
2022 FIFA World Cup
Qatar is hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup between November 20 and December 18 at eight stadiums in five cities across the Persian Gulf country, namely in Doha, Lusail, Al Wakrah, Al Khor and Al Rayyan.
The eight host stadiums are: Al Bayt Stadium, Khalifa International Stadium, Al Thumama Stadium, Ahmad bin Ali Stadium, Lusail Iconic Stadium, Stadium 974, Education City Stadium, and Al Janoub Stadium.
The coveted World Cup Trophy will be taken home by one of 32 teams divided into eight groups. The group stage matches are being held across numerous fields in Qatar between November 20 and December 2 with the top two teams from each group advancing to the playoffs.
Qatar won the right to host matches for the 2022 FIFA World Cup on December 2, 2010. The championship kicked off last Sunday with a spectacular ceremony and the subsequent opening match between host Qatar and Ecuador, which ended 2-0 in favor of Ecuador.
In March 2015, FIFA officially announced that the 22nd edition of FIFA’s flagship event would be played in November and December of 2022, with the final match set for December 18, 2022, coinciding with - Qatar National Day. The objective, in principle, was to hold the tournament over 28 days.
The previous FIFA World Cup was hosted by Russia in 2018. The championship took place at 12 stadiums in 11 cities across Russia, namely in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Sochi, Kazan, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Samara.
On July 15, 2018, during an official ceremony in the Kremlin, Russian President Vladimir Putin passed the baton for the FIFA World Cup’s host country to Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in the presence of FIFA President Gianni Infantino.