About the World Championship in Numbers

The Championship is happening, so I won’t pretend that it does not, despite the fact that I don’t wish to attend the matches. I just want to walk around Minsk Arena to take some photos and to observe the crowd for a while.

I did not have the intention of writing about the event, but Wednesday, on the CS meeting I got hold of my favourite newspaper in Minsk, Большой, where I read an interesting article. I will publish here a translation of the article. All the credit goes to the writer of the article. 

Those, who have a good command of Russian, may read the article online: bolshoi.by

So, let’s see those numbers!

16 – the number of the teams that fight with each other for the title of best hockey nation. Among the teams we can find teams with srong hockey past (e.g that of the USA and Canada) and there is for example France and Italy, who are not particularly known for their knowledge of hockey.

64 – the number of matches in the World Championship. It’s like an overdose for the fans of this sport.

5 – the number of years Belarus had been preparing for the games. It was decided on 5^th May 2009 that the Championship would be held here. Hungary (hurrey!), Latvia and Ukraine were the other “contestants” for organizing the event, but finally Belarus won.

11,4 – million euro. Practically, the budget of the world championship. It was spent on the construction of arenas, the town’s infrastructure, etc. Thanks to this amount of money the town underwent a great development.

50 – million dollars. The estimated amount of income for the arrangement of the World Championship (if I understand right)

23 – billion rubles. This money they spent on the different kind of souvenirs related to the Championship. By the way, the mascot of the championship is a bison, which can be found all over town. I’ve already uploaded a couple of pictures about it on Picasa.

64 – this amount of euro costs the cheapest pack for fans: it includes a ticket for the games, for the transport and the cost of one bed in the student village for 1 night. Packs for the VIP-section cost around 1000 euro.

10 – the number of the national dishes the restaurants and cafés in Minsk has the include on their menus. So don’t get too surprised if in a sushi-restaurant you’re being offered draniki as the place’s speciality.

I hope that it was as interesting for you, as it was for me. :)

Пока! :)