Mayor of Kaliningrad urges residents to leave city during FIFA World Cup 2018
Kaliningrad Mayor Alexander Yaroshuk advised residents to “leave the city for a holiday in nature” during the Football World Cup.
“The city will be crowded. It will be much harder to move about, virtually prohibited, except for the shuttles which will carry the fans,” Yaroshuk said in a radio interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda.
The city mayor also pointed out that one of the four World Cup 2018 matches which Kaliningrad will host will be a “top” match.
“Seventy to a hundred thousand tourists will come to the city. They will mostly walk about the city and sit in pubs. Not all of them will go to the stadium,” he said.
During the World Cup 2018, the mayor continued, city residents should “be disciplined, kind,” and “mustn’t hit anybody”. “If you can speak English, talk to the guests, be willing to tell them about the city. In short – be hospitable,” he said.
Earlier the Kaliningrad authorities said that they will investigate the possibility of giving residents the day off on the three weekdays when World Cup 2018 matches will be held in the city. The fourth match to be hosted by Kaliningrad will take place on a weekend.
The FIFA World Cup will take place in Russia between June 14 and July 15, 2018. Aside from Kaliningrad, matches will be hosted by Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Saransk, Sochi, Saint Petersburg and Moscow.