Smallest city set for biggest World Cup transport boost

By Mike Collett SARANSK, Russia (Reuters) - The smallest World Cup city of Saransk is set for the biggest World Cup transport legacy of all 11 venues across Russia, torn from long provincial isolation by construction of an international airport, new bridges and roads. Alongside the other centres hosting the world cup in three years, and on the standards of vast Russia, it is small, with a population little over 300,000. Next to St Petersburg, Moscow, Kaliningrad and Yekaterinburg, it struggles for recognition. Yet Saransk, situated in the southern Republic of Mordovia, has been voted Russia's "most comfortable city to live in" eight times - based on quality of housing, communal services and ecology, where bigger peers struggle to impress. It looks set to be the biggest winner off the pitch as 2018 approaches. "We will not be regarded as such a provincial city any more," Vladimir Sushkov, Mordovia's governor told international journalists on a tour of all the venue sites. "Having a new airport which can handle Boeing 737s and the Airbus 320 with international links will give the city a huge boost and our name will really be on the map. "This is one of the reasons why were so glad to host the World Cup. We are also improving our roads and bridges infrastructure and all the work will be competed on time." When the United States hosted the World Cup in 1994 and Brazil hosted it in 2014, one of the concerns were the vast distances between venue cities, and the same issues confront Russia. Although the entire World Cup is being staged west of the Urals which divide European Russia from Asian Russia with the venue cities organised into clusters to cut down on long distance travel for teams and fans, anyone attempting to visit all 11 venues would have a strenuous task ahead of them. To fly from Kaliningrad in the west to Yekaterinburg in the east takes three hours 30 minutes, while St Petersburg, the most northerly city is a three hour flight from southernmost Sochi. INSPECTION REPORT When FIFA's Inspection team evaluated Russia's bid in the build-up to the vote in 2010, they graded as "high risk" Russia's airport and international connections, "medium risk" the ground transport facilities and "low risk" for transport links within the host cities. Certainly some airports could not cope with an influx of World Cup fans if the tournament was staged now. Kaliningrad's old-fashioned and out-dated Soviet-style Khrabrovo Airport, where there is no security preventing non-passengers wandering in and standing by the baggage carousel, is being replaced by a modern building, while Saransk's new international terminal can't come soon enough. But there are significant developments. A highspeed railway already operates between Moscow and St Petersburg and a 700 km motorway will connect the two cities by road. Organisers also plan a highspeed rail line from Moscow to Russia's "sporting capital" Kazan, transporting passengers at 400 kilometres per hour and cutting travel time to 3.5 hours from 14 currently. Despite the modernisation programme, especially in the approaches to the host cities, concerns remain about how fans would travel from, for example Samara in the east, to Rostov-on-Don in the south-west if they did not want to fly. The two cities are nearly 1,000 kms apart, and although there are decent train and road links, there is no high speed train link and overseas visitors would face a logistical headache hiring a car and making the trip. Other train links between cities, while being improved, could also prove taxing. There is a well-established rail link between Sochi and Rostov-on-Don which are only about 500 km apart, but the night-train takes around 11 hours because of the number of stops it makes, although the journey in the day is quicker. HUGE COUNTRIES Sergey Kuznetsov, the chief architect for the capital Moscow, is confident that fans will be able to get to the matches they want to see. "The World Cup has been held in huge countries before, like the United States, and Brazil, they have good air links, as we have. We are making sure that tourists coming here will be able to get around and there is no reason they won't be. "Visitors coming to the country with tickets will be admitted visa free and will be able to travel free unless they are flying. Aleksey Grishin, the vice governor and minister for construction for the Samara Region, though summed up in a sense, what the World Cup means for both fans and the cities hosting the games. "We are improving our tram rolling stock, our roads, there is major improvements going on our railway tracks and links from the city to the airport. We want to provide the best for everyone at the World Cup, and there is no reason why we won't." (additional reporting by Jack Stubbs in Moscow; editing by Ralph Boulton)