TL;DR – The next year, the WoT world championship will be held in Izhevsk in the Udmurt Republic (or just Udmurtia), for a measly $ 500,000, and it will be done in a new e-sport stadium.
The Autonomous Udmurt Republic (part of the european Russia region) has signed a contract with the World of Tanks developers.
The sides have announced that the results of the agreement will be visible during the next year, just as the hundred anniversary of Mikhail Kalashnikov’s birth will be celebrated, who coincidentally died in Izhevsk.
Udmurtia, Izhevsk.
The Udmurtia Development Corporation signs an agreement with Wargaming, the creators of the popular online game World of Tanks. The agreement was signed on September 19, 2018.
According to the words of the CEO of the Udmurtia Development Corporation, Dimitriy Generalov, the agreement is about organizing an e-sport event as part of celebrating the 100th birthday anniversary of Mikhail Kalashnikov, which will happen in 2019. Additionaly, as Generalov put it, it will help with “defence tourism”.
The representative of the Belarussian developer, Viacheslav “Slava” Makarov, added that as a company they cooperate with other regions of Russia, and other nations, in terms of organizing a wide-ranging, military themed event.
“Udmurtia, as a region of long history and military tradition, and as a place of work of one of the most known gun constructors in the world, Mikhail Kalashnikov, is a very important spot for us. At the same time we are working on broadening the themes of our games. We are working, among others, on the topic of special forces engagements, and because of that we also research the issues related to handheld firearms” said Makarov.
Nevertheless, neither Wargaming, nor the Udmurtia Development Corporation are currently willing to give any details on what will happen in detail, but they said that the people living in the region will see the fruit of their labor in during the next year, right up to the celebrations related to Kalashnikov (which are on November 10th).
“We need to work on building tension. We defined the strategic directions of our actions, and from the practical side, it will be hard enough already to pull off. We do not want to rob the citizens of Udmurtia of their future surprise” Generalov added.
