In the coming weekend, St. Petersburg is preparing to take on the brightest useful summer event - LIFEST Fitness Festival. A sports event will combine musical performance, track and field athletics, sports fields and a healthy diet with incredibly delicious food. The correspondent of "Utra" met and talked with the founder of the LIFEST Fitness Festival Nikolay Gorely and the organizer of sports events and a charity race from LIFEST Kirill Alexandrov.
"Morning": Nikolay, Cyril, good afternoon! So, St. Petersburg is preparing to host the main sports and entertainment event of the summer - LIFEST Fitness Festival. Please tell us in brief the history of the creation of the festival. How did the idea to organize such an event arise and why did Petersburg become the city where it occurs?.
Nikolay: Good! In 2016 year. Our team decided to make a festival of health, and it was called LIFE PICNIC. This time we organize not only a rich festival program, but also a charity race, and a new scale assumes a new name. After the Olympics in Sochi, not only St. Petersburg, but many other cities covered the sports wave. And it is still felt that we are one country - one team. If we return to the question, today about 40% of St. Petersburgers are engaged in amateur sports, so the choice of the city for the conduct was obvious. By the way, last year we held a festival in both capitals, and during the preparation of this event we received many requests from Muscovites, so we will definitely continue to work on both cities in 2018.
Cyril: Indeed, this year I was the program director of the all-Russian half-marathon "Zabeg", which was held in ten Russian cities, and there was a simultaneous start with geography from Moscow to Vladivostok, that is, all time zones. In St. Petersburg, it was quite large - ran six thousand people. Very sporty city!.
"U": There are a lot of activities in the program of the festival: popular yoga, running, extravagant cycling (a kind of fitness that is a mixture of dances and exercises on the bike), for the strong in spirit - the RusAP system, developed on the basis of army training of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation with adaptation Under modern fitness, and much more. How was the activity selected?.
: We decided to unite all those who are passionate about sports, and before deciding to the festival, met with the major fitness clubs, studios and professionals of this vast sphere. As it happens, in the process of organization, many proposals for the program began to arrive, and we, in turn, selected those that our guests will most like and will not make them miss. As a result, the program turned out to be very diverse: master classes in running technique and fitness training, lectures from Olympic champions, health check, cross-marathon, yoga zone, a large dome with exercise bikes and even a large area for children and parents.
"U": LIFEST-2017 will be opened by running on the tracks of Pulkovo Park for 2.5 or 5 kilometers. A feature of the race will be the opportunity to go on the track with the famous Russian athletes - who exactly do you expect in the ranks of runners? Do you yourself run?.
: We call for the participation of all residents and visitors of St. Petersburg. Of course, professional athletes will take part in the race, among them will be Natalia Antyukh, Alexei Stolyarov, Mikhail Bykov, Danil Antonenkov. Our team, which worked on the festival, will definitely try to set its own record.
: I think that yes, I am happy to run, especially there are several media people who really want to participate, but they worry that they will not be able to run a distance, so I have to run to the support in order to finish with them. Only under such condition they will come to the race. So I run with pleasure, I like to run. The only thing I do not like to mix history, if I'm still the organizer of the race, I think that I should not participate, because you need to monitor the organization itself. In this case, we do not run for the result, it has a good goal - to help the program "Big brothers, big sisters" in Russia.
"U": How do you see the visitors of the festival - their age, lifestyle?.
: We do not demarcate our audience, but we believe that the main participants are not only professionals and sports fans, but active and enthusiastic people who are engaged in sports and want to develop, as well as those who simply want to listen to music and eat tasty food. We expect absolutely everyone at the festival, because the format is beyond the scope of a simple sporting event.
: I can tell exactly which portrait of the runner (laughs) - these are smart people with burning eyes. Purposeful, always full of energy, because they find time for both family and work, and run a certain number of kilometers according to plan.
"U": If you think about the future, what is your child waiting for, what prospects do you plan for it? Is there no idea of ??bringing it to the all-Russian level, to move it to Moscow, for example, or to conduct simultaneous conducting in several cities of Russia?.
: In recent years, sport is only gaining popularity, and it's great! We plan to expand the festival both in terms of location and program. It's too early to talk about a one-off event, first we need to consolidate our success in other cities, make sure that people know the project and know that they get it from him. We are happy to invite everyone to the festival, and I think that everyone who comes to it will necessarily receive incredible emotions and a step on the way to an active lifestyle! The main mission of the LIFEST Festival is to give everyone an opportunity to get up-to-date information about their health, take personal consultations with leading experts and test interesting fitness services at the price of the entrance ticket.