500 Russians including 300 St. Petersburg citizens will participate in The Tall Ships Races Baltic -2009 (TSR) in St. Petersburg. As PortNews IAA learnt from the TSR organization committee, 4 Russian A-class vessels are to participate: Mir, Sedov, Yuny Baltiets and Shtandart.

All in all, some 3,000 TSR participants are expected in St. Petersburg. The number of viewers including St. Petersburg guests and citizens is to make about 1 million.

St. Petersburg will host TSR on July 11-14, 2009. International regatta of training tall ships has been regularly held since 1956. They had different names like Operation SAIL and Cutty Sark. Present name of the regatta is the Tall Ships’ Races.  Main purpose of the regatta is to support intellectual and physical youth development, character building, promotion of healthy lifestyle among the youth, popularization of marine professions, development of tolerant attitude and making friendly relationships between young people around the world, strengthening international relations. Races are held by International non-profit organization Sail Training International – global Association of training tall ships. Cities, hosting regatta, are chosen by strict selection 3-4 years before the event. St. Petersburg has already hosted fleet The Tall Ships’ Races in 1996 and is honored to host it again in 2009.  On July 11 – 14, 2009 more than 100 tall ships and over 2,000 young sailors will come to St. Petersburg.

Source: www.portnews.ru