Goodbye and dosvidanya, friends

The Moscow-Utah Youth Games ended Saturday with an elaborate closing ceremony at Cauldron Park. But nobody seems ready to say goodbye or even dosvidanya.

In a speech at the evening ceremonies, Moscow Deputy Mayor Mikhail Men chose to say, "See you in Moscow!"

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and then-Gov. Mike Leavitt dreamed up the idea of the games during the 2002 Olympics -- giving Utah youths a chance to compete in Moscow last summer and bringing Russian youths here for the past week.

At the conclusion, organizers already were looking to repeat and extend the games. Ideas bandied about include repeating the games every few years, including other Olympic cities such as Vancouver or Sydney, including other sports and including other ages.

"We've always said the mayor and the governor would get together after the winter games and talk about the future of the games," said youth games co-chairman David Winder.

Vancouver and Beijing also have expressed interest in getting involved.

A conversation scheduled for a Saturday night dinner between Gov. Olene Walker and Luzhkov took place instead with Men, after Luzhkov cut short his trip to return home after the Moscow subway bombing Friday.

"There is every intention of continuing this in some form or other, (but) it's kind of a little bit up in the air right now," Russian Honorary Consul General Rusty Butler said.

As for the bombing "we wouldn't stop the competition," Men said. "We had to prove to the terrorists that life goes on."

Making connections

If Utahns were looking for athletic excellence in the winter games to make up for their somewhat poor showing in the summer, they would have been disappointed. The Russians again dominated in most sports.

As organizers are fond of noting, however, a city drawing athletes from a population of 12 million vs. a state drawing from 2.4 million - - well, you do the math. Nevertheless, Utah officials had expected to do better in the winter games because of the mountains and Olympic venues easily accessible for training in Utah.

"Our Utah athletes are losing too much," Butler said. "That wasn't the plan."

But, Butler hastened to add, the primary purpose of the games -- intercultural exchange -- was fulfilled in spades.

"It's been fun," he said. "There's been a wonderful rapport between the athletes. There has been a lot of friendshipping going on beyond the venues, casual things here and there where they've gotten together. I think it's been an enormous success as far as that is concerned."

At the closing ceremonies, Walker said the youths of Utah and Moscow have been given a chance to share. "Dreams have been realized. Friendships have been forged. A world has grown smaller," she said.

The games also were intended to foster economic cooperation between Moscow and Utah. There has been some interaction of that sort already -- Evans & Sutherland is supplying the equipment for the new Moscow planetarium, the same equipment installed in Salt Lake City's Clark Planetarium -- and organizers are hoping for more.

Touring Utah

If nothing else, at least one Moscow official left impressed with Utah ingenuity. Butler showed Georgi Muradov, Moscow's head of foreign affairs, around the LDS Conference Center.

"He was awestruck," Butler said. "He said he would never have imagined this from the outside. He was quite smitten by the architecture -- the lack of interior supports -- and just the vastness of it as well as the high quality of the finish work. He said Moscow has nothing like this."

The Russian athletes appeared almost unanimous regarding the most impressive thing about Utah.

"I really like the mountains here," volleyball player Olga Bukreeva said. "We don't have mountains in Moscow. It's the first time I've seen them."

Another stop was the Utah Symphony, which much of the Russian delegation was scheduled to attend Friday under the baton of Russian conductor Pavel Kogan. Hardly any of them showed up.

"I don't like classical music," said Moscow Sports Committee Chairman Sergei Korol.

Different tastes

Apparently, the youths didn't like Utah's food either. Organizers of the Moscow-Utah Youth Games went to great lengths to give the Russian athletes palatable things to eat during their weeklong stay here.

No dice.

"They had sausage and eggs for breakfast the first day and they were saying, 'Where's the soup?' " Utah team doctor Steve Scharmann said. "I had their trainer come up to me and say, 'We need soup at least once a day.' "

"Soup and tea," volunteer Jami Hutchins said. "They really want tea -- hot tea. Every place they go has iced tea, but they can't have ice because they think it constricts their throats."

Nina Buravleva, a Russian transfer student who has been helping out during the games, said several Russian athletes soon discovered Luybochka, a Salt Lake grocery store specializing in Russian food, went there and blew a whopping $1,000 on such things as salads and borscht.

"You guys have lots of weird sauces," said volleyball player Anastasia Yevdokimova. "I like hamburger and pizza OK, except they serve it for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

Turnabout is fair play: Utah athletes were complaining about the same thing last July -- food, except this time in reverse -- during the summer portion of the youth games. The Moscow McDonald's saw a lot of business that week.Corporate sponsors

Organizers point to the business community as one reason for the game's success. Utah Sports Commission President and youth games co- chairman Jeff Robbins continually emphasizes the fact that the approximately $3 million games were put on without taxpayer funds and with most events free to the public, due primarily to corporate sponsorships.

Springville-based Neways International again was the biggest contributor. CEO Michael Cunningham declined to say exactly how much the company spent though he did concede that it was "a considerable amount."

O.C. Tanner donated the medals, and the Jazz donated 800 seats for Wednesday's game against the Bulls, including three suites and numerous lower bowl seats. Robbins estimated the cash value of that alone to be $100,000, though Jazz President Dennis Haslam declined to say.

"We just wanted to do our part," he said.

E-mail: aedwards@desnews.com

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