I Choose the Sky 2021 in Kazan to cost 16,7m rubles

Swifts are going to arrive in Kazan again

16,7 million rubles are going to be spent to organise I Choose the Sky! annual festival in Kazan this year, according to the documentation of the Tatarstan State Procurement Committee. Earlier, the sum of costs hadn’t been published. Kazan Fair placed a tender for 2,3 million rubles for an air show in 2020 and 120,000 rubles for a bike programme. This year, Kazan Fair isn’t the client.

According to terms of reference, this year the festival programme hasn’t changed significantly:

• An air show with a well-known guest awaits Kazan citizens — The Swifts crew. This crew performed in 2020 too, while no less renowned Russian Knights arrived in the city in 2019.
• Flights of other aircraft are expected too, including long-range planes and helicopters (Kazan Helicopters participated last year).
• There will be performance parachute jumps with at least two take-offs of An-2 planes.
• Bikers are going to perform on the ground for spectators (as few as 20 motorbikes), and everything will end with a concert. At the same time, there is going to be an exhibition of the republic’s aviation engineering enterprises.

Besides transport and equipment, the cost sheet of the event includes promotion services too, it is short videos on social media, targeted ads and a video on a regional TV channel. Costs on antiseptics and disposable masks are also envisaged, moreover, the organisers expect up to 40,000 people on the holiday according to this clause.

The site of the festival isn’t indicated in the documentation. However, I Choose the Sky! traditionally takes place in Kazan above the Kazanka River, while spectators gathered near the Cup.

The sky is chosen for the ninth time

I Choose the Sky! holiday will be held in the republic for the ninth time. It was hosted for the first time in 2012 on the territory of Kurkashi airfield in Vysokaya Gora District. This festival has been closer to citizens since 2017: one doesn’t have to go to the airfield in the neighbouring district, the planes arrive in Kazan. This coincided with the first Red Bull Air Race in Kazan, they took place on one day then. The Rus crew became the headliner of the air show.

I Choose the Sky! is linked with Russia’s Air Force Day but didn’t always coincide with it. For instance, this year the holiday is scheduled for 7 August, while the solemn day is celebrated on the third Sunday of August.

In 2020, I Choose the Sky! air show took place on 25 July and became one of the first biggest offline events during the pandemic in the republic. Also, it was dedicated to the 100^th anniversary of the TASSR (as well as many other events last summer). In honour of this, The First Flight aerobatic crew wrote “100^th Anniversary of the TASSR” and “I Choose the Sky!” in the sky.