On 18 February, the WorldSkills Flag Relay took place in Yakutsk during the Opening Ceremony of the 7th Open National Competition “Young Professionals” (WorldSkills Russia) in Yakutsk Industrial Technical College. The Flag was presented to the Deputy Head of the Government of Yakutia Olga Balabkina.
“The WorldSkills movement gave an impetus to the development of education of the Republic of Tatarstan. The main goal is to bring up and teach competitive graduates and Yakutia has been conducting this mission successfully. These days our graduates are among the most demanded specialists in Russia”, she noted. “It should be noted that the WorldSkills Flag will visit one of the natural parks of Yakutia – Lenskiye Stolby – on 19 February”.
Yakutsk became the 15th WorldSkills Flag Relay host city in Russia. The Russian leg of the WorldSkills Flag Relay started in August 2018 at the Final of the 6th National Competition “Young Professionals” (WorldSkills Russia) in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. It will travel across 24 regions of the Russian Federation. The Russian leg of the WorldSkills Flag Relay will take place during the corporate and industrial competitions involving all centers of federal districts. The Flag will visit all leading industrial regions and large-scale enterprises of the Russian Federation, and then the Republic of Tatarstan will host it. The Relay is expected to culminate in Kazan on the day of the WorldSkills Kazan 2019 Opening Ceremony.
The Flag Relay started in 2017 when the WorldSkills Flag was handed to Kazan, the next WorldSkills host city, during the Closing Ceremony of the WorldSkills Abu Dhabi 2017. The flag arrived in Sochi, Russia the next day. In December 2017, it was launched into space and kept on board of the International Space Station for more than two months, before returning at the end of February 2018. After the start of the international leg of the Relay in Madrid, the flag took a journey across 20 countries that previously hosted the WorldSkills Competition.
The Flag visited Germany, Netherlands, USA, Republic of Korea, United Arab Emirates, Portugal, Finland, France, Ireland, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Italy, Belgium, Great Britain, Austria, Brazil, and Japan. The flag arrived in Russia from Chinese Taipei, where it was honored at the 48th WorldSkills Competition. In each country, the logos of the competitions that took place there were put on the flag.
Press Office of WorldSkills Kazan 2019 Competition Organizer
