Baku, Azerbaijan, May 26
By Aygun Badalova - Trend:
The First European Games to be held in Baku are a chance for the world to discover Azerbaijan, and the the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) wants to be associated with this effort, Vitaliy Baylarbayov, Deputy Vice President for Investments and Marketing at SOCAR said in an interview to EurActiv.
"SOCAR has agreed with enthusiasm to be part of the main sponsors of the Baku 2015 European Games, which I should say are the first European games of their kind, for very many reasons," Baylarbayov said.
He stressed that one of the reasons is that SOCAR as a company pays a lot of attention to the health of its employees and consequently to sports as a means to having a healthy lifestyle.
"We have 60,000 employees and we are probably the largest company in Azerbaijan. And if we consider that a family in Azerbaijan has on average more than 3 members, most probably 4 or 5, it means that we directly promote sports to at least as many as 300,000 people," he said.
"We would like sports to be part of the lifestyle of all the citizens of Azerbaijan, of which an important part are our present or future employees," Baylarbayov added.
He said that by being a sponsor, SOCAR also aims at promoting the company as a vibrant and growing company.
Baylarbayov noted that Azerbaijan is known as a country of oil and gas, but this is far from being a true portrait.
"We have great people, beautiful nature, rich cultural traditions, excellent sporting achievements, with a highly developed culture which is European in its essence, also having Islamic characteristics and elements of Asia, of Oriental culture," he said. "And we are very proud of this blend of European, Asian, and Oriental culture(s). We are proud of being a very beautiful country, with beautiful people. We are proud of the beautiful buildings, and that we have very noticeable economic and industrial achievements."
Baku 2015 is the first-ever European Games, an exciting and innovative multi-sport event for the continent that will take place on June 12-28, 2015.
There will be a total of 20 sports at Baku 2015: 16 Olympic sports and four non-Olympic sports. More than 6,000 athletes from across Europe will be representing their nations over 17 days of competition.
Baku was awarded the games by the European Olympic Committees (EOC) in December 2012.