On March 11, 2018







STOP FIFA FAN FEST NEAR MOSCOW UNIVERSITY CAMPUS
The Moscow fan zone of 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia should not be located near the Moscow State University. Help us to relocate it away to preserve historic University area and stillness of thousands of campus inhabitants!
On March 11, 2018






Rector Victor Sadovnichiy cancelled the meeting his rectorate had scheduled for him with IGMSU delegates after the Occupy Rectorate regarding the relocation of the FIFA World Cup Fan Festival during the #nofanfestmsu campaign.
As we expected, the rectorate informed us that Victor Sadovnichiy had received an invitation to Putin’s address on the 1st of March only the day before the event, thus Rector had to cancel the meeting at the last minute.
(We in IGMSU do not believe the Rector was not aware that he would be on the guest list for the event and we think that was just an excuse to avoid meeting the students)
Also, assistant to rector Vyacheslav Goryachko informed us that the rector was not pleased with the fact that there were one alumnus and one employee in the IGMSU delegate list.
Instead of the meeting scheduled with the rector, many of the delegates were invited to talk to Faculties’ Administrations. Delegates were given talks about foreign affairs, “loyalty” to the university, the immaturity of the protesters and were asked to wrap up the protest. These discussions could include anything but the main issue.
Some of the prorectors also tried to manipulate one of the delegates into taking this report (see below) as an official closing response to the story. (The report by vice-rector Victor Vaypan does not include anything relevant: the same old false story about including student organisations into process of making decisions and acting in the interest of campus inhabitants)
Our final goal is the Fan Fest relocation and we are not planning to stop halfway.


In upcoming days we are to start a petition for students and employees of MSU regarding FIFA World Cup 2018 fan zone at the University campus. Here are our demands for the rector:

UPD (28.02.2018):

We collected 4686 signatures of students and employees of MSU and today delivered them to the President Administration. (A copy of our statements was also delivered to the Moscow Municipality)



First success: We achieved that the terms of a semester and exam session, educational practices and thesis defences will remain unchanged. We also prevented student eviction from dormitories during the summer break because of the FIFA World Cup 2018.
1. WE COLLECTED 4224 “LIVE” PETITION SIGNS of MSU students and professors for rector Viktor Sadovnichiy on 21.02.2018. In the petition, we publicly demanded Fifa World Cup Fan Zone to be relocated away from the campus of MSU. We registered our petition in chancellery, thus rectorate is to give an official reply in 30 days.

2. RECTORATE BARRICADED ITSELF FROM THE STUDENTS: since morning elevators to the 9th floor were closed (where the rector’s cabinet is), security guards and police were blocking the stairs as well; at the same time account of MSU on social network VK claimed this action ‘an attempt to disorganise university rectorate’ and asked everyone not to come. All day rector was running away from the MSU staff: at first he signed an executive order to save traditional exam session terms (and also asked the head of Dormitories’ Department to sign an order not to evict students as if it was the main problem and not the fan zone for 25 000 football fans 300 metres next to the Main Building of MSU). He was giving a speech at the concert and then moved to another campus building to avoid talking to students and employees. University and faculties’ administrations as well as student organisations threatened protesters and pushed them to leave.


3. THE FAN ZONE ISSUE IS NOW WELL-KNOWN TO THE ENTIRE COUNTRY: both independent and state media reported on this protest against the catastrophic decision to build fan-are near the MSU campus. We believe it’s a good starting point to get global attention to the problem and eventually solving it.

We will relocate the fan zone!

In upcoming days we are to start a petition for students and employees of MSU regarding FIFA World Cup 2018 fan zone at the University campus. Here are our demands for the rector:

UPD (28.02.2018):

We collected 4686 signatures of students and employees of MSU and today delivered them to the President Administration. (A copy of our statements was also delivered to the Moscow Municipality)