Abkhazian official fired for not agreeing to privatization of Escher sports stadium
Escher sports stadium
The head of the State Committee for Sports of Abkhazia, Jemal Gubaz, refused to sign a document on putting the famous Escher Olympic sports stadium up for sale. According to several Telegram channels, the leadership of Abkhazia has for some time been trying to persuade Jemal Gubaz (including via the involvement of the State Security Service) to agree to the privatization of the largest sports facility of the former Soviet Union, where the USSR national teams were trained for the Olympic Games and various international tournaments.
It proved impossible to persuade the official, however, so President Aslan Bzhaniya dismissed Jemal Gubaz by a separate decree.
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The territory of the former Olympic sports base “Escher” is of great interest to investors, primarily due to the vast territory of 64 hectares on the Sukhum coastline.
In the Soviet era, 3,000 athletes could train at he stadium at the same time. There were five football fields, volleyball and basketball courts, a gymnasium, badminton, handball and tennis courts, several swimming pools, a cycle track, a shooting range and even a minigolf course.
At Escher, almost the entire range of Soviet athletes would prepare for various tournaments, including such celebrities as Valery Kharlamov, Oleg Blokhin, Sergey Bubka, Viktor Saneev, Lyudmila Turishcheva, Alexander Dityatin and others.
After the collapse of the USSR, the stadium became the property of Abkhazia.
During the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-93, the front line passed through the territory of the stadium, and since then the sports complex has been in a ruined state.
Escher sports stadium
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