The city of Baku is experiencing rapid growth owing to increased oil investments and numerous international projects. Sport is among the city's priority and hosting the first ever European games, scheduled to run from June 12-28 next year, is top of the agenda.
Simon Clegg, chief operating officer of the European Games 2015 said: ''It does not matter how much oil is in the Caspian, the one commodity you can not buy is time. We are on a time critical path here. The opening ceremony has to be delivered on 12th of June. There is no scope for delay.''
The former chief executive of the British Olympic Association, who is now responsible for the preparation of the 2015 European Games in the Azerbaijan capital, added he has no reasons to be worried about the readiness of the event.
Of the 18 venues that will host the competition, the majority are ready.
Concerning the rest, the venues are reportedly on track to be completed in time such as the main arena.
Euronews reporter Denys Kulyk said: ''The National Stadium is a symbol of the European Games, it will host the opening and closing ceremonies and will be a stunning example of this competition's legacy. After the Games it will become the home ground for Azerbaijan's national football team and will host four matches at Euro 2020.''
The price tag of the National stadium, which will have a capacity of 68 000 people, is more than 500 million euros. It should be completed by February 2015.
Javid Najafov, is the project's senior engineer and said: ''This is the biggest construction in Azerbaijan and has been transformed in a very short period of time. Everything you see around here has been built in just two years. Just two years ago it was a swamp and had some ponds over here.
It seems even the traffic jams in Baku won't hamper the smooth-running of the Games. Like at the London Olympics, during the event there will be special traffic lanes reserved strictly for participants and officials of the Games.
Panos Protopsaltis, Baku 2015 Director of Transport said: ''What we are doing for the duration of the Games time is trying to avoid all of that (traffic) - going around the city rather than through the city. So the plan that you see here there in blue is the Games route network. In other words it's the routes that we will use for our Games operations.
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