Press releases

MINSK, 18 November (BelTA) – Petrovich the Giant Crab from the Minsk oceanography center Open Ocean will be used as an animal oracle to predict the results of ice hockey matches during the 2014 IIHF World Championship in Minsk, BelTA learnt from Vladimir Nesterovich, Spokesman for the Ministry of Sport and Tourism of Belarus.

“The move will attract the public interest to the world championship, including from foreign guests,” Vladimir Nesterovich said.

According to director of the oceanography center Alexei Azarov, the crab, a successor of Paul the Octopus, who gained the world attention with his accurate predictions of the results of football matches, was brought to Minsk from the Barents Sea. “The crab was caught off the coast of Norway and brought to Murmansk by ship and then to Moscow by plane,” Alexei Azarov said. The Kamchatka crab was transported to Belarus in a special container filled with ice. The temperature of the water was held under 2°C.

The Kamchatka crab is the world’s biggest crustacean that lives in the northern regions of the Far East. This species has a leg span of up to 2 meters and can reach 7 kilos in weight. Petrovich the Giant Crab’s leg span is 95cm. The animal weighs 3.5kilos.

Petrovich now lives in a cold-water marine aquarium that has a form of an ice hockey pitch. The aquarium will be later placed in the Snowy Hall which is being designed for the championship. “The hall will be decorated with thematic exhibits telling about the history of the explorations in the Arctic regions and Antarctica, in particular about legendary North explorers of the Belarusian descent – Otto Schmidt, the Laptev brothers and others. We are preparing a special program for the guests of the 2014 IIHF World Championship in Minsk. Belarusian sculptors, ceramists and artists are working on the creation of souvenirs,” the director of the oceanography center added.

The Kamchatka crab will be the first resident of the cold-water marine aquarium in the oceanography center.

The Minsk oceanography center Open Ocean was opened in Minsk in 2009. It is home to more than 200 species, including a young shark that has been hatched in the center, a snapping turtle and two species of piranha.