IT Steppe Festival in Orenburg
Orenburg's own answer to esports culture arrived only recently: IT Steppe, a fast-growing festival of digital sports combining esports, laser tag, drone racing and hybrid physical-digital contests known as fidgital sport. Organized jointly by the region's Ministry of Physical Culture and Sports and Ministry of Digital Development, its debut drew more than five thousand visitors and some fifteen hundred competing athletes, and it has continued as an annual spring fixture.
Orenburg sits at the edge of the Russian steppe, a region better known for gas fields and wide-open grassland than for gaming culture.