On Thursday, the FIFA World Cup started in Russia. The Opening Match of the international sports event took place in Moscow and resulted in victory of the Russian national team over Saudi Arabia.

"The first game of the [Russian] national team and Saudi Arabia was watched by 55 respondents," the materials of the survey obtained by Sputnik said.

According to the poll, the Thursday victory has increased interest of the Russians to the sports contest from 52 percent of people, who have expressed desire to watch the games held within the framework of the FIFA World Cup, up to 74 percent.

The first FIFA World Cup in the Russian history will continue until July 15. The cities of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Sochi, Yekaterinburg, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Volgograd, and Samara host the matches of the contest.

The poll was conducted among 1,000 adult respondents on Saturday and has a margin of error of +/-3.2 percentage points.