Russia threw the doors open to would-be volunteers for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics on Tuesday, two years before the start of the games.

An army of 28,000 volunteers will help visitors to the games and organize the closing ceremony, making up 30 percent of the total workforce at the Olympics and Paralympics.

“On this wonderful day we are launching a massive recruitment drive for the Olympic Games across the whole country, from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok,” Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Kozak said at the launch event in Sochi.

“The Olympics have given an impulse for the development of a volunteering movement, a movement of people with burning good hearts who are ready to help others on a voluntary basis.

On behalf of the government I want to pledge that we have done a lot and are still doing a lot to support this movement.”

The volunteers will come from across Russia, including 10,000 from Sochi, the organizers said. Universities in the remote Siberian cities of Omsk and Tomsk have said they will train 1,500 volunteers.

Test events for the games will be used to give volunteers practice of working at the venues. A select group of early applicants worked on the Alpine Skiing European Cup in February in a trial scheme.

The last Winter Olympics in Vancouver in 2010 employed a force of more than 18,500 volunteers from Canada and 50 other countries.