Personally, if 20-25 people show up and we have to chip in for the conference room (17,500 per day), which would be 5,000-6,000 rubles each, plus some amount for internet per day, then I'd rather play my games on my laptop at a cafe or in my room. 17,500 is too much!

And now the real fun begins for the organizer. How to ensure a quorum is reached. How to minimize the costs for participants. How to pay the deposit for the venue and not lose it... 17,500 per day for the hall is not that expensive; in previous years, it was even more. It's just that the "free" option in Toliman has disappeared, and now you have to adjust to that. But why not consider the average prices for halls at other venues?

Added 6 minutes later

No, maybe I'm just stupid and don't understand something, but what's wrong with many people from the city coming to the CIS championship in the city, and it being convenient for them?

Nothing is wrong. New faces are always great. But when half of the voters live in Yekaterinburg and its surroundings, and this becomes the determining factor and the only reason why the CIS championship is held in Yekaterinburg, that's bad and unfair to the pool of participants and guests. Because it undermines the very basis of the voting.
Why not pay attention to the fact that players from Ukraine and Belarus voted for Volgograd? And where is Peterius, for that matter?

Added 12 minutes later

The same thing happened with the points system - the bureaucrats claim that there was no alternative system, but when and with what quorum was the current system voted on?

It's funny. The voting system was announced before the voting itself. You and any dissatisfied people had the opportunity to intervene. For example, with a post like this: "I disagree with Merlin's points system because of this and that. I propose this and that." Mee wrote about some kind of cartel agreement between competing organizers when the trend towards Volgograd's victory became clear with the current points system. But no. Everyone voted. They waited for the results. According to these results, Volgograd's victory is obvious based on a number of criteria. If Dirty, Bayazet, and a number of other regular voters who didn't vote now write that they didn't vote because they believe that the current voting system is not suitable, does not reflect an objective picture of the audience's preferences, and propose something of their own, that would be constructive. But as it is, there will always be dissatisfied people.