The Grand Sports Arena of the Luzhniki Olympic Complex
(??????? ?????????? ????? ???????????? ????????? ???????
) in Moscow, or briefly Luzhniki Stadium
(??????? "???????"
), is the biggest sports stadium in Russia. Its total seating capacity is 78,360 [1] seats, all covered. The stadium is a part of the Luzhniki Olympic Complex, previously called the Central Lenin Stadium (??????????? ??????? ????? ?. ?. ??????
). The name Luzhniki
derives from the swampy neighborhood where it was built, translating roughly as "puddles."
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LUZHNIKI STADIUM TICKETS
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Stadium history
left
Its field is used mainly for
football games by
Torpedo Moscow club, which is owned by the sports complex itself, and
Spartak Moscow. It is also one of the few major European stadia to use an artificial pitch, as it installed a FIFA-approved
FieldTurf pitch in 2002. The pitch is necessary for the cold Russian climate, as regular grass pitches are often destroyed during a typical winter and must be replaced at high cost. However, a temporary natural grass pitch was installed for the 2008 Champions League Final .
The
Grand Arena of the Central Lenin Stadium
was the chief venue for the
1980 Summer Olympics, the spectator capacity being 103,000 at that time. The events hosted in this stadium were the Opening and Closing ceremonies,
Athletics,
Football finals, and the
Individual Jumping Grand Prix.
The Luzhniki Stadium also hosted the final game of the 1957
Ice Hockey World Championship between
Sweden and the
Soviet Union, attended by a crowd of 55,000 and setting a new world record at that time.
On October 20, 1982,
disaster struck during the
UEFA Cup match between FC Spartak Moscow and
HFC Haarlem. Scores of people were trampled. The official number of deaths is 66 but many people believe this number to be significantly higher.
In 1989, the Lenin Stadium was the location for the Moscow Peace Festival. The
Moscow Music Peace Festival was an effort by the Make A Difference Foundation and rock producers and organizers in the US and USSR. It was held over two days, and was essentially the first festival of its kind, that is, that openly was presenting Western heavy metal acts with an emphasis on international cooperation on preventing drug abuse. The festival featured artists such as
Bon Jovi,
Scorpions,
Ozzy Osbourne,
Skid Row,
Mötley Crüe,
Cinderella and
Gorky Park.
In 1998 - First
World Youth Games.
The Luzhniki Stadium was chosen by
UEFA to host the
2008 UEFA Champions League Final won by
Manchester United who beat
Chelsea in the first all English Champions League Final on
May 21. Prior to the match some skeptics questioned the state of the
pitch and also the ability of Russian authorities to keep order amongst the traveling British fans, however the match passed incident free and a British Embassy in Moscow spokesman said, "The security and logistical arrangements put in place by the Russian authorities have been first-rate, as has been their cooperation with their visiting counterparts from the UK."
[2]
The stadium also makes an appearance in the Russian film
Night Watch
(
Russian:
?????? ?????, Nochnoy Dozor
), during the power shut-down scene when the power station goes into overload. The stadium is seen with a match taking place, and then the lights go out.
Corruption allegations
The seats for the stadium were provided in 1999 by
Inteco, a company run by
Yelena Baturina, now Russia's richest woman. Her husband is
Yuriy Luzhkov, mayor of Moscow, and many see the awarding of the contract to have been a conflict of interest.
[3]
References
- Grand Sports Arena
- Moscow proud of trouble-free Champions League final
- Russian Roulette: Western Companies Fight for Press Freedom in Moscow - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News