January 22 – Russian stadium preparations for the 2018 World Cup are progressing with the design for the 45,000-seat stadium in Nizhny Novgorod said to be almost complete. So far only two of Russia’s venues for 2018 are ready, though neither have yet staged an official football match.
Work is set to begin on the arena in Nizhny Novgorod this year with an estimated cost between 12-14 billion rubles ($360-$420 million).
“A construction company will enter the construction site by the end of the year,” the chief of Nizhny Novgorod’s town planning department Alexander Bodrievsky said.
FC Volga Nizhny Novgorod will inherit the stadium as their home when it is built, creating plenty of extra seating room for their fans as they depart from Lokomotiv Central Stadium, which could only accommodate, in comparison, a modest 17,856 people.
Built at the confluence of the Oka and Volga rivers in Russia’s third largest city after Moscow and St. Petersburg, the new stadium will be round in shape and open-air. The stands will be equipped with a heating system never before used in Russia.
The Gas-infrared heaters will be capable of raising the temperature in the area of the seats 10-15 degrees higher than the atmospheric temperature, which should come in handy for warm-weather fans when the climate is being less agreeable.
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