Luzhniki Stadium

Luzhniki is an Olympic sports complex in Moscow, on the left bank of the Moskva River opposite Vorobyovy Gory (Sparrow Hills). Its centrepiece is the Bolshaya Sportivnaya Arena, the country's largest stadium, surrounded by several other sports facilities built for the 1980 Olympics. Until 1992 the complex was called the Central Lenin Stadium; the name Luzhniki comes from the old Malye Luzhniki settlement by the river bend, known since the 17th century.

History

The decision to build a stadium close to the city centre was made in December 1954. Design work started in January 1955, and on 31 July 1956 — just 450 days later — the Central Lenin Stadium opened with a parade of athletes and a friendly football match between the RSFSR and China. A week later the complex hosted the opening of the first Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, and in 1957 the open-air arena held a Ice Hockey World Championship match between the USSR and Sweden in front of 50,000 spectators.

The main event was the 1980 Olympics: the opening ceremony on 19 July brought together representatives of fifteen Soviet republics, pole vaulter Viktor Saneev carried the torch into the stadium, and gymnast Nikolai Andrianov took the athletes' oath. The universal sports hall Druzhba was built and the Small Sports Arena rebuilt for the Games.

On 20 October 1982, a crowd crush broke out on the terraces during a UEFA Cup match between Spartak Moscow and the Dutch club Haarlem; according to official figures, 66 people died — one of the worst tragedies in Soviet sports history. A memorial was installed near stand V ten years later.

In 1989 the stadium hosted the Moscow Music Peace Festival, with Bon Jovi, Scorpions and Ozzy Osbourne among the performers, and on 24 June 1990 Viktor Tsoi gave his last big stadium concert here before his death in a car crash. That same autumn, Diego Maradona played on the Luzhniki pitch.

After the Soviet collapse, a huge open-air market known to Muscovites as "Luzha" occupied the grounds for several years, following President Boris Yeltsin's decree legalising street trade; it lasted into the early 2010s. The Bolshaya Arena underwent a major reconstruction in 1996–1997, and in 1998 UEFA added it to its list of five-star European stadiums — still the only one in Russia. The complex hosted the World Athletics Championships in 2013, and the stadium was rebuilt again for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, keeping only its historic facade; capacity grew, and the stadium hosted the World Cup final in 2018.

The complex

Besides the Bolshaya Sportivnaya Arena, the grounds hold the Small Sports Arena (8,512 seats, built to resemble an ancient temple), the Palace of Sports with room for more than 11,000 spectators, a swimming pool building and the Druzhba universal sports hall, whose walls are made of concrete "petals" that look like an upturned flower from a distance. In Soviet times the Palace of Sports hosted ice hockey, figure skating, gymnastics and wrestling, while the Small Arena was for years the home rink of the Dynamo and Spartak hockey clubs.

Monuments

A monument to Lenin stands in front of the Bolshaya Arena's main entrance. Between the stadium and the South Sports Core, a few hundred metres from the Vorobyovy Gory metro station, stands the Monument to Mountaineers by honoured master of sports Evgeny Abalakov — a bronze sculptural group on a granite pedestal, unveiled in 1980. Near stand V stands a memorial to those who died in the 1982 crowd crush, erected in 1992 with funds raised by Spartak fans.

Getting there

The complex is served by the Vorobyovy Gory metro station, which sits right on the metro bridge over the Moskva River; a cable car runs from there up to the viewing platform on Vorobyovy Gory. The nearby Sportivnaya station is also close, and the area is the terminus for several trolleybus routes. A landscaped 3.5-kilometre embankment, the Luzhnetskaya Naberezhnaya, runs alongside the stadium.