Visit to Volgograd as part of FIFA’s media trip

Journalists from leading Russian and world media spent a day in Volgograd, being on a media trip organized by FIFA on the eve of the preliminary drawing procedure for the 2018 World Football Cup. On July 15, while on a tour around the Victory Arena under construction, they had an interview with Andrey Bocharov, Volgograd Region Governor, and Vasily Galushkin, Deputy Governor, and Sergey Kamin, Stroytransgaz’ Project Manager.

According to Sergey Kamin, construction and installation works at the stadium for the 2018 World Cup are 5% complete. Out of 16.2 bn rubles, which is the budget for the construction of the new stadium, 500 mln rubles has already been used, this sum also includes the design documentation. Installation of the base plate for the entire stadium is planned to be completed by the end of October and erection of reinforced concrete structures of the first floor in November — December. Thereafter, facade structural steel will be installed.

Completed is the construction of the site camp with an area of 4,000 sq.m which includes the necessary infrastructure such as the main office, mess hall, four modular check points, offices and site welfare facilities building, doghouse camp.

For the construction of the sports arena, around 450 people are currently used, with Stroytransgaz planning to raise this number up to 700 by August. City utilities are also still being relocated outside the boundaries of the future stadium, and activities for sewage header protection are still underway.

At the Victory Arena site the media delegation talked to Andrey Bocharov, Volgograd Region Governor.

He stressed that construction of the sports arena and preparation of other infrastructure facilities for 2018 World Cup were fully to schedule.

“We view the upcoming world championship not only as a core sporting event, but also as a possibility to fulfil quite challenging infrastructural tasks which will promote sustainable development of Volgograd and the entire region,” said Andrey Bocharov.

Vasily Galushkin, Volgograd Region Deputy Governor, said that after the world championship at the Victory Arena stadium the practice of operation of Amsterdam-Arena would be used, at that moment discussions were being held with Dutch and German managing companies for development of stadium usage plans.