Vitaly Mutko Remained Satisfied with the Nizhny Novgorod Stadium Construction Progress

On January 25 the Nizhny Novgorod Stadium construction site was visited by the inspection committee led by Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Vitaly Mutko. Also participating in the working visit were the CEO of the Russia 2018 Organizing Committee Aleksey Sorokin; the Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Valeriy Shantsev; the General Director of JSC “STG” Mikhail Khryapov; the Director of the Civil Engineering Division Valeriy Nelyubov and others.

Vitaly Mutko remained satisfied with the stadium construction progress. “It’s a very sophisticated engineering project, so it’s necessary to keep always abreast”, he noted. The Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that in the next year spring the arena must be tested, “We need to have the stadium “test-driven” by football fans in April-May 2018. We can arrange for a match with the local club, or organize some amateur competitions”.

Mikhail Khryapov reported to the committee on the arena construction progress, and confirmed that construction and installation works at the facility would be finished by December 2017 or earlier. “In three days we are starting to dismantle auxiliary metal structures at the site. After that we’ll clear the field and get to finishing the first tier stands. Before the end of May we plan to finish all activities of the field setup preparatory stage to get to the pitch grass planting and installation of utility and aeration systems in the summer”, said the STG Head. Mikhail Khryapov thanked the Regional Government for support when connecting the facility to the utility services. “It is a complicated work, but the Government has joined in and now we got it 95% ready”, he said.

At the moment the main efforts are aimed at installation of the stadium roof frame. Earlier the STG professionals finished installation of the roof metal work over the stands by setting all 44 metal elements connecting the inner supporting ring with the circular support pillars in the final position. Installation of the roof frame above the lobby zone is in progress. After that they will commence the final stage, i.e. set-up of the translucent polycarbonate roofing. The total weight of the ready frame (without regard to the roofing) will exceed 10,000 tons; as of today over 7,200 tons (69%) have been installed.

Construction works are performed day-and-night. Over 1100 workers are involved in the stadium construction.