Ekaterinburg Arena: FC Ural
By Владими Задумин (Ekamag) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
The history of Ekaterinburg Arena is a genuinely fascinating one. There has been a sports stadium based on the land where the arena stands since the early 1900s, with the purpose of the various stadiums changing with the popularity of any given sport in Russia at the time. In 1900, for example, a velodrome was built there. It was replaced by an all-purpose regional stadium in 1928 and what was known as the Metallurg of the East in 1936. It became a football ground in 1957 but even that has undergone numerous changes over the years.
As for the club that plays its football there, FC Ural Yekaterinburg came into existence in 1930. They are not one of Russia’s more popular clubs nor one of the more successful ones, in spite of the fact that the city of Yekaterinburg is the fourth largest city in the entire country. Only Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Novosibirsk can beat the city’s population of a little under one and a half million. As is often the case with Russian stadiums, there is surprisingly scant information available about either the team or the stadium, so here is what we do know.
Stats
| Ekaterinburg Arena Stats | |
|---|---|
| Year Opened | 1957 |
| Capacity | 35061 |
| Average Attendance | 4617 |
| Record Attendance | 27000 (FC Ural v FC Khimki (2011)) |
| Pitch Size | 105 x 68 (7140) |
| Former Name | Central Stadium (Yekaterinburg) |
| Owner | FC Ural Sverdlovsk Oblast |
| Clubs Hosted | FC Ural Yekaterinburg |
| First Fixture | FC Ural v FC Khimki (2011) |
| FC Ural Stats | |
|---|---|
| Year Founded | 1930 |
| Nickname | Uraltsy (Ural men), Bumblebees, Orange and Black |
| Club Mascot | Bumblebee |
| Rivals | Lokomotiv Moscow |
| Kit | Orange & Black (Home) / Black (Away) / White (Third) |
| Training Ground | SKB-Bank Arena |
| Shirt Sponsor | TMK |
| Team Owner | Sverdlovsk Oblast |
Ekaterinburg Arena Photos
By Владислав Фальшивомонетчик (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0]
By Элла-Алисаа (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0]
By Фальшивомонетчик (Own work) [CC BY 4.0]
Ekaterinburg Arena Seating Plan and Where to Sit
The stadium is built in the image of a bowl style arena, but in actual fact there are still four distinct stands, creating a bit of an odd result complete with very orange seats. The West stand has been allocated to “active support of Ural”, so probably don’t sit there wearing away colours, while the much safer family area is in the South stand along with some VIP areas. There are hospitality seats in the North stand too though.
FC Ural Ticket Prices
FC Ural tend to charge somewhere between 100 Rubles and 500 Rubles, depending on where you’re hoping to sit and who it is that the team is playing against.
How To Get FC Ural Tickets
There is an official website from which you can purchase tickets, but you will need to register and log in to do so. Instead you might want to call the ticket office on the phone or else drop in in person if you happen to be in the area.
Where to Buy
Getting To Ekaterinburg Arena
Train – It would take you over three days to get the train from London to Ekaterinburg, so you’ll probably want to give that a miss. Once your in the city, however, there is an excellent tram system in place. There are tram stops within walking distance of the stadium where tram numbers 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 10, 13, 18, 21, 23 and 26 all stop.
Bus – The most reliable way to get around the city is via bus, with the likes of bus numbers 2, 3, 7, 17, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 48. 61 and 64 calling close enough to the arena to mean you can walk there easily enough.
Car – The E22 circles the city and the stadium sits pretty much in between ul. Moskovskaya and ul. Tokarey.
By Air – Ten miles South-East of the city centre is Koltsovo International Airport, which is where you’ll fly into pretty much wherever you’re coming from.
Taxi – If you got a taxi from the Church on Blood in Honour of All Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land, which is close to the centre of the city, out to the stadium it would cost you about 300 Rubles and take around ten minutes to complete its journey.
Parking Near Ekaterinburg Arena
There is a parking area close to the ground with room for over 3000 cars.
Useful Resources
Ekaterinburg Arena Hotels
This is the city where the last Russian royal family was murdered, so it attracts a lot of tourism. Fans of history we would imagine, rather than fans of murder. Anyway, the point being made is that there are plenty of hotels.
Art Hotel Leto - £40+
Moskovskaya Gorka Hotel - £70+
Eurohotel Central - £85+
Pubs and Bars Near Ekaterinburg Arena
It would be mad for a city with 1.5 million people in it to be lacking in pubs, and Yekaterinburg does indeed have plenty of them. Where else would they plan the royal executions?
Rosy Jane Pub
Ben Hall Pub & Club & Restaurant
Doctor Scotch Pub
Facilities
There are no awkward angles or anything in terms of visibility, and since the stadium was redeveloped so recently you can expect it to have everything the modern football fan would need while there for the game.
Hospitality
FIFA has very specific rules about the stadiums it allows to host major tournaments, with one of them being that there has to be a decent hospitality area. Sufficed to say, then, that you can expect lounges, boxes and other places for the fat cats of football’s premier organisation to get themselves fed and watered.
Private Hire
There is, apparently, a plan to make the stadium sustainable in the long-term. Part of that will almost certainly include the ability to hire out sections of the ground for private use in order to reclaim some of the money spent on it.
Stadium Tours & Museum
If tours are available then they are kept very quiet, because we couldn’t find information about them anywhere. Neither does there seem to be a museum.
About FC Ural
Despite being formed in 1930, there isn’t really a lot we can tell you about FC Ural. The club is based in the part of Russia that sits on the border of Europe and Asia. Consequently the club is a mixture of cultures and always has been. The club reached the final of the Russian Cup in 2017, doing so for the first time in their history. They lost 2-0 to Lokomotiv Moscow, but the achievement of even reaching the final in the first place was something nobody expected from them. They repeated this feat in 2019 too.
Ekaterinburg Arena History
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If there’s not much we can tell you about the club then the opposite is true of the stadium. If anything, there’s too much to say. It opened as a football ground in 1957 when it was known as Central Stadium. It became a public company in 2004 and two years later a decision was made to renovate it as it had fallen into a state of disrepair. As is so often the case with football grounds in Russia, the renovations were nowhere near as straightforward as they were supposed to be. Believe it or not, fire delayed the construction on five separate occasions.
When it re-opened there were 27,000 seats located in new stands and some were covered by a partial roof. The new pitch was also made to standards suitable for international football, all of which meant that it was selected as one of the host stadiums for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The problem was that it still didn’t actually meet the requirements laid out by FIFA. Rather than a gentle reconstruction, the stadium needed to be completely knocked down and re-built in order to be used to host World Cup matches. Having spent close to £80 million refurbishing it, another £350 million plus was spent getting it ready for the tournament.
Future Developments
The stadium isn’t due for any more work now since it has been so recently redeveloped. There may be minor changes from one year to the next, but nothing noteworthy, so we won’t be noting it.