RZD Arena: Locomotiv Moscow
Marina Lystseva [GFDL 1.2 or GFDL 1.2], via Wikimedia Commons
Lokomotiv Moscow are, as the name suggests, based in the Russian capital of Moscow. Founded as Moskovskaya-Kazanskaya Zh.D in 1922, the club brought the best players of the Moscow railway system together to make a strong team in 1924. That, unsurprisingly, is where the ‘Lokomotiv’ part of the club’s title comes from, which it took on in 1936. Lokomotiv have enjoyed an up and down history in terms of the club’s footballing success, winning the likes of the Russian top-flight and the Russian Cup a number of times over the years.
Lokomotiv Moscow have been based in the RZD Arena since it opened in 2002, when it was known as the Lokomotiv Stadium. It is built on the site of the Stalinist Stadium, which opened in 1935 and was nocked down in the 1960s to make way for the Lokomotiv Stadium. That opened in 1966 and was used until the end of the 1990s, at which point it was decided that the stadium should be demolished to make way for a more modern venue. That’s when the current ground was built and has been in use since.
Stats
| RZD Arena Stats | |
|---|---|
| Year Opened | 2002 |
| Capacity | 27084 |
| Average Attendance | 12508 |
| Record Attendance | 26109 (Lokomotiv Moscow v Zenit Saint Petersburg (05/05/2018)) |
| Pitch Size | 104 x 68 (7072) |
| Nickname | Lokomotiv Stadium |
| Former Name | Lokomotiv Stadium |
| Owner | Russian Railways |
| Sponsor | RZD |
| Clubs Hosted | FC Lokomotiv Moscow, Russian National Team |
| First Fixture | Lokomotiv Moscow v Uralan Elista (2002) |
| Lokomotiv Moscow Stats | |
|---|---|
| Year Founded | 1922 |
| Nickname | Loko, Parovozy (Steam Locomotives) |
| Rivals | Spartak Moscow, CSKA Moscow |
| Previous Stadiums | Stalinist Stadium, Lokomotiv Stadium |
| Kit | Green & Red (Home) / White (Away) / Black (Third) |
| Shirt Sponsor | Russian Railways |
| Team Owner | Russian Railways |
| Record Goalscorer | Dmitri Loskov (128) |
| Record Appearances | Dmitri Loskov (421) |
RZD Arena Photos
Валерий Дед [CC BY 3.0]
Валерий Дед [CC BY 3.0]
Chivista 12:47
RZD Arena Seating Plan and Where to Sit
The RZD Arena is built in a bowl style of continuous seating, though there are still four distinct sides to it. The South Stand and North Stand are located behind the goals, whilst the East and West Stands run along the side of the pitch. The West Stand is considered to be the ‘main’ stand in the stadium and contains the VIP seating area.
Lokomotiv Moscow Ticket Prices
Tickets are typically broken down into two price categories depending on the level of opposition. The cheapest tickets start at around 250 rubles, with the more expensive matches seeing ticket prices rise as high as 1,200 rubles.
How To Get Lokomotiv Moscow Tickets
As with most modern clubs, the best place to start is by looking online and at the club’s official website. That being said, games rarely, if ever, sell out, so you’ll almost certainly be able to buy tickets at the ground on the day of the match.
Where to Buy
Getting To RZD Arena
Train – Obviously travelling to Russia itself via train from the UK is an arduous task, so you’re much better off getting there by other means and then making your way to the stadium once you’re in Moscow. Unsurprisingly, a club named in honour of railway workers has decent links for train, with Cherkizovskaya being the closest station. It’s on the red metro line and is about 20 minutes from central Moscow stations.
Bus – Plenty of busses stop close to the ground, with bus numbers 449, 469 and 469k being examples.
Car – The stadium is located on the Bolshaya Cherkizovskaya, which is between the MKAD ring road and the third ring road of Moscow.
By Air – There are a number of airports that serve Moscow, with Sheremetyevo – A.S. Pushkin International Airport being the one that you’ll almost certainly be heading to for RZD Arena.
Taxi – If you were to get a taxi from Red Square out to the stadium it would cost you in the region of 285.00 руб and take around 40 minutes to complete its journey.
Parking Near RZD Arena
There is not much parking around the stadium but you can buy parking passes for the spaces available at the stadium itself. There aren’t loads of them though so get in quick.
Useful Resources
RZD Arena Hotels
Do they have hotels in Russia? Da!
Vega Izmailovo Hotel - £40+
Holiday Inn Moscow Sokolniki - £50+
Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya - £70+
Pubs and Bars Near RZD Arena
Do they also have pubs in Russia? Da!
Bobby Dazzler
Hooters
Sports-bar Doping
Facilities
Being a relatively new stadium, the RZD Arena’s facilities are impressive. Perhaps not as exciting as the sort of thing you might expect to see at a modern Premier League ground, but decent by Russian standards. Certainly not Eastern Bloc.
Hospitality
As mentioned, the West Stand is where the VIP sections are, with three different levels on offer to those of you that would like to watch the match in style. The food they lay on looks incredible to fair.
Private Hire
As with the vast majority of modern stadia, the RZD Arena makes money when there aren’t any football matches on by hiring out sections of the stadium to businesses and people who might want to use the facilities.
Stadium Tours & Museum
Tours of the RZD Arena take in the likes of the dressing rooms, the player’s tunnel, the President’s office and the pitch. You can also tour the museum as part of the tour, or you can have a look around that without doing a tour. They normally run on Saturdays and Sundays and if there’s a match on then the tour will take place 3 hours before kick-off.
About Lokomotiv Moscow
FC Lokomotiv Moskva, better known as Lokomotiv Moscow to English speakers, was created in 1922 and during the Communist era was part of the Lokomotiv Voluntary Sports Society. It was owned by the Soviet Ministry for Transport and operated through the Russian Railways. When the first two seasonal championships were played in spring and autumn of 1936 the club finished 5th and then 4th, but won the Soviet Cup in its inaugural year. In the years that followed, the club won the national championship on a fairly consistent basis, with performances only really starting to suffer in the post-war years. That included a relation to the Soviet First League on two occasions.
Perhaps one of the most important things for Lokomotiv Moscow, if not Russian football in general, was the decision in the 1950s to make the club something of an ambassador for the sport. It wasn’t all that common for Russian teams to play teams from foreign countries, but Lokomotiv often took part in friendly matches outside of Russia. When the Soviet Union fell Lokomotiv Moscow was considered to be one of the weaker clubs based in the nation’s capital. Eventually, though, the club began to fight back and some memorable European Cup campaigns allowed them to gain the reputation as being a tricky club to play that maintains today.
RZD Arena History
The history of the RZD Arena as it currently is is lacking in any real depth for the simple reason that it was only opened in 2002 and is therefore relatively new comparatively. Indeed it was one of the news stadia in Russia prior to the development of a host of new grounds prior to Russia’s hosting of the World Cup in 2018. The history of the site that the ground is built on is far more entertaining, though, thanks to the fact that more than one stadium has existed on it before now. The first was the Stalinist Stadium, which was built in 1935 by workers of the electric union, who decided to build a ground that was capable of holding around 30,000 people.
The Stalinist Stadium was used for a number of important matches, quickly becoming established as one of the key football grounds in the capital. It was at that point that it was decided that a more modern stadium should be built on the same location, with the first Lokomotiv Stadium opening its doors on the 17th of August in 1966. In the mid-1990s the stadium’s capacity ended up being reduced from 30,000 to 24,000 when the wooden benches that had been in use previously were replaced by plastic seating. It was decided that the stadium needed modernising, so it was once again knocked down and re-built with the backing of the Russian Transport Ministry, creating the ground that you’re able to visit today.
Future Developments
At the time of writing there are no planned changes to be made to RZD Arena. It’s likely that this is because of its relative youth and the fact that newer, more exciting stadiums exist in Russia since the nation hosted the 2018 FIFA World Cup. It’s therefore probable that the Lokomotiv Moscow board has decided that trying to compete with those stadia is impossible without major investment.