Otkritie Arena: Spartak Moscow

Prior to the opening of the Otkritie Arena, Spartak Moscow had never owned their own stadium. Instead they had played at numerous grounds around the city, even going so far as to play a match in Red Square once. The broke ground on the site for the Otkritie Arena in 2007, yet numerous delays meant that construction didn’t actually begin until 2010. Interestingly, one of the reasons for a delay was that the stadium’s original design was deemed to be too boring and ordinary.

As for Spartak themselves, not owning their own home didn’t stop them from winning things. In fact, Spartak Moscow is the most successful football club in Russia. They’ve won twelve Soviet championships, ten Russian championships, the same number of Soviet Cups and three Russian Cups. Though they’ve never won a European trophy of any worth, they have made it the semi-final of all three major European competitions. It’s worth noting that their ten Russian Championships is a record number.

Stats

Otkritie Arena Stats
Year Opened	2014
Capacity	45360
Average Attendance	30077
Record Attendance	44884 (Spartak v CSKA (2016))
Pitch Size	105 x 68 (7140)
Former Name	Spartak Stadium
Owner	FC Spartak Moscow
Sponsor	Otkritie Bank
Clubs Hosted	FC Spartak Moscow, Russia national football team
First Fixture	Spartak Moscow v Red Star Belgrade (05/09/2014)

Spartak Moscow Stats
Year Founded	1922
Nickname	Narodnaya komanda (The People's Team), Krasno-Belye (The Red-Whites), Myaso (Meat)
Club Mascot	Gladiator
Rivals	CSKA Moscow, Dynamo Moscow, Lokomotiv Moscow, Zenit Saint Petersburg
Previous Stadiums	Various around Moscow
Kit	Red & White (Home) / Black & Red (Away)
Training Ground	Tarasovka Training Ground
Shirt Sponsor	Lukoil
Team Owner	Leonid Fedun
Record Goalscorer	Nikita Simonyan (160)
Record Appearances	Yegor Titov (445)

Otkritie Arena Photos

Otkritie Arena Seating Plan and Where to Sit

The Otkritie Arena is designed in a bowl style of continuous seating, with two tiers around three-quarters of it. The other quarter has hospitality boxes along virtually the entire second-tier.

Spartak Moscow Ticket Prices

The amount you’ll pay for a ticket to see Spartak Moscow play varies depending on the team they’re hosting and where in the ground you’d like to sit. Generally speaking you can expect to pay anywhere between 700 rubles and 2,200 rubles.

How To Get Spartak Moscow Tickets

You can speak to the club directly if your Russian is good, or you can call into the ticket office in person. Normally, though, you’ll be best looking on the club’s website for tickets.

Where to Buy

• Ticket Compare

Getting To Otkritie Arena

Train – It would take you more than two days to get to Moscow from London by train, so you might prefer to make alternative travel arrangements. Do that and you’ll then be able to get Subway Service 7 to a station right outside the football ground. There’s also a normal station named Tushino not far away, where commuter trains tend to stop.

Bus – If buses are more your thing then keep your eyes peeled for either the number 70 or the 248. You can also get a tram, with numbers 7, 15, 28, 30 and 31 all stopping within walking distance.

Car – If you want to drive then your best off getting a sat-nav and inputting the address, such is the complication of driving in Russia.

By Air – There are actually three different international airports that serve the city of Moscow: Sheremetyevo is eighteen miles to the North-West, Domodedovo twenty-six miles to the South and Domodedovo seventeen miles to the South-West.

Taxi – A taxi from the Bolshoi Theatre near to the centre of Moscow out to the Otkrytiye Arena will cost you in the region of 750 Rubles and will take about half an hour to get you there.

Parking Near Otkritie Arena

There are a couple of small car parks close to the stadium, as well as on-street parking not far away.

• See Available Parking Near Otkritie Arena

Useful Resources

• Flights & Travel - Expedia
• Coach Travel - Eurolines
• Parking - Just Park

Otkritie Arena Hotels

Pubs and Bars Near Otkritie Arena

Hospitality

You can see a large bank of a hospitality area along the top-tier of one of the stands that runs alongside the pitch.

Private Hire

Such is the quality of the hospitality area of the Otkritie Arena that it would be silly for Spartak not to hire it out that those that wish to use it for the likes of meetings, parties and more.

Stadium Tours & Museum

You can do a tour of the stadium, which includes a visit to Hall of Fame, at 11.30am, 12.30pm, 3.30pm and 4.30pm. There are no tours on match days. Your tour will last for about forty-five minutes and will take in the Western tribune, the home changing room, the players’s tunnel and other such locations.

Tours cost 700 rubles for adults, 350 rubles for kids aged 7 to 16 and for anyone with a pensioner’s card. Children under 6 as well as veterans of the Great Patriotic War and former Spartak players can do the tour for free. If there are five or more of you then you’ll be able to do a private tour if you contact the club.

About Spartak Moscow

When Russian football first started out, teams tended to be patronised by specific agencies. CSKA was an army team, for example, with Dinamo Moscow being associated with the police. Spartak, on the other hand, was formed by a trade union organisation and was therefore considered to be the club of the people of the city of Moscow. Originally the club was part of the Russian Gymnastics Society, which had been formed in 1883. In 1922 it changed from being a Gymnastics club to the Moscow Sport Circle, with the football team becoming the most important part of it.

The team didn’t become Spartak Moscow by name for another twelve years, deriving it from Spartacus. That explains the club’s use of gladiators as mascots and on its crest and so on. It was after the collapse of the old Soviet Union that Spartak really came into their own, winning every single title between 1992 and 2001 apart from one in 1995. Nowadays the club is no longer associated to the Spartak Sports Society, instead it is owned by a Russian billionaire businessman named Leonid Fedun.

Otkritie Arena History

Otkritie Arena, sometimes spelt Otkrytiye Arena, cost fourteen billion rubles and took four years to build. At the same time as the main stadium was built, a separate indoor arena was constructed next door. A metro station nearby was also completed and opened for the supporters to use. In 2013, before the Arena was officially opened, it was confirmed that a deal had been struck with Otkritie FC Bank over the naming of the venue. The deal was made for an initial period of six years, though the stadium has to change its name when hosting FIFA events. Though the Russian national side does play games here occasionally, it’s not their main stadium.

The Otkritie Arena couldn’t keep its name when hosting major events, so it was changed to Spartak Stadium when it hosted the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2017 and the FIFA World Cup in 2018. Though it wasn’t one of the football grounds that was designed and built in order to host the World Cup, it soon became one when building work was delayed enough to mean that it could be considered to be such a venue. It has a capacity of 45,360, meaning it’s not one of the largest stadiums used for World Cup matches but it’s more than sufficient to allow a decent number of fans in.

Future Developments

It opened in 2014 and so is one of the newest stadiums in Russia at the time of writing. Consequently there are no major plans for development in the near future, though some changes may be made in the build-up to the World Cup.