Kirov Stadium

The Kirov Stadium was conceived as a major sporting venue for Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), with construction starting in 1932 based on an initial project designed by architect Aleksandr Nikolsky and his workshop. The stands of the stadium were located on the slopes of a circular artificial mound in the western part of Krestovsky Island, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, a unique and ambitious design that took advantage of the natural topography of the island. During the 1930s and 1940s, construction was mainly focused on groundworks for the artificial mound on the sea shore, a massive earth-moving project that laid the foundations for the stadium. Construction was interrupted by World War II and the Siege of Leningrad, one of the most devastating sieges in history, and resumed in 1945 with the return of citizens to Leningrad, with thousands of Red Army and Red Navy recruits conscripted as labour force for construction, linking the stadium to the city's wartime suffering and recovery. The stadium was opened on 30 July 1950, with a match between two main Leningrad teams, Zenit and Dynamo, which drew 1-1, and initially held 100,000 people, including 16,000 standing places, making it one of the largest stadiums in the world. For the match between Zenit and CSKA on 14 July 1951, additional temporary stands were installed, increasing the capacity to 110,000, and the stadium was sold out, with the attendance of 110,000 remaining the record for Soviet football, a remarkable figure that reflects the enormous scale of the stadium and the passion for football in Leningrad. The Kirov Stadium was the home of Zenit Leningrad (later Zenit Saint Petersburg) from 1950 to 1989 and again in 1992, and was the site of many of the club's greatest matches and most passionate moments, as well as hosting numerous Soviet national team matches and other sporting events. The stadium was reconstructed to hold preliminary matches of the football tournament at the 1980 Summer Olympics, with the capacity reduced to 72,000, reflecting the modernisation of the stadium and the move towards all-seater venues. In 1994, the stadium was used as the main arena for the St. Petersburg 1994 Goodwill Games, the last major international event at the Kirov Stadium, with participation of athletes from over 50 nations of the world, a fitting farewell for a stadium that had been a symbol of Soviet and Russian sport for decades. After the Goodwill Games, the stadium was used for several more years for football matches, as well as for athletics and training, but by the early 2000s, the aging stadium was considered outdated, and in 2005, it was decided to demolish the main arena and build a new one in its place. An international competition for the construction design of the new Zenit Stadium was won by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, whose futuristic design would become one of the most distinctive stadiums in the world. On 6 July 2006, Zenit decided to play a match against Dynamo Moscow at the Kirov Stadium because of the unavailability of the pitch at the Petrovsky Stadium, with part of the seats already uninstalled because of planned deconstruction, so the match was visited by only 45,000 spectators despite the sold-out stadium. The last official match at the Kirov Stadium was Petrotrest vs Spartak Shelkovo on 17 August 2006, with the visitors winning 3-0. The stadium was demolished in September 2006, ending 56 years of sporting history on Krestovsky Island. A new stadium, the Krestovsky Stadium (also known as Gazprom Arena), was built on the site and opened in 2017, with Kurokawa's futuristic design featuring a retractable roof and a distinctive exterior, becoming one of the venues for the 2018 FIFA World Cup and continuing the legacy of major sporting events on Krestovsky Island.

The Kirov Stadium was built on an artificial mound on Krestovsky Island, on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, a unique and ambitious design that took advantage of the natural topography of the island and created one of the most distinctive stadium settings in the world. Construction started in 1932 and was interrupted by World War II and the Siege of Leningrad, one of the most devastating sieges in history, and resumed in 1945 with thousands of Red Army and Red Navy recruits conscripted as labour force, linking the stadium to the city's wartime suffering and recovery. The stadium was opened on 30 July 1950 with a match between Zenit and Dynamo, which drew 1-1, and initially held 100,000 people, making it one of the largest stadiums in the world at the time. The record attendance of 110,000 was set on 14 July 1951, for a match between Zenit and CSKA, with additional temporary stands installed, and this attendance remains the record for Soviet football, a remarkable figure that reflects the enormous scale of the stadium and the passion for football in Leningrad. The stadium was named after Sergey Kirov, a prominent Soviet leader whose assassination in 1934 was one of the events that led to the Great Purge, making the stadium a monument to a complex and controversial figure in Soviet history. The Kirov Stadium was the home of Zenit Leningrad (later Zenit Saint Petersburg) from 1950 to 1989 and again in 1992, and was the site of many of the club's greatest matches and most passionate moments over nearly four decades. The stadium hosted football matches of the 1980 Summer Olympics, one of the most significant international sporting events held in the Soviet Union, with the capacity reduced to 72,000 for the Olympics. The stadium was the main arena for the 1994 Goodwill Games, the last major international event at the Kirov Stadium, with participation of athletes from over 50 nations of the world, a fitting farewell for a stadium that had been a symbol of Soviet and Russian sport for decades. The last official match at the Kirov Stadium was Petrotrest vs Spartak Shelkovo on 17 August 2006, with the visitors winning 3-0, a low-key end to a stadium that had hosted some of the biggest matches in Soviet and Russian football history. The stadium was demolished in September 2006 and replaced by the Krestovsky Stadium (Gazprom Arena), designed by Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, whose futuristic design with a retractable roof became one of the venues for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, continuing the legacy of major sporting events on Krestovsky Island.