On Monday, the Prime Minister of Russia Vladimir Putin confirmed Moscow as the host city of the 54th Eurovision Song Contest. Channel One Russia, the broadcaster in charge of preparations of the contest proposed the Olimpiisky Sport Complex to be the venue.
The arena is not really fresh though. It was built for the Olympic Games 1980 and since then it has not been seriously revamped. On the other hand, it is a very experienced venue. George Michael, Beyoncé, Jennifer López and many other world stars performed there. Unfortunately, it is the only arena of such a type in Moscow, which is able to provide a good sound for up to 23,000 people.
The only real competitor of Olimpiisky is Megasport. It is a new and modern sport palace on Hodynskoye Polye, but its capacity is limited to 14,000 spectators. Moreover, it is often criticised for bad acoustics.
Olimpiisky has some more advantages. It is the closest arena to the city centre. This fact is specially important, when moving from hotel and back. If you takethe metro, it takes just about 15 minutes to go from the Kremlin (which is in the very centre of Moscow) to Prospekt Mira station, which is close to the arena. In addition, you can easily use a circle line, which rounds all the centre and connects all the metro lines.
Megasport is not rather distant, though it is probably not so convenient. It takes about 10 minutes by metro to get from the city centre to the Dynamo stationand then 15 minutes on foot only to reach the arena. The district is very nice, modern and prestigious. Earlier it was an old aerodrome, now you will find there blocks of flats. In one of them Dima Bilan lives, by the way.
Though, the area near Olimpiisky seems to have much more sights. There are a lot of churches and gardens. The Garden Ring Road and Ostankino tower are close as well. And what it is the main for all Eurovision guests, it won’t be a real problem to be accommodated there. Due to neighbourhood with the All-Russian Exhibition Centre, that district hasplentyof hostels, hotels and private apartments for rent. A normal price for a middle class 2-roomed flat is about 120 euro per day, but do not forget that prices possibly will increase as the Eurovision Song Contest comes closer.
Stay tuned to esctoday.com to learn more about preparations for Eurovision in Russia.
A very special thanks to Anton Kudrevic for the submission of the article.
