To build a stadium within the ever tighter budget contractors had to adjust its design and remove further elements. But in return the new Kaliningrad stadium should be ready extremely fast.

Work is in full swing at the October Island in Kaliningrad. But no, it’s not actual construction of the new 35,000-seat arena just yet. Currently workers are inserting piles into the ground to strengthen the wetland. Altogether up to 25,000 piles will be installed, a massive number forced by the geological conditions.

The single most delayed stadium of the Russian World Cup should go into the foundation stage in February, maybe even January 2016. From then progress should be visible on a daily basis, because Crocus Group running the project expect to have the entire concrete and steel building standing by the end of 2016!

Erecting the structure will be facilitated by cutbacks in the design. These came in recent cost-adjusting efforts, partial reason for the stadium’s construction delay. Crocus has a budget of RUB 17.8 billion (currently $245 million).

“The budget wasn’t reduced. It’s just the devaluation of the ruble compared to US dollar, which is combined with the necessity of importing some components. We cannot escape this if we are to meet FIFA’s requirements. With this budget earlier we had $500 million, now it’s only 250 million to spend. And still our stadiums cost $10,000 per seat”, said Aras Agalarov, owner of Crocus Group.

To be precise, Kaliningrad’s price per seat is noticeably lower along current exchange rates, at around $7,000 per seat. But that’s still much higher than any average stadium price for venues of the recent FIFA World Cups. In Brazil it was $5,860, in South Africa $5,780 and in Germany as little as $3,755.

In Kaliningrad the reduced price of $7,000 was possible only after the cost-saving efforts of recent months. Some amenities were either removed from the plan or downscaled, though Agalarov assured that no supporter, during or after the World Cup, will notice a decrease in quality.