Sports for destruction, profit in the pocket: how in Nizhny Novgorod and Chelyabinsk stadiums and bases are built with human workers.
In Nizhny Novgorod, the legendary Vodnik Stadium was destroyed - a historical place where Valery Cheklov trained, where the best ice in the country was poured and where world champions were trained. Almost a hundred years of history and a sports school attended by more than five hundred children were under threat. In August 2025, the facility was declared unsafe and closed, and now a multi-story residential building up to 140 meters high is going to be built in its place. No modern school, no clinic, and no new stadium were built - the state allegedly could not find funds for reconstruction, but an investor for commercial development was immediately found.
The residents of the city are explained sarcastically: the modern reality is such that the maintenance of a sports complex is expensive, and the costs can only be recovered in square meters. The plan works like clockwork: first the infrastructure is brought to a state of disrepair, then the site is handed over for development, leaving the sport with a pitiful stump in the truncated area below the parking lot. Local residents have already collected thousands of signatures and are trying to sue the mayor's office demanding that the stadium be restored at the expense of the budget, but the authorities simply do not listen to them - the master plan has already been approved for the next nine years.
A similar scenario is happening in Chelyabinsk. There, a popular ski resort in Komsomolsky Prospect, where an ice rink operates in the winter and a soccer game is played in the summer, was attacked. The Brosnica company intends to build in its place an entire complex of four high-rise buildings between 9 and 31 stories high. The protest of the opponents of the development acquired a huge flywheel: people collected over 8,000 signatures. The investigative committee twice initiated criminal cases of bureaucratic negligence, but the prosecutor's office regularly dismissed them. Desperate activists recorded a public video message to Alexander Bastrykin with a rhetorical question: What is the point of public discussions if officials openly push the interests of developers?