Stadium

STADIUM (Greek stadion), a physical culture facility, a special area for physical culture activities with seating for spectators around it. The creation of the first stadiums is connected with the beginning of the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece, where stadiums were built in Athens, Delphi, and other cities. Stadiums had the shape of an elongated horseshoe. In the middle was a rectangular area for competitions about 200 m long ("stadion"—a measure of length, "stadiodromos"—a run of one stadion, i.e., the length of the stadium, hence the name) and about 30 m wide; on the sides of this area, seats for spectators (up to 50,000) were constructed. For this, the slopes of hills were used, covered with simple stone or marble, at the foot of which stadiums were usually located. Similar structures of the Roman Empire era were intended, in accordance with the Roman approach to physical culture, mainly for performances and spectacles and had the character of grandiose circuses, with an arena in the middle, enclosed on all sides by a bowl-shaped amphitheater of spectator seats (the Roman Colosseum, which held up to 87,000 people, is typical). Interest in physical culture in the era of imperialism, along with the revival of the idea of holding international Olympic Games, also revived the stadium as a type of special physical culture facility for large competitions. The first modern stadium was created for the 1st Olympiad in Athens (1896); it was to a certain extent a copy of the ancient Athenian stadium and held about 40,000 spectators. Subsequent stadiums, in order of construction, were also created for world Olympiads: the 4th in London (1908), the 5th in Stockholm (1912), the 7th, which did not take place due to the imperialist war in 1916 (the stadium near Berlin, in Grunewald, was roughly ready by 1913) and was postponed to 1920, in Antwerp, etc. In the post-war period, in connection with the even greater increase in the bourgeoisie's attention to the development of physical culture as a powerful means of military training for youth and distracting workers from the class struggle, there is a growth in the construction of stadiums in all bourgeois countries—victorious, defeated, and neutral. This growth is especially noted in the USA, where not only the majority of significant cities but also a number of universities possess grandiose stadiums (for 50,000–100,000 spectators). The shape of the first stadiums was largely determined by the need to include in the central area spaces for competitions in the main types of sports included in the program of modern Olympiads: a football field (international average size 105x70 m), surrounded by a running track (usual length 400 m), further on some stadiums a motorcycle-bicycle track, and behind that the stands, in which a swimming pool is sometimes located. Most stadiums of recent construction are characterized by a closed shape, similar to Roman circuses, which is connected with the narrow goal-setting of bourgeois sport—to showcase athletic achievement (amateur and professional sport). At the same time, a number of giant stadiums are adapted exclusively for individual sports: in Tokyo for baseball, in Montevideo for football, etc. Some foreign stadiums have a number of additional grounds—training football fields, courts for tennis and other sports games, athletics, areas for mass performances, etc., representing part of a general physical culture complex. A number of stadiums are located on the territory of significant green areas: Cologne Sportpark—55 hectares, Amsterdam Stadium—52 hectares, etc. The stands on most large stadiums are open; on some, partial coverings against rain and sun are used (roof, canopy, canvas awning). Almost all large stadiums are reinforced concrete. Earth stands are constructed only with particularly favorable terrain. A number of large stadiums are built with the field and part of the stands located below ground level (e.g., Grunewald, Los Angeles). The huge spaces under the stands are used to house gymnasiums, cinemas, changing rooms, showers, premises for sheltering the public from rain, etc. Tsarist Russia had no stadiums at all. The network of physical culture facilities in the largest cities was reduced to a few sports grounds. The growth of the physical culture movement in the USSR required its provision. By 1932, for example, Moscow already numbered up to 50 stadiums of various sizes, compared to 8 sports grounds in 1913. However, in the absence of its own experience in the field of physical culture facilities and the impossibility of applying foreign experience entirely, a certain lack of system was allowed in the construction of stadiums in the first years. The decisions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) on the physical culture movement (1929), the XVII Party Conference on the report of Comrade Kuibyshev, the September Plenum of the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of 1932 on the report of Comrade Kaganovich, and the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of 23/IX 1931 determined a major shift in the growth and planning of physical culture facilities in accordance with the tasks of developing physical culture in the USSR and creating a socialist city (reconstruction of old and planning of new cities). The direct implementation of this work was carried out by the sector of physical culture facilities of the All-Union Council of Physical Culture of the USSR, and in recent years by the physical culture group of the Academy of Municipal Economy under the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR. In the developed system of types of physical culture facilities and their network, the stadium has found its place

Figure 1. Dynamo Stadium in Moscow.

as the central part of a high-type physical culture base in district physical culture complexes, in parks of culture and rest, etc. Among the basic requirements for a stadium, determined by the guidelines of Soviet physical culture, is the organic connection of the stadium with the entire complex of other facilities and grounds of the base or complex, ensuring the involvement of the spectator arriving at the stadium in active physical culture. This guideline manifests itself both in the desire to give the necessary shape to the stadium itself (the orientation of the stands, allowing one to see from them not only

Figure 2. Project of the All-Union Stadium in Moscow.

the central sports field, but also the area for mass actions), and in the planning and zoning of the entire territory of the base (complex), i.e., the expedient placement of grounds and facilities. The construction of large stadiums has brought forward a whole range of important technical problems: external architectural design, rapid filling and especially emptying of the stands, transportation of hundred-thousand-strong masses to and from the stadium, ensuring sufficient visibility from distant seats in the stands, issues of acoustics and radio broadcasting, etc. From a sanitary-hygienic point of view, the question of the location of the stadium is of paramount importance: a) general sanitary-hygienic requirements for the site chosen for it must in no case be lower than those required for residential areas, b) non-flooding and non-pollution of the site, c) its windward location in relation to prevailing winds, d) location on a river above sewage outlets, e) distance from industrial enterprises, f) separation from housing by forest plantings and sufficient landscaping of the entire site, etc. In addition to the first giant stadium built in the USSR—Dynamo (Moscow, 1929, holds up to 50,000 people) (Fig. 1), during the 1st Five-Year Plan, large stadiums were built in a number of cities—Leningrad, Kharkov, Kiev, Odessa, Gorky, and others. In 1932, in accordance with the decision of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of 23/IX 1931, the construction of the Central Stadium of the USSR in Moscow was started (in the Izmailovo menagerie, with a requirement for at least 120,000 seated places) (Fig. 2), intended for holding international and union-wide major specialized physical culture and general cultural-political festivals,

N. G. Unksov.