Shakhtar Stadium

Central Stadium Shakhtar (Ukrainian: Центральний стадіон «Шахтар») is a multi-purpose stadium that is located in the Shcherbakov Central Park, in Voroshylovskyi District, Donetsk, Ukraine. The stadium has a capacity of 31,718. Shakhtar Stadium was the primary home ground for Shakhtar Donetsk and a major football arena in Ukraine until the early 2000s.

Description

The stadium was built in 1936 specifically for Shakhtar (Stakhanovets) Stalino with the most recent reconstruction in 2000. It is located in the central city's park near a big pond. The park itself is located on a border of Kuibyshevskyi, Leninskyi and Voroshylovskyi districts.

1995 explosion

On 15 October 1995, soon after the start of football game Shakhtar – Tavriya at the stadium took place a big explosion which killed several people including the local criminal Akhat Bragin and his security consisting of five men. All six died instantaneously. Seriously was wounded a local buffet waitress who was taken to a local hospital in critical condition. Nobody out of the 2,000 stadium's spectators suffered any injuries. Due to the explosion the game was interrupted and postponed for two weeks being rescheduled for 31 October 1995. Russian newsmedia informed that Bragin had just bought the control packet of FC Shakhtar Donetsk in 1994. Notable is the fact that this successful assassination attempt was not the first one and there were two more unsuccessful where Bragin was shot upon from an automatic rifles. After that explosion, there was organized a special investigative commission consisting of various agencies including Ministry of Internal Affairs, Security Service of Ukraine, and General Prosecutor Office of Ukraine. The stadium did not function as a sports facility for several years, local radio market being established there instead.

Further plans

In 2010-11, the general director of Shakhtar Serhiy Palkin announced that the stadium would be rebuilt in ist original architecture of 1936, however due to the UEFA Euro 2012 and later the 2014 war in Donbass that idea became abandoned.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Shakhtar Stadium (Donetsk)" and modified on March 4, 2022 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.