№ 1115. The 50th anniversary of the Olympic Sports complex "Luzhniki".

The grand opening of the central stadium in Luzhniki took place on the 31th of July, 1956. It took a record-breaking short period – only 450 days – to build this stadium. The sports centre has been drastically modernized and rebuilt during the years of its existence. The first big reconstruction was executed on the eve of the Olympic games in 1980. The second considerable reconstruction was carried out in connection with the celebration of the 850th anniversary of the foundation of Moscow. As a result the Big sports arena has received the status of the five stars football stadium according to the UEFA classification and the modern tennis centre appeared. Nowadays “Luzhniki” is one of the biggest sports-entertaining complexes in the world. The big sports arena (by architects I.A.Rogozhin, N.N. Ullas, A.F. Khrjakov under the guidance of A.V.Vlasov; engineers V.N.Nasonov, N.M. Reznikov, V.P.Polikarpov) is depicted on the stamp.