Man City fans’ guide to CSKA Moscow
Posted on 8th October 2013
While our International Ground Guide is undergoing some maintenance, we thought we’d provide our usual service of advice and information for travelling supporters in brief blog form.
Once up and running again our ground guide will cover all manner of information from travel options to hotel advice, eating and drinking suggestions to practical tips on getting around, along with safety and security advice and anything else we think will be of use to travelling supporters.
In the meantime, while the below might not necessarily have all the information you’ll be after if you’re heading out to Russia, we’re always available to help – just drop us an email if you have any questions.
We’ll do our best to find out what you need to know, either from our own vast experience in covering England and Wales games abroad, or from our friends at Football Supporters Europe.
As with all of our guides, if there is anything missing from the following pages that you need to know then feel free to drop us an email and we’ll do our best to find it out for you.
The Club
You’ll forgive us if we refer to the side as CSKA, as their full name, “Professional Football Club — Central Sports Club of the Army (Moscow)”, is something of a mouthful.
Formed in 1911, the club have had 7 different names, and each of them were as long-winded as their current incarnation. The club have deep ties to the military, as their nickname of the ‘army men’ suggests; indeed the Russian Ministry of Defence is one of the major shareholders in the club (along with a certain Mr R. Abramovich).
The club currently play their European games in the Arena Khimki (pictured above), although concerns over the state of the pitch have meant recent games have been moved. The Arena Khimki is a small 18,000 all-seater stadium located on the outskirts of Moscow. Given the size of the Russian capital, though, these outskirts are about 10 miles from the main city centre, on the edge of the city’s main ring-road the E105, close to the Sheremetyevo airport.
About Moscow
Initially founded as far back as 1147, Moscow (Москва in Russian) is now the largest city in Europe, home to some 10 million plus inhabitants, and is the capital of Russia. With the temperature rarely seeing positive digits on the Celsius scale from November through to March, it can be a rather inhospitable climate for visitors not used to the Russian winter. May through to August are the best times to visit, when the temperature typically tops out at a positively balmy 22-24 degrees.
Eating and Drinking
Given its size, Moscow is host to just about any sort of cuisine you’d wish to find. Eating out in Moscow (avoiding fast food and the major chain restaurants like TGI Friday’s and Hard Rock Café) is a generally expensive business, however.