The scene "looks more like a building project for the 2022 Qatar World Cup rather than Russia's 2018 finals, with a flat sandy landscape stretching out to the far horizon," according to Mike Collett of REUTERS. While construction work has yet to start on the delayed Baltika Arena stadium in Russia's Baltic Sea exclave, "at least the land on which it is to be built has been made stable with 4.5 million tonnes of sand imported from quarries around Russia." Building work on the remainder of the 12 venues due to stage matches in 11 cities "is either complete or well under way but not in Kaliningrad, bordered by Poland and Lithuania and with no land connection to the rest of Russia." Kaliningrad Regional Government Deputy Governor Alexander Rolbinov said, "You're right, it does look more like Qatar than Russia, it does not look like a normal place here, but we had to bring in the sand to make the earth secure because we are building it on an island in the middle of a river and the earth was very unstable." Rolbinov said that "he was not worried about the pace of progress." He said, "Because the stadium is smaller, and there will be no roof, it will take less time to build and we are in no doubt it will be finished on schedule by the end of 2017. We are absolutely confident of that." The stadium "will probably become home to Baltika FC, currently in the Russian second division, and will also be a cultural and social centre built on the only available land close to the city centre." Rolbinov said, "That was at the heart of the problem. We wanted the new stadium in the heart of the city, not far out of town, and this was the only available site. But we have overcome the problems and the dream will soon be a reality" (REUTERS, 7/20).
