Football Stadiums and Nizhny Novgorod

federal budget: The order, posted Monday on the government website, applies to football stadiums under construction in the regional cities of Samara, Saransk, Volgograd, Nizhny Novgorod and Rostov-on-Don, according to The Moscow Times. Each of the stadiums is meant to seat 45,000 and has a minimum federal budget of 10 billion rubles . According to an explanatory document accompanying the order, the ruling seeks the "replacement of equipment and materials of foreign production with Russian analogues." The cost of imports has skyrocketed due to the weakness of the ruble, which has lost one-third of its value against the U.S. dollar since last summer due to falling oil prices and sanctions over Moscow backing of separatists in Ukraine. The move comes as Russia seeks to boost local production amid tit-for-tat economic sanctions with the West over Ukraine and a sharp rise in the cost of imports due to ruble devaluation. It was not immediately clear which stadium components could be swapped for domestic products and how much money the measure would save. Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said in January that Russia economic crisis meant that World Cup preparations were facing a budget deficit for 2015, Reuters reported. Mordovian Minister Alexei Merkushkin, who is responsible for construction of Saransk stadium, said foreign lighting fixtures, cables and electronics could all be replaced with Russian-made equivalents, news agency R-Sport reported Monday. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.