For a long time, only one large sports arena existed in Yekaterinburg—the
KRK Uraletz (then known as the
Sport Palace of Trade Unions), built in 1972. It became overwhelmed with the city's numerous sport events and furthermore required a renovation. For this reason, governor
Eduard Rossel of
Sverdlovsk Oblast decided in March 2000 to build a new sports arena. Construction officially began on 5 June 2001. The
Austrian
E. Fuhrmann Baugesellschaft was commissioned for the construction work, which was financed in full by private investors. The metallurgy firm
UGMK paid for a large portion of the construction costs. The foreseen cost of 17 million euros from 2002 would have been allowed to increase considerably, but the cost for the arena alone (block A) was estimated at 14.5 million euros. Today the arena is within the possession of the arena organization, of which Sverdlovsk Oblast is the owner. On 11 June 2003, the Palace was officially opened. On this day the opening match of the
Yeltsin Cup volleyball tournament took place as the first game, at which the first Russian president
Boris Jelzin and
Viacheslav Fetisov, then the chairmen of the city's sport committee and later the sport minister, were present. From the beginning, the planning committee had envisioned a management and training complex (block B) in the direct vicinity of the sports arena (block A). This building is directly connected to the arena by an elevated corridor on the second floor. It holds the arena management, the athlete housing
"DIVS" with 32 rooms, the health, meeting, and training rooms (with three volleyball fields underneath), a room for press conferences, as well as a bistro. The multi-purpose building began operation in Juli 2006. In winter of 2014, the roof of the arena was renovated from the outside and covered with orange awnings to match the colors of the women's basketball team
UMMC Ekaterinburg. == Technical data ==