Mikheil Meskhi Stadium

Before it carried Mikheil Meskhi's name, the ground in Tbilisi's Vake Park had a different history. A stadium called Nauka stood on the same site from the late 1920s before falling into ruin; construction of a replacement began in 1952, and the new arena opened on 8 November 1956 as Burevestnik.

A full rebuild in 2001 made it the first all-seater football ground in Georgia. Lokomotiv Tbilisi and Iberia 1999 have both played here, and the national football and rugby teams still use it for home fixtures, including UEFA Nations League matches against Cyprus and the Czech Republic and Euro 2024 qualifiers.

The stadium's biggest crowd wasn't for football. In October 2016, Pope Francis celebrated Mass on the pitch during his apostolic visit to Georgia. Ultra-conservative Orthodox activists tried to block the event with protests outside the gates; the Mass went ahead, though only around 3,000 people sat down in a stadium built for more than 27,000.