Russia plans to spend almost $20 billion on hosting the 2018 football World Cup.
The month-long tournament will be held in 11 cities across the world's largest country - from the Baltic seaport of Kaliningrad to Yekaterinburg, located at the foot of the Ural mountains near the Europe-Asia border.
The $20 billion expenditure figure is nearly twice the size of the original sum named by then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when Russia was awarded the tournament in December 2010.
