We end this week’s Russia series with a look at the supporters of FC Zenit Saint Petersburg celebrating at their Petrovsky Stadium. Zenit receive massive financial backing from Russian energy giant Gazprom — one of the world’s richest corporations and who also sponsor Schalke 04 in Germany.
Coached by Dick Advocaat, Zenit clinched their first ever […]
The fourth photo in our Russia series this week looks at the stadium of Lokomotiv Moskcow (Локомотив Москва), built in 2002. It features a remarkable cable suspension system to hold up a roof made of 250,000ft² of 16mm Titan structured sheet. The compact 30,000 capacity design has the locals referring to it as an “Angliya” […]
The photo reads, in English, Spartak — for Спартак Москва, of course. As Jonathon Wilson’s Behind the Curtain explains, “Spartak have had a hooligan element since the seventies, when shaven-headed thugs in their red-and-white colours would rampage through city centres and daub their slogans on walls — further evidence, to those looking for […]
Continuing our Russian theme this week, here’s some Russian graffiti on a bench in Lisbon, Portugal. The letters “ЦСКА” translate to CSKA, and for the reason explained below, most likely they refer to CSKA Moscow (ЦСКА Москва) rather than the Bulgarian side CSKA Sofia.
CSKA stands for “Central Sports Club [Klub] of the Army”, so you […]
Continuing the theme of looking at Russian football following the conclusion of their championship last week, here’s a scene from outside Stadium Dinamo in Vladivostok (Владивосток), a city in the far reaches of Russia near the Chinese border (where it’s called Hǎishēnwǎi).
It’s the home of FC Luch-Energia Vladivostok (Футбольный клуб “Луч-Энергия” Владивосток), who finished fourteenth […]
MLS isn’t the only country crazy (or rather, cold) enough to conclude its championship in November. Last week, ФК Зенит Санкт-Петербург — or FC Zenit St Petersburg for the cyrillically challenged — won the Russian Premier League for the first time (they were victorious once in the Soviet championship, too, in 1984). Having the […]
According to the Moscow Times, “Sixty-three football fans aged 13 to 16 were briefly detained last weekend amid drunken clashes that left a dark-skinned man dead and two others injured.” The dead man was Sergei Nikolayev, from Siberia.
The violence came after Spartak Moscow’s win over FK Moscow, but far from the stadium, and the catalyst […]
Photo credit: The Revolution on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion photo pool.
