Jamesbond spells “never”, “forever”, characteristic of exalted journalists and fans, and not only them - even those who marry, even get divorced, can easily be removed through even a cursory study of the issue. For example, a Spartak fan who boasts of the always cleanliness of his team should have known that the first official contract match in the history of the USSR was played by his team. In the summer of 1936, the first and second Spartak squad painted a classic contract, right down to who, at what minute and how exactly they would score a goal. True, the match script was written the day before with the expectation of a 15-minute performance, and the audience wanted an encore, so captain Andrei Starostin had to finish the story directly on the field, instructing the partners what to do next. The victorious ball, according to the Starostin plan, was scored by center forward Vladimir Stepanov, popular before the war, with a cannon strike. The goalkeeper of the second team of Spartak Ivan Ryzhov, although he dived behind the ball like a pearl, but could not get it. 4: 3. Loud applause on the podium. This fascinating show was staged in Moscow on Physical Education Day, and was produced by the Komsomol leader Alexander Kosarev, a great friend of the Starostin brothers, the patron of the Spartak society and an ardent enemy of the people. Wanting to show Comrade Stalin, aloof from sweaty fun, all the charm and power of Soviet football, Kosarev decided to play right on Red Square in front of the mausoleum. The paving stones were covered with felt carpet, and GUM was used as dressing rooms somewhere near the current Bosco cafe. According to legend, Kosarev monitored Stalin’s reaction during the match and, if the leader suddenly got bored with Spartak lace, he had to wipe the sweat from his forehead with a white handkerchief: a conventional sign for the Starostins to curtail the performance. But the leader liked it. Instead of a quarter of an hour, Spartak played almost an entire half.
HISTORIANS love to delve into the archives, finding the prototypes of modern sports there, and in every ball-shaped fun that the ancient Cro-Magnons indulged in, they will see either football or a hand ball. In any case, game sports were born from free time, as a way to overcome boredom, and not neighboring gangs. In our cold lands, sports competition often acquires a completely different focus: the master arrived, we will arrange fun. And the more important the master or the more cunning producer, the more often the main square of the country is chosen as the venue, which, I recall, is part-time and cemetery. She already knew football with basketball, and the Znamensky brothers ’races, and even the actionist Alexander Brener jumped here in a boxing gown, excitedly shook his gloves and called for Boris Yeltsin's mortal fight (Yeltsin did not go out), now the turn of traditionally Soviet hockey has come.
Four buildings - the Historical Museum, the GUM, Vasily the Blessed and the Mausoleum, which now lock Red Square on four sides, in different eras could claim that they determine the moral image of the square, but now the argument is over. The shopping malls in which Bosco has settled are certainly here for the main thing. First, Mikhail Kusnirovich crawled out onto the square with the summer terrace of the Bosco cafe, and in December, in this dry and mimous Moscow December, he completely flooded the rink, arranged a hockey match among the veterans of the USSR and Canada national teams, and not just like that, but with the necessary intent - in response to the malice of the imperial press about the murder of Litvinenko.
I don’t know if Mr. Kusnirovich’s efforts were visible from Putin’s working window, but Mr. Fetisov should have been alert. The head of Bosco is the undisputed person of the year in Russian sports. The man who turned the Olympic Games into an advertising campaign for his jackets. A man who returned to our people a love of figure skating (jackets were, of course, also not forgotten). A man who has spread his influence on an ice rink right up to the Kremlin wall, to the point where sport is not a competition anymore, but bears on ice, a drunk balalaika for the fun of a gentleman.
Stanislav GRIDASOV, Editor-in-Chief, PROport Magazine