Bonding Brutally With Russian Soccer Superfans
By Andrew Boryga
They say New York City has the toughest fans, but they are tame compared with some Russian soccer superfans. In Moscow, bands – groups of fans as small as five to as many as 20 – use fists, elbows, and kicks to prove their loyalty to a team against other bands looking to prove the same thing – sometimes for the exact same team.
In fact, in a #sport known for #hooliganism internationally, these rabid Russian fans have emerged as some of the most violent and racist in recent years. During the 2012 #UEFA European Championship, a match in Kiev became a battleground with #riot police in helmets, vests and batons patrolling the stadium and its perimeter. Indeed fans were so violent that following a match in Poland that descended into a brawl, the Russian governing association was fined $150,000.
So yes, Rangers fans have nothing on them.
Ten years ago Pavel Volkov, 27, met a #band of hooligans or, perhaps, was part of them – he can’t say. The facts are he had a camera and followed them as they roamed stadiums and cities across Russia in support of Ural, their football team, and bludgeoned fans of opposing teams along the way. After returning from the trip – and maturing, if not repenting – Mr. Volkov realized the value of the pictures taken in his youth and decided to document other bands across Russia in 2012 and 2013. This time, it was a serious journalistic endeavor.
“I wanted to show these groups of people as they are,” Mr. Volkov said through an interpreter. “They meet and they fight and people may confuse them for savages, but they are not.”
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#football #photographie #doc #reportage #soccer #russia #team #