Original of this material
© Novaya Gazeta, 05/18/2016, Photo: via fanstyle.ru

Explanatory note to the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta from Gleb Limansky, video correspondent

Gleb Limansky

On April 25, at 2 p.m., I arrived with my colleague Ekaterina Fomina at Manezhnaya Square to film a report on the celebration of the anniversary of a State Duma deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky. At 15.00 we expected to catch the arrival of the hero of the occasion. The territory was divided into several zones, the first, and the most successful for work, was near the entrance to the Central Manege, and the second, separated by metal fences, was located 20 meters further.

At approximately 15.10 Zhirinovsky arrived and went into the Manege building. After this, people gradually began to be allowed from the second zone to the first. Some were rushing to the Manege, while others, on the contrary, were trying to get out of the crowd. There was a crush. I started filming how people were being let through. To my left, a certain man, as it later turned out - Alexander Shprygin, aka Kamancha, expressed his dissatisfaction with one of the organizers. This was captured in the frame, this reaction seemed very lively to me, and I continued filming. When Shprygin finished speaking, I asked him: “What do you think about the quality of the organization of the event?” In response, he grabbed the camera by the lens and pulled it towards himself, saying: “What are you filming? Turn it off!”

I asked him to let go of the camera. He continued to rip it out of my hands. One of the organizers noticed what was happening and tried to stop our conflict: “That’s it, guys, go away, look what a holiday we have today!” He ended up calling security. A minute later I managed to break free, I walked away a few steps and tried to “blindly” take photographs of the attackers. Shprygin grabbed me by the backpack, his comrade immediately jumped up and began to hold me in a more harsh manner. Shprygin snatched the camera from his hands. I said that I was a journalist, asked to hand over the camera, called the police and security. The organizer asked: “Were you given the right to film? Do you have accreditation? - “Yes, of course there is.” I would have gladly shown my editorial ID and invitations if they hadn’t squeezed my hands and broken my camera at that second.

Shprygin tore the camera out of his hands, breaking the lens in the process, pulled the memory card out of the slot, broke it and threw it on the ground.

The guards directed us to the police officers who were standing along the fences on Mokhovaya. We called a police officer, briefly explained the situation, and pointed out the attackers. The policeman took Shprygin out of the crowd, asked for his identification, Shprygin showed him the ID of an assistant deputy, said that he had not attacked anyone, and went back to the line. The police officers advised us to contact the Kitai-Gorod police station.

We turned to the policeman to copy down the information of the witness and the attackers. Then we took Shprygin and his friend out of the queue for the second time, and the police officer copied the data from the ID. Shprygin no longer denied the conflict and spoke to me: “Is the camera working?” I told him that he broke the lens and the card, to which he stated: “Well, I didn’t break it, I told you - don’t film me, that’s all!” To which I remarked to him: “An attack on a journalist is a criminal matter, do you understand?” In response: “I didn’t attack you guys, how am I to blame, why are you coming up to me in a crowd? And in general, I have two witnesses that I didn’t break it!”

I submitted an application to the Kitay-Gorod police station and returned with the local police officer to the Central Manege. By that time (about an hour after the conflict) Shprygin had already left the event. He told the local police officer that he would come for questioning another day. The police seized my broken memory card and lens as evidence, and they also added audio recordings to the materials. At the moment, the investigation into the case has been extended to 30 days.

Alexander Shprygin, leader of football ultras, head of the All-Russian Fans Association

Original of this material
© "Novaya Gazeta", 05/18/2016, Photo: "MK", ​​via "Novaya Gazeta", via stihiya.org

He is Kamancha!

“I have personally known Shprygin for decades. I can’t imagine him beating up any journalist. He is an extremely calm, well-mannered, good person,” this is how the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma reacted in the media Igor Lebedev on the actions of his assistant Alexander Shprygin towards Novaya Gazeta correspondent Gleb Limansky. What was it really: hooliganism, abuse of power, or Article 144 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Obstruction of the legitimate professional activities of journalists...” (up to six years, by the way)? Law enforcement agencies are conducting an investigation into this case. And there are strong suspicions that they will try to hush up Shprygin’s attack on the correspondent, since his patrons are too powerful.

Although... We have also known Alexander Shprygin for decades. He is also known under the nickname Kamancha in football-related movements and nationalist groups. Even using open sources, you can significantly enrich the image of a “calm, well-mannered, good person”...

Alexander Shprygin came to the LDPR in 1998 as Kamanchey, one of the leaders of the Moscow Dynamo fan movement, who was kept on a pencil by the Moscow police. Having joined the party ranks, Kamancha did not give up football - on the contrary, having acquired a title as an assistant to a deputy, he, having relatively protected himself from law enforcement agencies, developed active activity in the field of ultras. Apparently, because of this, he was forgiven for the cover of one of the fanzines, published in the same year, in the form of a montage with Adolf Hitler and the emblem of the SS division “Totenkopf”. Even in the well-known media, Shprygin’s position was sometimes voiced such as: “All fans like the idea of ​​white power and do not like the wrong migration policy of the state” or “I would like there to be Slavic faces in the national team.”

His political career developed in parallel with his football career. If in the LDPR Shprygin rose to become an assistant to the head of the LDPR faction Lebedev, then the peak of his fan career came in 2005, when he became president of the All-Russian Association of Fans (VOB), which he is to this day. His appointment to the post of the country's main fan was not hindered even by the fact that he spent a year in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center for a fight in the apartment of his “former” best friend Sergei Troitsky- leader of the group “Metal Corrosion”. The case eventually fell apart: the prosecutor’s office was never able to prove the accusation — and was finally closed in 2008, when Shprygin was already the head of the VOB.

P.S. Elections are approaching, and against this background, informal “state institutions” are becoming more active: shady assistants, publicized activists, criminal bikers. Everyone strives to contribute to the “fight against sedition.”

But everything must be according to the law. We demand the initiation of a criminal case under Article 144 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

The All-Russian Fans' Association (VOB) is going through difficult times. On Saturday, September 24, the organization was removed from the membership of the Russian Football Union (RFU), and its leader Alexander Shprygin, nicknamed Kamancha, was detained by riot police. Over the next two days, there were reports of searches being carried out at the VOB office, as well as of Shprygin’s burned-out car. Lenta.ru explains the reasons for what is happening.

Eau de Toilette

Let's start with the most recent events that occurred on Monday night. VOB President Alexander Shprygin posted a photo of his burnt car on Twitter, calling the incident arson. The victim refused to comment on the incident, noting that he needed to understand the situation.

According to Lenta.ru, the cause of the incident could have been revenge from one of Shprygin’s former supporters in the VOB. Thus, the head of the organization was “informed” about the reaction of the fan community to the events that had occurred the day before, as a result of which the All-Russian Association of Fans will, apparently, announce self-liquidation in the near future.

It all started on Saturday, when during an extraordinary conference of the Russian Football Union, law enforcement officers staged a “mask show” and detained Shprygin in the toilet of the hotel where the election of the RFU President was taking place. Literally immediately information appeared about mass searches being carried out at the VOB office in Tovarishchesky Lane in the capital. The official website of the organization has ceased operation. It also became known about the exclusion of the VOB from the membership of the RFU.

Official information about the reasons for what was happening was contradictory. The newly re-elected president of the RFU, Vitaly Mutko, said that work is being carried out against Shprygin at the request of law enforcement agencies in Germany and France, who continue to investigate the riots organized by Russian fans at Euro 2016. Later it was reported that the detention of the head of the VOB was connected with a mass fight of football fans that occurred on January 31, 2016 in the area of ​​the Moscow metro station “Sportivnaya”. Allegedly Shprygin acted as one of its organizers.

However, no official charges were brought against the leader of the VOB. “The only thing was that searches were carried out at his place of residence and at his mother’s. But they did not find anything essential to initiate a case. The hard drives were seized and they will be checked, but I talked to Alexander, and he said that there could be nothing serious there. He was released without any charges being brought. He himself views this as an attempt to influence him in order to be relieved of his position,” R-Sport quotes lawyer Artur Golovanov, who previously represented Shprygin’s interests in the courts.

According to Golovanov, the detention is unlikely to be related to a clash between fans. “He has an alibi for this; he was at home that day. And on this occasion he was called and questioned a month ago. And since there were also no compelling reasons to bring charges, they were released. In my opinion, this is a formal occasion.”

Speaking about the searches at the VOB, the lawyer said: “Nothing significant was found there either. The hard drives were seized, but Alexander is completely sure that there is nothing in them that has anything to do with the cases in which he was accused, and nothing that will incriminate him will be found.”

The specialist also considered the charges related to the claims of law enforcement agencies in France and Germany to be incompetent. “This is an assumption, like an accusation related to extremism. As of today, there are no compelling reasons for the arrest. Moreover, after Alexander left France, he was in Europe again, crossed the border, and European law enforcement agencies did not have any questions for him. Otherwise he would simply have been detained.”

Golovanov noted that Shprygin has not yet decided whether he will take any retaliatory measures, since he understands that he “faced serious structures represented by operational agencies.”

Friend of the Indians

The real reason for everything that happened, according to Lenta.ru, was the conflict between Shprygin and Mutko, which began to develop after incidents involving domestic fans that happened during the European Football Championship in France. In particular, the Minister of Sports was very upset by the behavior of Russian fans who staged a mass brawl in Marseille. The head of the VOB was named as one of the main culprits of the clashes, as he failed to ensure the proper level of organization of fan activity.

For the second time, Shprygin upset Mutko when, after being expelled from France, he voluntarily decided to attend a match in Toulouse with the Welsh national team, after which he was again expelled from the country. According to sources close to both sides, Alexander not only did not want to admit his guilt for what happened, but also went into open confrontation after he was asked to quietly and peacefully leave his post at the VOB.

Shprygin was guaranteed immunity and a decent “golden parachute,” but he refused. As a result, even the high patrons he acquired at the dawn of the organization’s existence did not help Alexander, which, according to its charter, was conceived as a unifying force, but eventually turned into a dividing one.

The PSB was created on May 25, 2007 at a conference specially convened for this occasion, held in the building of the Russian Olympic Committee. Its creators are officially considered to be Dynamo player Alexander Shprygin, who took the post of president, army player Andrei Malosolov, who agreed to become vice-president, and Torpedo player Valery Puzanov, who joined the central council of the organization.

The main objectives were declared to be upholding the rights of fans as the main consumers of football and sports, uniting fans of different clubs around the Russian national teams, as well as promoting sports and a healthy lifestyle.

The organization was created under the patronage of the then president of the RFU, Vitaly Mutko, despite active opposition to the project from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and even the security adviser to the head of the RFU, Nikolai Sorokin. Rumor has it that Mutko also doubted for a long time the need to create a public association of fans, who have a controversial reputation in Russia due to the large number of hooligan groups, and even almost fired Malosolov, who actively lobbied the RFU for this project.

In 2010, Malosolov still had to leave the VOB as a result of a conflict with Shprygin, in which one of the informal leaders of Spartak fans, Ivan Katanaev, took an active part. The riot organized by representatives of CSKA and Spartak failed, as a result of which the fans of these clubs left the organization. Soon fans of St. Petersburg Zenit also distanced themselves from VOB.

Kamancha and his “Indians” began to divide the money on their own, expanding the business - including the ticket business - to its fullest. The raging financial flows turned Shprygin's head so much that at some point he lost it. According to the majority of those close to him, recently some of the actions of the head of the VOB had a serious conflict with adequacy. Consider the strange persistence shown in returning to France after the country's authorities strongly recommended that he refrain from traveling. Mutko himself noticed the changes and eventually had to rein in the presumptuous creature.

On April 25, at 2 p.m., I arrived with my colleague Ekaterina Fomina at Manezhnaya Square to film a report on the celebration of the anniversary of a State Duma deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky. At 15.00 we expected to catch the arrival of the hero of the occasion. The territory was divided into several zones, the first, and the most successful for work, was near the entrance to the Central Manege, and the second, separated by metal fences, was located 20 meters further.

At approximately 15.10 Zhirinovsky arrived and went into the Manege building. After this, people gradually began to be allowed from the second zone to the first. Some were rushing to the Manege, while others, on the contrary, were trying to get out of the crowd. There was a crush. I started filming how people were being let through. To my left is a certain man, as it later turned out - Alexander Shprygin, aka Kamancha, expressed his dissatisfaction with one of the organizers. This was captured in the frame, this reaction seemed very lively to me, and I continued filming. When Shprygin finished speaking, I asked him: “What do you think about the quality of the organization of the event?” In response, he grabbed the camera by the lens and pulled it towards himself, saying: “What are you filming? Turn it off!”

I asked him to let go of the camera. He continued to rip it out of my hands. One of the organizers noticed what was happening and tried to stop our conflict: “That’s it, guys, go away, look what a holiday we have today!” He ended up calling security. A minute later I managed to break free, I walked away a few steps and tried to “blindly” take photographs of the attackers. Shprygin grabbed me by the backpack, his comrade immediately jumped up and began to hold me in a more harsh manner. Shprygin snatched the camera from his hands. I said that I was a journalist, asked to hand over the camera, called the police and security. The organizer asked: “Were you given the right to film? Do you have accreditation? - “Yes, of course there is.” I would have gladly shown my editorial ID and invitations if they hadn’t squeezed my hands and broken my camera at that second.

Shprygin tore the camera out of his hands, breaking the lens in the process, pulled the memory card out of the slot, broke it and threw it on the ground.

The guards directed us to the police officers who were standing along the fences on Mokhovaya. We called a police officer, briefly explained the situation, and pointed out the attackers. The policeman took Shprygin out of the crowd, asked for his identification, Shprygin showed him the ID of an assistant deputy, said that he had not attacked anyone, and went back to the line. The police officers advised us to contact the Kitai-Gorod police station.

We turned to the policeman to copy down the information of the witness and the attackers. Then we took Shprygin and his friend out of the queue for the second time, and the police officer copied the data from the ID. Shprygin no longer denied the conflict and spoke to me: “Is the camera working?” I told him that he broke the lens and the card, to which he stated: “Well, I didn’t break it, I told you - don’t film me, that’s all!” To which I remarked to him: “An attack on a journalist is a criminal matter, do you understand?” In response: “I didn’t attack you guys, how am I to blame, why are you coming up to me in a crowd? And in general, I have two witnesses that I didn’t break it!”

I submitted an application to the Kitay-Gorod police station and returned with the district police officer to Central Manege. By that time (about an hour after the conflict) Shprygin had already left the event. He told the local police officer that he would come for questioning another day. The police seized my broken memory card and lens as evidence, and they also added audio recordings to the materials. At the moment, the investigation into the case has been extended to 30 days.

Gleb Limansky

He is Kamancha!

Alexander Shprygin, leader of football ultras, head of the All-Russian Fans Association

Vladimir Putin and Alexander Shprygin

“I have personally known Shprygin for decades. I can’t imagine him beating up any journalist. He is an extremely calm, well-mannered, good person,” this is how the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma reacted in the media Igor Lebedev on the actions of his assistant Alexander Shprygin towards Novaya Gazeta correspondent Gleb Limansky. What was it really: hooliganism, abuse of power, or Article 144 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Obstruction of the legitimate professional activities of journalists...” (up to six years, by the way)? Law enforcement agencies are conducting an investigation into this case. And there are strong suspicions that they will try to hush up Shprygin’s attack on the correspondent, since his patrons are too powerful.

Although... We have also known Alexander Shprygin for decades. He is also known under the nickname Kamancha in football-related movements and nationalist groups. Even using open sources, you can significantly enrich the image of a “calm, well-mannered, good person”...

Alexander Shprygin (right) with a Wehrmacht submachine gun - "Schmeisser"

IN LDPR Alexander Shprygin came in 1998 as Kamanchey - one of the leaders of the Moscow Dynamo fan movement, who was kept on a pencil by the Moscow police. Having joined the party ranks, Kamancha did not give up football - on the contrary, having acquired a title as an assistant to a deputy, he, having relatively protected himself from law enforcement agencies, developed active activity in the field of ultras. Apparently, because of this, he was forgiven for the cover of one of the fanzines, published in the same year, in the form of a montage with Adolf Hitler and the emblem of the SS division “Totenkopf”. Even in the well-known media, Shprygin’s position was sometimes voiced such as: “All fans like the idea of ​​white power and do not like the wrong migration policy of the state” or “I would like there to be Slavic faces in the national team.”

His political career developed in parallel with his football career. If in the LDPR Shprygin rose to become an assistant to the head of the LDPR faction Lebedev, then the peak of his fan career came in 2005, when he became president of the All-Russian Association of Fans (VOB), which he is to this day. His appointment to the post of the country's main fan was not prevented even by the fact that he spent a year in the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center for a fight in the apartment of his “former” best friend Sergei Troitsky, the leader of the Metal Corrosion group. The case eventually fell apart: the prosecutor’s office was never able to prove the accusation — and was finally closed in 2008, when Shprygin was already the head of the VOB.

Sergei Troitsky and Alexander Shprygin (right)

P.S. Elections are approaching, and against this background, informal “state institutions” are becoming more active: shady assistants, publicized activists, criminal bikers. Everyone strives to contribute to the “fight against sedition.”

But everything must be according to the law. We demand the initiation of a criminal case under Article 144 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Source: "Novaya Gazeta", 05/18/2016

Near-football "feeder" Kamancha

Accomplice Katanaev (Kombat): how Alexander Shprygin “multiplied” at the head of the All-Russian Association of Fans

I decided to write this material at the big request of people close to me. It was planned to be in the book that I want to publish for the 10th anniversary of Fratria at the end of this year, but my colleagues convinced me to do it separately in order to finally dot the i’s. Why didn’t I write and publish this before? There are several reasons. Firstly, I have no one to justify myself to - my friends and inner circle already know it all, and I didn’t see any point in proving something to someone unknown. Secondly, until the last moment I doubted whether it was necessary to bring all this information to the public eye - I was sure that in the 5 years that I had been outside the Spartak movement, everyone would forget about me and I would be of no interest to anyone, but time passes, and rumors and the speculation around my person not only does not subside, but only multiplies. And so, my comrades convinced me to post this material in order to answer everyone’s questions and finally close this topic.

The topic of what happened in the winter of 2009-2010.

The All-Russian Association of Fans (VOB) was created in the spring of 2007. At that time, the organization’s presidium included all the real leaders of the country’s leading fan movements. The “conditionally neutral” Shprygin (Kamancha) was elected president. If there had been a person from Spartak, the horses would not have accepted him; if from the horses, I would never have agreed with this. And so - the option where the nominal president from Dynamo, on the right hand is Spartak, and on the left - CSKA, suited everyone.

The management and decision-making scheme at VOB looked like this - strategically everything was decided by the three of us - Kamancha, Max Rabik and me. Next came a slightly more expanded composition in the person of Andrei Batumsky, who at that time worked as the press attache of the RFU, maintaining direct communication with the leadership of Russian football and the leader of the Lokomotiv movement, Sergei Latysh. It was not difficult for our trio to convince the two of them of something, especially since we never did anything bad - we simply came up with new topics for the benefit of all movements, quickly received the consent of the others and implemented them.

The primary task - to raise the prestige of the national team, fill the stadium stands at home matches and arrange colorful performances at the national team's games - was completed quite quickly. We did this with joy, having extensive experience behind us at our club level. I won’t speak for the others, but I, like Fratria, was really “sick” about this topic! I was constantly coming up with something, new performances, organizing trips, new exercises for the national team, contacts with partners, attracting sponsors - I really liked all of this and was truly a gem. The three of us constantly communicated - we met in the office, had dinner in restaurants, went to the countryside for barbecues, and this was the key to the success of VOB at that time - there was trust between us. Fragile, but trusting.

But the main thing is that our movements benefited most from this cooperation within the framework of the VOB. We resolved all problems with the administrations of stadiums, cities, and police wherever our teams played. We carried out titanic work and our movements were really at the top not just in Russia, but throughout Europe! Now we can say this with confidence.

In 2009, the delicate balance of our mutual trust began to crumble. Several times during the year we openly accused Kamancha of dishonesty - incomprehensible money transactions, separate meetings with some high-ranking people, and every time we raised these issues in our narrow circle - he made surprised eyes, said that you were imagining all this, and if you want accuse me of something - prove it. We simply could not prove anything without real levers to manage the organization - access to accounts, accounting (Kamanchin was the accountant) and everything else. All this was superimposed on Max and I’s open dissatisfaction with the fact that nothing was happening with the organization itself - it was not developing.

Yes, we filled the stadiums at the national team, yes, we staged beautiful performances, yes, we organized trips, but what about the other questions? They hung like a dead weight - membership and the loyalty system and the legal service and a bunch of other topics that had long been invented, planned, but not implemented. And most importantly, nothing was done to implement them. By the fall of 2009, Max and I decided to replace Kamancha as president of the VOB.

I was then 26 years old, behind me, as I thought, stood the strongest movement in the country and one of the strongest in Europe. All this time, the wind always blew favorably for me, despite all the difficulties that I had overcome by that time. I was full of strength, energy and self-confidence. It didn’t seem difficult for me to replace Kalancha - after all, the truth was definitely behind us. We prepared very poorly for the “coup”, one might say, we practically did not prepare. And the most important matches of the national team lay ahead. On October 10, 2009, Russia played Germany at home. The most important game and if we had won, we would have qualified directly for the World Cup in Brazil. The excitement around the match is colossal. Putin and Merkel were supposed to attend the game, but in the end they were not, but Medvedev, the German ambassador and other top officials of the country filled the Luzhniki presidential box to capacity. When such important matches happen, and even with such an important opponent, there is always an incredible rush for football tickets. Here we need to make a small digression and talk about the tickets that VOB sold.

The VOB podium was always behind the gates. We divided it proportionally between all Russian movements and almost never refused anyone - there are a lot of tickets, Luzhniki can accommodate almost 20 thousand behind the gates and all movements received as much as they asked for. For Spartak, I always took from two to three Luzhniki sectors. We always officially received a commission from the RFU from all tickets sold. According to the official agreement, they received their small agent percentage absolutely legally. This money went into our movements. I can’t say who spent it and on what, I can only speak for myself and for the Spartak movement - we were all aware of this. The entire council of Fratria always knew how many tickets I took for the national team and how much money we received from them. Since there was never any money in Fratria, this commission immediately went to our own performances, to pay for the office, to pay off debts and other expenses that we constantly incurred. The tickets that I picked up for the movement were first divided between our football-related companies, ultra organizations and simply informal associations of fans, and only then were put on open sale. I always tried to treat everyone absolutely equally - I was not a member of any company or organization and was equidistant from everyone, but at the same time Union always thought that I communicated more with the Alliance, and the Alliance always believed that I was closer to Union and I sympathize with them more. In reality, both were equal for me - the only ones I really empathized with and constantly tried to give more tickets to were the young ultras. There were several reasons for this. Unlike football-related companies, they did not sell their tickets to hucksters and did not replenish their common fund due to this. During the hype matches, official teams sold 50 to 100% of their tickets to hucksters. Everyone knew this very well and this situation existed in all movements. This was no secret to anyone. But I also couldn’t refuse to satisfy their requests, so cutting them down as much as possible, constantly hearing people say “I’m crazy,” I tried to give more tickets to young ultras who regularly went to matches and made a fool of themselves - We had to support the team somehow! That is, VOB tickets for the national team were first divided between the main fan movements of the country, which occupied the central sectors behind the gates, stirred up performances and organized support for the team. Next came the regions, whose requests we also always satisfied almost 100%, since they had tiny requests for dozens of tickets. Next came our friends and partners, who helped us in our work and whom we always helped with tickets, and we simply sold the rest through the office. There were always about 20-30% of the total leftovers - in the entire history of VOB - there were only two super-hype matches - Russia - England in 2007, where we deprived half of the hucksters of tickets for the game and in the end I quickly left for the army, and Max a few I lived in Turkey for months while the issue was being resolved here. And this game with the Germans. Why am I telling all this? There are a number of important points here that will greatly influence both my fate and the fate of the movement.

The excitement around the match with the Germans was enormous. Simply colossal. The commercial director of the RFU, Pyotr Makarenko, who, after the same match with the British in 2007, without any hesitation, arrived in a brand new blue Bentley literally a week after the game, smiling modestly and rubbing his hands. The RFU put a lot of pressure on us to put half of our tickets on public sale. On the one hand, we were torn apart by our movements, where each party sent me applications from the series - Alliance - 500 tickets, Union - 350, etc., despite the fact that both of them had never taken more than 200-250 before)) ) On the other hand, there was pressure from the RFU, which leaked most of their tickets to huckster agencies, and for the right picture and for journalists, they had to show that fans have the opportunity to buy tickets to the game. Superimposed on all this was the preparation of a large-scale performance for the entire stadium. We only dreamed of peace.

A couple of weeks before we received the tickets, Kamancha suggested that I lose a couple of thousand to hucksters and make money. In all the time of our communication, this was the first and only time. I am ready to swear on the Bible that during the entire time that I was in the fan movement, I did not leak a single Spartak ticket or a single national team ticket to the hucksters. This fateful match with Germany was the first and the last. And so, I heard this proposal in the VOB office, looked at Rabik sitting next to him - Maxim, in his unique manner of God's dandelion, smiled modestly and I agreed. The following scheme was invented - we announce a lottery. Anyone registers on the site, receives a serial number, after which we hold a drawing and randomly select about 4,000 thousand lucky ones. Here I will note again - these were purely VOB tickets, our movements had already received their standard quota by that time, and we always sold these tickets directly through the office. It was decided to lose half of the raffled tickets to the hucksters. In order to avert the slightest suspicion, everyone registered on the newly created fanat.ru portal owned by Championship.com and the draw was carried out by them - the General Director of the Championship, Dima Austrian, was also in on it. Moreover, he was supposed to become the future president of the VOB, although neither Kamancha nor he himself knew about this yet. We have not yet had an open war with Kamancha, and I have just begun to process the Austrian for a future post. Thus, everyone was in the black - we would openly sell several thousand tickets, the Fan.ru portal received several tens of thousands of registrations within literally a week, journalists who came to the drawing received a beautiful picture with queues for tickets and a transparent drawing - the RFU was satisfied, and we Each earned about one million rubles. The whole secret was in the winning numbers - we bet on the standard inattention of people. We really registered everyone, we really assigned numbers to everyone, we really entered all the numbers into the computer, pressed the magic button in front of the journalists under the cameras and held a drawing. And we actually received more than four thousand winning numbers. It’s true that no one bothered to check further - all the numbers that were drawn were drawn twice. That is, each number was duplicated and instead of more than four thousand, two thousand actually won. Who received their tickets, and the rest went to the left to hucksters.

I dwelled on this episode in great detail for only one reason - this was the only time in my entire life when I took part in such a fraud, and in the future it will have its say.

We lost the match with the Germans. The last game in Baku, in Azerbaijan, where I simply took my friends at my own expense (this money came to me so easily, so easily and quickly I parted with it) did not solve anything. We had play-offs with the Slovenes coming up. The first game was at home and again at Luzhniki. This was a month later, November 14, 2009. There was no longer any excitement here - Luzhniki was half empty and these tickets were “chew your ass”. We distributed tickets according to the standard scheme and sold a certain number of them through our movements. But we couldn’t even sell our stand outside the gates - people were very disappointed in the national team and no one wanted to go to the stadium to watch football, freezing in mid-November. At the same time, I regularly sold my Spartak quota and took the money to the VOB minus our standard commission, which then amounted to about 600 thousand rubles. And then Kamancha began to push the topic to me, saying that the RFU does not pay VOB a commission for this match, because few tickets were sold and we did not even sell our entire stand. Like, take the commission to the cashier too. To which I sent him away and said that this is the money of our movement, we sold all our tickets and have a legal right to our commission and that if anyone from the RFU has questions about this, let them call me. And then I made another mistake - I sent Kamanche an SMS saying that we already knew everything about this. I lied - we weren’t all in the know, since there had not yet been a gathering within the movement, and this one unfortunate SMS would later play a role. And a couple of weeks later, on November 29, there was an enchanting game of Spartak in St. Petersburg. It was memorable, first of all, for the fact that our entire squad did not make it to the game due to a beautiful passage in St. Petersburg wearing masks. Yes, yes - all these masks and much more for this match were bought, including with this money. Buses were organized and other things were paid for.

For this topic, I received two days of administrative arrest in court and slept in a cell for two days.

And then December came. And active actions began to overthrow Kamancha from the VOB throne. The plan was as simple as five kopecks and looked something like this - “well, Max and I will push, our movements will support us, the rest will also take our side, the new president will be an Austrian, the social network fana.ru with almost 80 thousand registered users becomes ours the main resource and we are taking the organization to a fundamentally new level of development.” Yes - everything was just that naive and simple. After all, the truth was behind us...

We knew that Kamancha had some connections and patrons among our special services. We didn’t understand how much he was patronized by the Minister of Sports Mutko. Therefore, we were afraid to push ourselves directly and were looking for serious support. At first we tried to get it from Mutko - we went to his ministry several times, met and talked. We openly stated our position, said why we are not satisfied with Shprygin, why we want to replace him and what will happen after that. Mutko’s reaction can be briefly described as follows: “do what you want, just don’t touch me, I don’t care who your president will be.” At the same time, we worked within our movements - I carefully met with all the leaders of our official collectives and ALL assured me of support. Rabik achieved the most important thing - the unconditional support of Yaroslavka, in 2009 this was more than enough for the horse movement. They were aware of Jugent, but were a little distant, while they openly did not like Rabik, because all the benefits went to Yaroslavka, and they got the crumbs. In general, I had an even relationship with everyone, I didn’t reveal all my cards to anyone (which was also my mistake), but at the same time I received verbal support from the Union and from the Alliance and from the School and from the old people in the person of KVO and MB . Within the VOB itself, we immediately won over Lokomotiv to our side; Batumsky took the longest time to make up his mind and, in general, expressed sound, balanced concerns, but when Rabik received support from Yaroslavka, he also stood with us. The last vote of a member of the Central Council - Vasya Petrakov from Torpedo in this context was no longer very important, so Vasya was simply confronted with a fact and he signed a formal piece of paper where all members of the Central Council of the VOB insist on changing the president and holding an extraordinary conference on this matter.

In addition to purely fan matters, we were also looking for administrative support. We found her in the person of two people from the Presidential Administration with whom Styopa Grib brought us together. They supervised the fan topic, were aware of all the plans and expressed their unconditional support for us by starting to help with lawyers and preparing documents for our extraordinary congress. All these events happened in just a month. Everything was so fast, everything changed so quickly that now I can’t even believe it. But in reality, all the events described are just the end of December 2009 - January 2010.

Before the open phase of our conflict, the three of us met Kamancha for the last time - Rabik, me and Kamancha. We met in a cafe on Prospekt Mira - the situation was tense to the limit. Everyone already understood everything, but it was not said openly yet. At the meeting, we suggested that Sasha calmly resign from the post of president, otherwise, we will do it as we see fit. He did not accept our ultimatum and said “let’s fight.” On this we parted ways.

Next came our attack on Shprygin. Direct, open, dashing - checkers drawn, brave, in general. We unleashed a barrage of attacks on him in the media - we had all the sports media and the future president of the VOB, an Austrian, coordinated the work with them. All the country's sports media wrote about Shprygin's replacement, about the extraordinary VOB conference, and at the same time completely ignored him. The only resource that Kamancha had left was the VOB website - it was put up with the help of our friends from the presidential administration. When he published a statement on the RFU website, they also shut down the RFU website, which had not worked for almost a week, and Mutko yelled that we were completely stupid and that the RFU website should be quickly restored.

An extraordinary conference was scheduled for January 30, 2010; a sufficient number of delegates from all our regions were supposed to fly to it to make a legitimate decision on the re-election of the president of the organization. We paid for the entire event ourselves - the Austrian gave the money and we ourselves covered tickets, accommodation and other organizational expenses for all delegates. But since we were complete idiots and had no experience in all these dirty behind-the-scenes games, we did not calculate at all and did not even think about what Shprygin would do in response. And in mid-January we met with him again - by that time we had an overwhelming advantage on all fronts and Sasha looked depressed. And at this meeting we came to an agreement! We agreed that he sits quietly until April, when we are supposed to have a planned, annual conference, and already at this conference, he voluntarily leaves his post and we elect an Austrian as the new president. It was a victory.

That same evening, Max and I, joyful, met with Grib and two people from the AP and at this meeting, completely unexpectedly for us, Mitryushin appeared, who had never appeared anywhere before! At first this bothered us, but Mitryushin immediately promised Max to “close the issue with the Yugents” and help us in every possible way. Well, we tell everyone that this is how it is, we agreed with Kamancha, everything is fine, and in a couple of months we will officially change it at the annual conference.

And here comes a topic that I still don’t have an answer to. These characters from the Presidential Administration sharply, without objection, insist that this is all complete nonsense and in two months everything can be turned upside down and that we must act according to the previously developed plan and hold a conference on January 30th. Nobody wanted to listen to any arguments - either January 30th, or “do everything yourself.” I remember very well how much it stressed me then - I could not understand the logic of this decision and my whole insides resisted such a turn. But after the meeting, I called Kamancha and said that our daily agreements were cancelled, we were holding the conference now and changing it now. The clock was ticking the countdown tick-tock tick-tock... For Kamancha it was a severe blow then. And if it weren’t for his closest ally Bykovsky, I think he would have accepted defeat. But the older comrade did not let him fall and they began to practice their game - that is, to drain EVERYTHING that was in the VOB. It was the twentieth of January, the phone was ringing off the hook - dozens of delegates from all over the country were flying to Moscow, it was necessary to organize a conference room, invite journalists, organize a bunch of events, prepare just piles of documents. We worked day and night with terrible nerves, and I gradually began to receive alarm bells... The Boxers were the first to call me - we met with Plus, with Fabio and with someone else, whom I simply don’t remember now. And at the meeting Plus tells me that Kamancha came to them and offered five thousand euros so that the Boxers would dump me from VOB! We then laughed with them, saying how cheaply he values ​​me, but they told me, “be careful, Kamancha works for you, and not everyone in the movement loves you like we do.” Looking ahead, I will say that he also offered money to other people in our movement for me - I don’t know whether they took it or not, but only the Boxers told me about it. I didn’t attach absolutely any importance to it then - I was so confident in my own abilities, that these attempts of Kamancha seemed funny to me. On January 28, Roma Kolyuchy calls me and says we need to meet. We meet in the evening of the same day at their base. And the base of the Alliance then was the office of the OUR movement, which they guarded and through which they stirred up their topics. And so I come to Belorusskaya, to the office of OURS, the young Alliance is everywhere on guard, I go up to the hall on the second floor - Roma Kolyuchy, Vasya Killer, Ilyusha Ninja and Kiril Kerensky are waiting for me there. So and so - we have information, they say, do you want to tell us anything about VOB? At first I didn’t understand what the joke was, until Vasya nervously took out of his pocket a previously prepared piece of paper on which a number was written - one and a half million rubles. “That’s exactly how much you got from tickets at VOB - we know for sure!” Vasily blurted out to me. Here I begin to understand that Kamancha leaked this whole topic with Germany to them, but in what context I did not understand and therefore said that this is complete nonsense and either show evidence or goodbye. I understood perfectly well that they couldn’t have any evidence other than Kamancha’s words and, naturally, they didn’t have any. The conversation was generally very strange with a lot of omissions; it ended with Kolyuchy proposing to organize a general meeting tomorrow before the VOB conference. With that, we shook hands. The next day, a meeting of the Council of Phratria was held. Literally a couple of hours before the training camp, Kiril Moskal called me and said that we definitely need to meet before the training camp. The gathering was in our Hardcore pub on Chistye Prudy and Moskal and I met right on the road on Sakharov Avenue. They didn't talk for long - literally five minutes. Kiril decided to warn me that at the training camp I would be “cut down from the VOB.” At first I didn’t understand what he meant - then all these meetings, all the calls, really seemed like nonsense to me - my brain was on a completely different plane, I was thinking about completely different things and to imagine that a movement (any one) could kill its representative in At that time, it was simply impossible! So that everyone understands, the Council of Fratria never discussed VOB’s affairs! NEVER! At all the Councils, I spoke briefly about what was happening, they discussed tickets, discussed departure (especially when it came to freebies) - but no one ever got into it, no one cared!

And so I come to Hardcore for the training camp. To be honest, such a representative composition of meat was assembled only once before - on the day when they decided to make Fratria five years ago. The focus was then on me, and today, January 29th, 2010, the only agenda was me.

When we all somehow sat down in a separate room where all our training took place, I was amazed and it was at that moment that it finally dawned on me what was happening. Absolutely everyone was there! Even young ultras who had never participated in any Council were invited. The Professor was barking from the side, Prickly was broadcasting. He took out his phone and showed me the same SMS that I sent to Kamanche that I had taken a commission from tickets for the match with Slovenia! Kamancha sent this SMS to Roma and do you know what the motive was for me?! Attention! I was told that I did not have the right to dispose of this common money at my own discretion! At that moment everything in me exploded and I lost my mind! I just started yelling that you are all crazy and why the hell even allow yourself to make such claims to me! Here I have to make another, small digression.

Since the founding of Fratria, for five years, the entire common fund of the organization has always been with me! All Phratrian money always went through me! For all five years, for all the time that we met dozens of times, NOT ONCE, NOT ONE PERSON asked me a single question about money! Do you know why?! Because Fratria never had them!!! We always didn’t have enough money for anything!!! During all the time I ruled Fratria, the club never helped us. Everything we did, everything we did, everything we achieved was done at our own expense! Where did they come from? Good luck to the world! That's it literally! At first we made a markup of 50 rubles on tickets, then, when I could no longer tolerate the constant attacks and accusations of ticket huckstering, we actively began organizing trips, sometimes earning something from the buses, and sometimes even going into the red. Then we made membership, started collecting money from firms and initiative groups - all firms chipped in at five thousand rubles a month, and initiative groups at three thousand. And do you know how it happened? Well, when I finally pestered someone over the phone, the leaders of the companies brought me debts for 2-3 months. Only Vasya Killer always delivered on time. All the rest - until you call a hundred times. Then they began to develop the store, but it was still very far from profit. Some of our performances cost more than a million rubles! There was never enough money for anything! Everyone knew about this very well, everyone was aware of it, and everyone always preferred to pretend that everything was fine - the battalion commander would resolve the issue anyway. And the Battalion Commander solved the problems - he constantly invested his money, ran around among businessmen who supported Spartak, begging them like a beggar for money for performances, looked for sponsors, negotiated with companies on the lowest prices, contacted manufacturers directly in order to purchase everything necessary as cheaply as possible! And sometimes he simply wrote promissory notes, received fabric or paint, and paid later when the money appeared. [...]

Now imagine my state when I’ve been sleeping 4-5 hours a day for the last couple of weeks, I’m all on my nerves with the VOB conference, which is supposed to take place tomorrow, and they present me with the fact that the money that I pulled out of the VOB (!) was brought to I didn’t have the right to spend my money (!) as I saw fit! All five years before I had the right, but now I don’t, and due to the “loss of trust,” as they say now, I can no longer represent the interests of Spartak in the VOB.

That's the whole result of this collection.

And here is the official statement of Fratrius on this matter, which I also wrote, like all previous statements of the movement:

Lately there have been a lot of rumors and gossip around the situation in and around the All-Russian Fans Association. As a result, many fan movements in the country were drawn into the conflict.

Today there was a meeting of the leaders of the Spartak fan movement. ALL Spartak associations and blocs were represented. The current situation around the PSA was examined in detail and a unified position on everything that was happening was developed.

I have been instructed to present it:

The current president of the VOB, Shprygin Alexander, bears full responsibility for the current situation and, as having failed in his duties, must immediately leave his post.

The Central Council, as the main governing body of the PSB, is also responsible for everything that happens and must resign in its entirety.

A reporting and election conference of the PSB should be held in the near future.

Due to the fact that Ivan Katanaev, as a member of the Central Council of the VOB, is involved in this conflict, until the current situation is resolved, the position of the Spartak fan movement will be represented by Ilya Novikov.

Ilya Novikov, this is Ilya Ninja from Kabanov, this pseudonym was invented for him right at the training camp. This was an official statement, but unofficially we agreed that I would prepare a report on the money, report to the meeting and all issues would be closed. That evening it was just a huge blow for me. I simply took it as a stab in the back from my own movement. Let me remind you that all this happened exactly on the eve of the announced conference! The very next morning there was this VOB conference. I didn't sleep all night. I just lay in some kind of prostration, lay there until 6 in the morning, took a shower, got dressed and went to the Belgrade hotel, where our conference was held. Not only was I the host, I had to give out a million more interviews, sign a bunch of papers and everything else. I conducted the conference purely automatically. Kamancha at that time was sitting directly opposite the hotel in the IlPatio restaurant on Smolenka and nervously caught any news from there. We held a conference, but it didn’t matter. While fighting Kamancha, we did not think at all that a third force might appear that would enter into a fight with us and with him. And such a force, completely unexpectedly, appeared at the very last moment, when the Spartak Alliance decided to take the VOB for itself. After only six months, having dug deep into this and realizing that VOB is just an abbreviation, but in reality these are living people who made this organization successful and that nothing works without us - they will abandon this matter and completely anathematize VOB. But this will happen only in the summer, and for now it’s February. Having become agitated and somehow calmed down, I began to play the situation back. Moreover, everyone expressed support for me - like, come on, let's report and win it all back. At that meeting, it is worth saying that the absolute majority simply remained silent. No one opposed the Alliance, and with my hysteria I also did not give a reason to vote for myself. The only one who said words in my support was Kosoi from Union, the whole ultra was silent, it is understandable given such a composition of participants, the Alliance was sharply against me, Union, Boxers and the School were silent, the Professor barked, but he always barks and no one pays attention to it attention. That's how we made that decision. But a week later, everyone once again expressed support for me and said - let's get ready for the next training camp. And then a new blow - Rabik is cut down by horses! He was my ally, and those who are in the know understand perfectly well that he could also influence some topics in meat. And here the whole horse movement, which he lived by as much as I lived by Spartak, makes him anathema. A video was leaked online where he gets into someone’s car and allegedly leaks an internal story to the cops. I can’t help but tell you how this video appeared. The fact is that Rabik had one, but very strong problem - he was on all Interpol lists and travel abroad was prohibited for him. And knowing his connections with hooligans in Europe, knowing his desire to stir up topics in Europe and generally ride around Europe for CSKA - you can imagine how much this issue bothered him. Yes, he could not sleep peacefully trying to solve this issue by any means and disappear from these lists. And so Roma Kolyuchy suggested to him, a few months before our revolution, to resolve the issue using his connections, which by that time Roman actually had serious connections. Kolyuchy put him in the car where they recorded Rabik and Max, the fool, got hooked and got this video as a souvenir. There were no options here, and even his Yaroslavka, which he brought to the European top and in which he invested everything he had then, even they did not support him. The game was played. Both Rabik and I got our own movement at VOB in just one week. And Kamancha no longer interfered with the new representatives of our movements. They came to an agreement with him. But I was still in the game. Having lost the official support of his own movement, Kamancha unleashed his bull bandits on me, who tried to “talk” to me by catching me near my house. Like any bull bandits, they did it rather clumsily and ingenuously, never getting anywhere. I quite quickly prepared a report on all the finances of Fratria for almost the last six months, sat and waited for the next collection. You yourself understand where my mood and general state of mind was all this time. And so, the gathering was scheduled three weeks after the events described - February 22, 2010. Still the same Hardcore, still the same lineup. I arrived at half past seven, as usual, half an hour before the meeting. Usually everyone arrived at this time, ordered a pint of beer and at 8, without delay, the gathering began. And there was no one in Hardcore, my high spirits immediately disappeared, I ordered a pint of beer and waited. Twenty minutes to... fifteen minutes to eight - I started dialing numbers - no one is available. At exactly eight o'clock I realized that I had been leaked. All phones are turned off - everyone is inaccessible, which means that the gathering is taking place, but in a different place. You know, the next couple of hours were one of the hardest in my life - there was a pressing feeling of extreme disappointment. A feeling of betrayal that just tears you apart and you can't do anything. I don't care about my enemies, but my friends?! I talked to you on the phone this afternoon and we discussed today’s training camp! I was betrayed even by those whom I sincerely considered my friends, and this understanding simply destroyed everything alive in me. For two hours I couldn’t even drink one glass of beer - nothing would fit, there was a lump in my throat and there was complete devastation. I never expected this. This situation took me by surprise and I was completely unprepared for such a turn. At about 10 pm I left Hardcore and walked across half of Moscow towards home. I just wanted to go wherever my eyes looked without thinking about anything. The first call came to me at the beginning of the twelfth night - Poodle called. Sorry, he says, the Alliance, literally a few hours before the meeting, moved the meeting place from Hardcore to Small Pub, they said that I should not be at the meeting under any circumstances, like we are discussing VOB affairs, and, they say, we will discuss me later. I hung up the phone silently. [...]

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