Dynamo Moscow : is there a future?

Just look at the picture to the left of this post.  Recognise it?  If you love gymnastics, or are interested in Russian sport, chances are you will know it as the logo of the Dynamo Sports Society, one of the most important sports bodies in Russia and the former Soviet Union.  People all over the world are familiar with this logo, for its connections with not only gymnastics, but also football, athletics and many other sports.

Dynamo Gymnastics - in particular Moscow Dynamo, the focus of this story - is associated with some of the best gymnastics the world has ever seen.  The club’s rich heritage includes multiple World and Olympic Champions, for example, 1984 Alternative Olympics Champion Olga Mostepanova and 1988 Olympic Champion Sergei Kharkov.  Today, several members of the national team train there and, looking to the future, there is a vibrant children's programme.  

However, this heritage – and the potential to create more champions – is currently under threat as Dynamo Moscow's gymnastics programme moves right across Russia’s capital city to a temporary facility,  to make way for a major refurbishment of the site it has occupied for many years.  In the process the Voronin Cup, one of gymnastics fans favourite Russian competitions, may not take place this year.  This post provides the details of that move, attempts to contextualise it in terms of the relevant sporting history, and asks the question : can Dynamo Moscow survive in today’s Russia? 

Dynamo and Dynamo Moscow : a little history
 
A paramilitary sports organisation, the All Union Physical Culture and Sports Society Dynamo was founded in 1923 and was the largest and richest of the Soviet Union's sports societies.  It was specifically established for the staff of the interior agency and border guards and as recently as 1977 was under the control of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Committee on State Security (KGB) (Riordan, 1977).  However, this fact was not widely known to those living outside Russia and the former Soviet Union, and for followers of gymnastics, the brightest Dynamo imagery was the athletes themselves, for example Liudmilla Tourischeva, Sergei Kharkov,  Olga Mostepanova and Elvira Saadi.

Gymnasts of the Dynamo Sports Society  in 1970: ?, Zinaida Druzhinina-Voronina, Tatiana Schegolkova,  Elvira Saadi, Ludmilla Tourischeva, Rusudan Sikharulidze, Tamara Lazakovitch.  Courtesy of Novosti

Today, the Dynamo Society continues its work in gymnastics across the Russian Federation.  Seven of the 28 members of the senior national team listed on the Russian Gymnastics Federation website train at Dynamo clubs from different parts of the country.  Dynamo Siberia is especially strong in men's gymnastics: European Champion David Belyavsky trains at their facility in Ekaterinburg, for example, while Nikita Ignatyev works out at Dynamo Leninsk-Kuznetsk.

And then there is the historic Dynamo Moscow gymnastics club, which for many years has occupied a small part of a multi-sports facility that included an arena, once home to the famous Dynamo Moscow football club.  Followers of Russian gymnastics are familiar with Dynamo Moscow as the location of the annual Voronin Cup, always one of the most eagerly anticipated competitions on the Russian gymnastics calendar.  The club was the focus of one of the best known Soviet gymnastics documentaries, 'Will You Come to the Ball?' (1987), and its reputation has inspired international friendship through partnerships and exchange programmes with gyms overseas.  

2012 Olympian, and 2013 European High Bar champion Emin Garibov trained here, as well as four members of the current junior national team.  They are part of a proud Dynamo Moscow dynasty of fine gymnasts, drawing inspiration from their antecedents, some of whom still work here as coaches.  1984 Alternative Olympics Champion, Olga Mostepanova, works here now as a children's coach.  1988 Olympic Floor Champion, Sergei Kharkov, trained here with coach Dmitri Derzhavin (who was also instrumental in the early career of 2012 Olympian, Denis Ablyazin).   There should be a blue plaque on the wall, commemorating their heroic efforts, and the buildings should be listed, protected from demolition.   This is hallowed gymnastics ground.

Gymnastics, Soviet Russia, and Dynamo Moscow


Sport's revered position in Soviet society is evident at every turn when you consider Dynamo's history.  At the nearby Dynamo Metro Station, specially built to provide easy access to the club, sport is commemorated in every corner; there is even a plaque to gymnastics, high on the ceiling of that amazing, highly decorated place.  (Metro stations are about more than utility in Moscow; you should take a holiday there, and make a point of touring the Metro lines, just to enjoy the splendour of some of the architecture.)

Dynamo, its sporting prowess and its amazing metro station are all part of the cultural legacy of the Soviet Union.  And, like it or not, Russia's current sporting success is ground in the structures and values of the former Soviet Union.  This is not something that everyone in Russia feels comfortable with, and perhaps some people would rather try to forget.  The sport of artistic gymnastics, too, is something that many Russians strongly associate with the Soviet era.  The very shape of the sport was the domain of the Soviet Union for over 40 years.  The special flavour that Soviet Russia brought to gymnastics is kept alive in the public imagination by the gymnastics fans who post all those videos of Soviet gymnastics on Youtube, but is perhaps more loved overseas than in Russia.  Still, Russia's gymnasts still today retain that most special attitude that marks them out as artistic gymnasts; that impractical way of valuing beauty more than utility, of elevating the physical to the spiritual, of possessing the ethos of physical culture as a notion superior to the merely competitive rules of sport.  These thoughts and feelings pervaded gymnastics rules for several decades during the twentieth century, and were grounded in a philosophy that was developed by the Soviet Union, but Russian to its very core (you can read more about this in a recent post on this blog all about the cultural identity of gymnastics).  Yet it seems that fewer and fewer people in Russia want to watch gymnastics, or to participate in the sport …

Sport as economic development, and the contribution of artistic gymnastics

Russia's greatest cultural efforts are always grand in scale and aspiration; why else would they name their leading Moscow ballet theatre 'Bolshoi' (big)?  There are echoes of the giant aspirations of the Soviet Union's sports machine in Russia's current efforts to expand and improve sport's influence on society.  Today, though, the huge investments focus more on a desire for infrastructure and economic development than on the political advantages sought during Soviet rule.  For example, to accommodate the Universiade in Kazan, the Russian government, backed up with investment from corporate sponsors and individual philanthropists, has built roads, an airport and Europe's newest rapid transit system, its own Metro.  It is hoped that these facilities will help to encourage business and tourism in the area (Kazan is a beautiful, historic city that possesses all the potential to be an amazing tourism destination, for example the Kazan Kremlin is a UNESCO World Heritage Site).

These developments are but part of a strategy of investment that is ongoing in sport and in Russian society at present.  You must have noticed - first the Universiade, this summer the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Moscow; then the Sochi Winter Olympics, next year.  Russia's first modern Formula 1 Grand Prix in the same year, and then the Football World Cup in 2018.  St Petersburg has put itself forward as a candidate city for the 2028 Olympic Games.  All of these mega-events are supported by massive, inconceivably costly, development.  

Within gymnastics, the strategy has involved encouragement of sporting excellence and winning top medals for publicity and profile, exploiting that Russian character and artistry that is unique to their artistic gymnasts.  Investment has been required to upgrade facilities, and there have been regular stories in the Russian press of newly opened gymnasia across the country, including one in Voronezh, home to Olympic medallist Viktoria Komova and another in Khimki, close to Moscow, which replaces the old gym where Olympians Ksenia Semenyova and Ksenia Afanasyeva once trained (Tula).  Siberian gymnastics has benefitted to the point that their men's programme is now one of the strongest in the country.   Many, if not most, of these facilities are paid for by the Russian government, and by VTB Bank, one of the world’s largest banks, of which approximately 70 per cent is owned by the Russian government.  Andrei Kostin, President and Chairman of VTB, is also President of the Russian Gymnastics Federation. 

Artistic gymnastics is a sport of strategic importance to VTB's publicity

You cannot fail to have seen VTB Bank's special sports website where they publicise their philanthropic investment in the fantastic facilities at the National Training Centre, Ozero Krugloye (Round Lake) which make it one of the best provisioned gymnastics training centres in the world.  Many of the national team members spend the majority of their time there, meaning that the national coaches can manage their lifestyle as well as their preparation.  The medical facilities are top notch and have made it possible to rehabilitate injured gymnasts, eg this week's Universiade all around champion, Nikolai Kuksenkov.  The Russian government expects paybacks for its investment in terms of World and Olympic medals; and the glamour, élan and positive moral associations of sporting excellence are beneficial to VTB’s corporate image.

As part of its overall support of Russian sport, VTB has also been involved in a $1.5 billion project to develop a multi-sports arena on the site of the old Dynamo stadium which was demolished in 2008.  Dynamo Moscow gymnastics occupies a building on this site.  The new 45,000 capacity stadium will no doubt provide a highlight venue for the upcoming football World Cup and eventually become known as a Moscow landmark.  It is necessary for Russia to make these improvements and investments to be able to compete in the international tourism market, but with such large scale changes comes sacrifice.  The old has to make way for the new.  In East London’s Stratford, many businesses were swept away as the brand new Olympic facilities were installed; these things happen everywhere.

The impossible sacrifice : can Dynamo Moscow survive?

In this case, one sacrifice, and it seems a particularly hard one, is that Dynamo Moscow gymnastics club has been forced to close its doors while further redevelopment takes place, and has no definite schedule for a return to the traditional location of its home (3 or 4 years at least is the most precise estimate anyone can give, with an aside that there are no guarantees).  As a result, the annual Voronin Cup competition, a favourite of many fans internationally, looks unlikely to be staged this year.  The temporary facilities allocated to the club, at the Olympiski Stadium on Prospekt Mira, are too small to accommodate all of the club's equipment, there is no pit, and its elite gymnasts and coaches have been migrated to train permanently at the national training centre in Ozero Krugloye.  The children's programme this year will not be able to recruit new gymnasts, and existing club members are severely inconvenienced by the need to commute for 60 to 90 minutes to reach the new facilities, which are right on the opposite side of Moscow.  The proud heritage of Moscow Dynamo is wilting somewhat, and with all that money flying around you have to wonder why something better wasn't found for them.  VTB are even selling naming rights to the new Arena, to make some money on their investment; so it is hard to see how the name of Dynamo might live on at this site.  This, of course, is another hard reality of a capitalist society – money rules. 

It is a paradox that while capital investment in the top level of the sporting infrastructure is so strong, a fundamental part of the grass roots of the sport is being so cruelly neglected.  Russia's national head coach Andrei Rodionenko has repeatedly highlighted low participation at a grassroots level as an underlying reason for the relative lack of strength in depth in the senior national teams.  Moscow, where the local government 'kept the faith' during the fallow years of sports investment prior to the 2008 Olympics, has been relatively immune to some of these problems, and has retained much of its gymnastics strength.  Three members of the women's team at the 2012 Olympics represent Moscow each year at the Russian national championships, and two or three are again expected to join the four-strong team for the World Championships in the autumn of 2013.  Much in Russian gymnastics depends on Moscow's continued commitment and success in identifying and developing eager young gymnasts, so the effective closing down of one of its traditional powerhouses seems counter-intuitive.

I do not know what the cost to Dynamo Moscow is, of renting the facilities at Olympiski, but it must be considerable, surely unsustainable given the location and prestige of this venue.   I do know that Club President Andrei Zudin and his Finance Director are struggling with the figures, and I am not at all surprised. If the facilities at Olympiski are all but inadequate for the club to continue its full training operations there, a large scale, city centre stadium like the Olympiski seems even more inappropriate as the venue for a small, intimate competition like the Voronin Cup.  The UEG could barely fill half of it for the European Gymnastics Championships this spring, and I doubt it will be possible for Dynamo to earn costs back from ticket sales as I believe has been demanded.  So who on earth is proposing this impractical compromise?  Can’t something better be found?

Gymnastics as politics, and Russia's new capitalism

Gymnastics is a highly powered sport these days, subject to the influence not only of Government, but also of the immense sums of sponsorship money rolling out of VTB Bank, an organisation that, don't forget, is over 70 per cent owned by the Russian Government. I have mentioned before that it is VTB who are controlling the development project that has seen Dynamo booted out of its home.  It seems an uncomfortable arrangement to me, that the President of the Russian Gymnastics Federation is also President of their main sponsor, VTB.  Sponsorship is ‘an investment, in cash or in kind, in return for access to the exploitable commercial potential associated with that activity’ (Meanaghan, 1991: 36).  In other words VTB’s sponsorship of Russian gymnastics is about more than philanthropy; there is an expectation of a financial return.  VTB President, Andrei Kostin,  is a highly distinguished economist with a strong background in diplomacy and finance, but his main interest must be making a profit, not promoting sport.   What brakes are there on the interests of the sponsor, if the sponsor calls all the shots? 

Of course there can be a virtuous cycle of benefit to both sponsor and sponsored body, if the relationship between money and sport is sensitively managed, but in this case sport, more specifically Dynamo Moscow, a central part of Moscow's strategy to grow young champions, is clearly losing out, to the detriment of the strategy to build grass roots participation that the National Head Coach says is so important to rebuild strength in depth lost in the years when sports investment was very little.  It is certain that hard decisions always have to be taken when such large-scale development takes place: you cannot make an omelette without cracking eggs.  But this particular hard decision, taken to ensure the future of the development, seems to undermine the interests of sport that the development was designed to benefit.

Can Dynamo Moscow survive this transition?  The interim arrangements made for it seem unsustainable, almost cynically impossible, and it is almost as if someone, somewhere, has taken the decision to let the Club wither on the vine.  Finding an appropriate interim location for the club has at least become a lost priority amongst all the complicated large-scale decision making involved in developing the brand spanking new complex that is so important to make VTB's investment worthwhile.  Keeping alive the name of Dynamo, a sporting institution so immersed in Soviet Russia’s communist history may also not be a priority for the capitalists of Russia.   

Tiny Dynamo Moscow gymnasts prepare for vault in 1980. 

Then again, these brave new Russians want to make money from gymnastics and if they want to do that, they need to encourage participation at grass roots level, and nurture it to a fine point.  This is something that Dynamo Moscow always did very well, so can a better arrangement be made? 

In Britain, the club would most probably independently seek new premises and try to shrug off the bonds of dependency that have led Dynamo to accept an unacceptable compromise from its paymasters.  But Russia is a developing economy, and the problems of operating as an independent enterprise are significant (Zaglada, 2010).  Thinking of the future of the Voronin Cup, the domestic market for gymnastics is niche, and the expense of travelling to Russia puts off all but the most determined international fans.  I doubt there were many more than one thousand paying spectators present at any one day of the European Championships in Moscow this spring, most of them former gymnasts, gymnast’s parents, or coaches.   The RGF must recognise these market limitations, and cannily uses the Burtasy School of Gymnastics, Penza, as a semi-regular venue for its national championships and the Russia Cup, because the local government there will let them use the gymnasium for free.   It leaves you wondering why they would offer such an obviously inappropriate venue for one of the few regularly held international competitions in Moscow, and one of their most valuable clubs.

Sadly, it seems that the interests of Dynamo Moscow, a club whose work has produced many Champions for Russia, have become lost in the complex and, perhaps, cynical decision making of corporate organisations and government departments.  All the interested parties seem open-eyed to the worldwide appeal of Russian gymnastics and its potential to make money.  But this is only the tip of the pyramid.  All Champions are only children, nurtured with the right encouragement and trained with the right skill.  For decades, Dynamo Moscow has nurtured and trained and produced Champion after Champion, helping them to climb the sides of that precipitous pyramid  Not many of them reach the top, and you need to begin with a large enough base to support the progress of the elite bunch who make it.  With the effective dismissal of Dynamo Moscow, a vital part of the pyramid has been encouraged to vanish.  A pragmatic decision, perhaps, but I hope that in the long term, the interests of gymnastics - and of a highly respected club that has produced so much good gymnastics - will not have lost out.

Some of Dynamo Moscow's famous gymnasts and coaches (date order; most important competitions only listed)

Olga Mostepanova, 1984 Alternative Olympics, coached by Vladimir Aksyonov
Sergei Kharkov, 1988 Olympics, coached by Dmitri Derzhavin and Vitaly Lomtev

Tatiana Groshkova, 1990 European Championships, coached by Elvira Saadi
Alexei Voropaev, 1992, 1996 Olympics, coached by Vitaly Lomtev
Oksana Fabrichnova, 1993, 1994 World Championships, coached by Lidia Gorbik-Tkacheva
Evgeny Shabaev, 1994 World Championships, coached by Vitaly Lomtev

Evgeniya Roschina, 1994 World Team Championships, coached by Natalia Tokareva

Liudmilla Ezhova, 2004, 2008 Olympics, coached by Nadezhda Selifanova-Galtsova
Nadezhda Ivanova, 2004 Junior European Championships
Emin Garibov, 2012 Olympian

References

Meanaghan, T (1991) 'The Role of Sponsorship in the Marketing Communication Mix' International Journal of Advertising 10 (1) 35-47

Riordan, J (1977) Sport in Soviet Society: Development of Sport and Physical Education in Russia and the USSR Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Zaglada, V (2010) One Coach's Journey from East to West: How the fall of the Iron Curtain changed the world of gymnastics Bloomington IN: Authorhouse

With many thanks to Vladimir Zaglada, who advised me on the internal operations of Dynamo Moscow, past and present.

Upcoming soon on RRG: an interview with Dynamo Moscow gymnast and coach, Olga Mostepanova, and a special feature on Dynamo's relationship with gymnastics clubs overseas!