Question for Moscow Hockey Fans

LoveHateLeafs

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Jul 7, 2009
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How do you(and Muscovites in general) decide which of the four Moscow-area KHL teams to support?

Is allegiance based on geography, with certain neighbourhoods tending to support a single team? Is it passed on from parent to child? Can fandom be tied to other unrelated things like religion, education level, ethnicity, or politics? Is it common for fans to switch allegiances based on which team is doing the best? Do people who move to Moscow from other parts of Russia generally start cheering for a Moscow team or do they stay loyal to their home team?
 

Section Netherlands

Registered User
Feb 8, 2019
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How do you(and Muscovites in general) decide which of the four Moscow-area KHL teams to support?
So, first thing, here the teams are represented in many sports. You cheer for your team in all sports, but genereally you have a favorite which you follow closely and the others not so much. Football is by far the most popular sport, hockey is second.
As I am not from Russia, I came here and picked a team. If a born Muscovite can answer too, it would be awesome :)

Is allegiance based on geography, with certain neighbourhoods tending to support a single team?
Not really based on geography like in other European cities, where the south can supprt one team and so one. But there is definitly some areas where one team is more popular than another. This goes for Spartak, CSKA and Dynamo. Podolsk is a city of its own and people who live generally support them. But there are many fans of the Moscow teams there as well.

Is it passed on from parent to child?
Yes, very much.

Can fandom be tied to other unrelated things like religion, education level, ethnicity, or politics?
Politics and economy, sort of. Many Russian clubs are the descendants of the old Soviet clubs, which were tied to some branch of Soviet society. Spartak was tied to the unions, being the "people's team", Dynamo being tied to the police, being the "police team", and CSKA was the Central Army Team, being the "army team". In general I would say that the "working class" supports Spartak, which is why they are the biggest team. CSKA could be considered more upper class, but really draws support from everywhere.

Is it common for fans to switch allegiances based on which team is doing the best?
I have never heard of this. You cheer for a team because it is your team, not because they are winning at the moment. Besides, this would mean everyone would cheer for CSKA, and thats a nope.

Do people who move to Moscow from other parts of Russia generally start cheering for a Moscow team or do they stay loyal to their home team?
Like with most things else, sports is identity. If the person wishes to be a fully Moscovite then they would probably pick a new team in Moscow. But most people I know have kept their old team.
 

vorky

@vorkywh24
Jan 23, 2010
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I will try to reply to some of your questions, a native Muscovites may add another view.

There are 3 clubs in Moscow - CSKA, Spartak & Dynamo. You likely count Vityaz as well, which is located in Moscow Region near the capital.

As I know, every club has its own "area" in the city, but I can not tell you more details, just that these areas should be located near their former/Soviet venues.

CSKA Moscow was affiliated with the Army in the Soviet era, therefore the Army club. Dynamo Moscow was affiliated to Ministry of Interior Affairs and Spartak was seen as the People´s club. Of course, today there is no affiliation with state organs, but fan-culture has been inherited from a father to his son. So CSKA is still seen as a club for army officers etc

Of course, people may start cheering for a Moscow team after moving there, but I believe people are still fans of their local team.

E:
@Witte49 replied it much better.
 
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Milos Krasic

Best Serbian Footballer (2009) / Serie A Winner
Jul 1, 2008
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Dynamo was a creation of Felix Dzerzhinsky who ran the Cheka
 

Atas2000

Registered User
Jan 18, 2011
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How do you(and Muscovites in general) decide which of the four Moscow-area KHL teams to support?

I am not from there, but I cat throw in some things I know. First things first: there are 3 Moscow teams in the KHL now. Used to be one more with "Krylya Sovetov" back in the USSR. You can't count the Atlants and the Vityazs as Moscow teams. So for now it's CSKA, Dynamo and Spartak.

Is allegiance based on geography, with certain neighbourhoods tending to support a single team?

Partially and loosely. Historically there are neighbourhoods. I mean there is a Metro station named "Dynamo" in Moscow. That's where the football "Dynamo" arena was. That area is still Dynamo dominated, but basically it is true for the families living in Moscow for many generations and is passed on. Same goes for Spartak and CSKA. Look, Ovechkin is a Dynamo kid. His whole family is basically Dynamo:). And Ovechkin's parents do live in the area where Dynamo allegiance is passed on and where a lot of former athletes of Dynamo live I will further down explain how that works.

But Moscow is the nation's capital. Like every capital city in has the largest influx of people from all over the country coming to live there for various reasons, like students or civil service people making careers or just for jobs that pay more.

Is it passed on from parent to child?Do people who move to Moscow from other parts of Russia generally start cheering for a Moscow team or do they stay loyal to their home team?

But Moscow is the nation's capital. Like every capital city in has the largest influx of people from all over the country coming to live there for various reasons, like students or civil service people making careers or just for jobs that pay more. There are a lot of first and second generation people in Moscow. Like you'd probably know kids pick up very quick from the environment. Kids growing up in Moscow whose parents aren't from Moscow will mostly switch to a Moscow team even if parents are still following the team from the area they originally came from. But it is only an issue for people who come from areas with big hockey teams like Omsk, Chelyabinsk to name a few. The transition is much quicker and easier if they come from an area where there wasn't a KHL team.

Is it common for fans to switch allegiances based on which team is doing the best?
I guess that would be considered major treason:) There is a rivalry. Part of it the soviet legacy of hockey teams being part of a huge parent org. All sports had a Spartak, a Dynamo and SKA(only Moscow had CSKA with C being for 'central') and Torpedo and Krylya Sovetov and Trudovye Reservy while we are at it. Those big sports societies were parented by specific branches of economics, state structure and so on. SKAs were army's, Dynamo originally what was over time Cheka, NKVD, MGB, KGB and then the Ministry of Interior so basically in simple terms police and national security, Torpedo was specifically automobile industry's, Spartak was light industry's in general and so on. A lot of allegiances would go along those lines in soviet days. Also within a family. Say someone is an army officer, so he would support (C)SKA, but his brother is a police officer. They would have a nice mocking and talking sessions over the Dynamo-CSKA-rivalry at family reunions. The narrative about Spartak being the working class team is only partially true. It's more like they had a lot of support also due to the fact that during the soviet days CSKA and Dynamo would snatch all the best players, so people liked to be behind an underdog. It wasn't necessarily a social tier thing. Soviet society was way more egalitarian anyway. Spartak though still carries a lot of that legacy, like their nicknames of "pigs" or "the meaty" from light industry->food production->meat. Lots of fans embrace it by the way. If you watched the Spartak-SKA game yesterday you'd have seen a guy with a pink piggie toy on his shoulder in the stands. That is common.

Can fandom be tied to other unrelated things like religion, education level, ethnicity, or politics?

Religion not at all, at least in hockey.

Education level not at all. It was never a thing, not during soviet times nor is it now.

Politics not at all. There are weak attempts to tie the SKA-CSKA problematics to politics. But they mostly come from trolls, many of them not out of Russia I would guess. As said, those are attempts that basically don't stick. It's more about money than anything else. And that is what works way more for the people. Rich teams hurting poor teams, the league and hockey in general because they are rich. So people route for any team that plays against them in the playoffs for example. Right now everybody and their mom is united behind Spartak to maybe upset the SKA powerhouse. But those are loose alliances and there is not much politics to it. More like people disliking how dominant those teams are, due to embarassingly huge budgets compared to others. That is the same in every country if there is such a disparity of teams' financial power.

Ethnicity somewhat. Probabaly only for Tatars as they are the only ethnicity with not only a KHL team(2 actually) coming from the their region, but also a significant number of ethnic Tatars who are known names in the sport. But that is a Moscow thing to relate to the thread only partially. Many Tatars would support AkBars even if they aren't from Tatarstan AND people from Tatarstan(not only Tatars) moving to Moscow would continue to support AkBars actually. Probably the most loyal fanbase out of people moving to Moscow. And yes, somewhat based on ethnicity. Otherwise there was some joking about Armenians getting the hype with all the young guys with armenian roots coming up in russian hockey, but it's just jokes for now.

The thing I mentioned above. In soviet times athletes associated with some of those big soviet sports societies would also live in one area, because they would get appartments from the state obviously in one particular area or even house. I wasn't a sports thing only. There were the writers' houses and the KGB houses and whatever houses in Moscow. That is why back then those communities of fans also were way more localized.
 
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vorky

@vorkywh24
Jan 23, 2010
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Regarding Armenians, Avangard Omsk, now playing in Balashika near Moscow, had some ads with Armenian community in the regular season. They did it for a match against Sochi, Manukyan vs Altybarmakyan. I did not follow that game, so I do not know if an actor - another Armenian (I forgot his name) - attended the game. He was invited by Manukyan in pre-game ads. Just to make hype.
 

Kavka

Registered User
Feb 14, 2015
5
1
Well, a little late for the party, and you got a bunch of detailed answers. But if you still interested in some "inside look" from a Moscovite (since 6yo):

Is it passed on from parent to child?

Most of the time, yes. I guess the succession of generations would be the main source, should we put aside bandwagoning. However, didn't work for me and my father. But will work for my son, or else manyellingatclouds.jpg

Can fandom be tied to other unrelated things like religion, education level, ethnicity, or politics?

As it was already said, yes. CSKA is Army team and my father is CSKA fan because he was a soldier. Same for Dynamo and police.

Is it common for fans to switch allegiances based on which team is doing the best?

No. “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”

Do people who move to Moscow from other parts of Russia generally start cheering for a Moscow team or do they stay loyal to their home team?

If they were cheering back home they stay loyal. If they suddenly interested in sport only after the move, it depends. Same as the previous question, sports in Russia less an entertaiment, more like a passion. You develop sincere love to your team colours and as sincere hatred to your rivals colours. Ah yiss, sweet, heartwarming and uniting hatred towards the common enemy... I guess, you can partly count that on influence of English football fans from 90s.
 
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Albatros

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Aug 19, 2017
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Regarding Starostin it is true that he used the system too whenever possible, before an important match the star player of the opponent could coincidentally be offered a nicer apartment by some bureau that just happens to have ties to Spartak, for example. That was how things worked back then.
 
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