Waving their hometown team CSKA flag soccer fans ride in a car while celebrating in downtown Moscow early Thursday, May 19, 2005, after CSKA won the UEFA Cup. Wednesday night''s 3-1 win over Sporting Lisbon was the first European title for a Russian club.
Photo: AP
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Victory Night
// CSKA fans celebrate their team's victory until dawn
Spontaneous Parades
CSKA's victory over the Portuguese Sporting in the UEFA Cup final excited real euphoria among fans. In Lisbon, three thousand CSKA fans were packed with difficulty into planes; and several thousand people went out on the streets of Moscow, forcing the closure of the city center. And in Vladikavkaz, where relatives of CSKA coach Valery Gazzaev live, the celebrations reached such a scale that, as Aleksandr Dzasokhov, the president of North Ossetia, noted, hardly anyone made it to work the next day.
Night in Lisbon
The Portuguese capital didn't fall silent until yesterday morning. CSKA fans, who had come to Lisbon to support their team, celebrated the victory on a grand scale. Alcohol flowed in a river, of course, and street musicians played only Russian music. Even a black mini jazz band diligently churned out Kalinka. None of them were the worse for it. But the CSKA fans often politely sent them on their way and began a chorus of their favorite songs and speeches. The most frequently heard was From the Taiga to the British Seas.
Ukrainians working in Portugal often joined in the revelry. Nearly 200,000 compatriots of this year's best football player, Andrey Shevchenko, work in this country. Incidentally, he congratulated CSKA by telephone. It is not inconceivable that his Milan will play CSKA at the end of August in the Super Cup match. As is well known, Milan meets Liverpool on May 25 in the final competition of the Champions League.
The most active CSKA fans climbed onto monuments, swam in fountains, stopped cars, and simply didn't let bars and restaurants close. However, there were no serious incidents. The Portuguese are a football nation and understand perfectly what CSKA's victory over their Sporting means for Russians. The UEFA Cup was and is the dream of many teams, and the name of its owner is added to the history of European football. Many residents approached the CSKA fans to offer their sincere congratulations. They usually introduced themselves as fans of Benfica, an old and implacable rival of Sporting. But it didn't go as far as fraternization.
We should also add that yesterday turned out to be difficult not only for Lisbon waiters and bartenders; it was also difficult for the crews of Russian charter flights taking the fans back to the homeland. Pilots were forced to come to the aid of flight attendants and sometimes they swore at the overexcited fans.
The Horse-Racing Track
In Moscow, football fans took over dozens of bars. There were five times as many visitors as usual, so that bartenders had to find extra chairs. After the final call in one of the bars on Belorusskaia, all the patrons jumped up onto the tables and started pouring drinks over themselves. Some guy opened a bottle of champagne and with a yell of “horses” [as CSKA players are called], poured it over his head. He shouted that this was the happiest moment of his life, and now he had three of them – the victory in the UEFA Cup and the birth of two children.
After the match, a real spectacle began in the Megasphere sports bar. People started making fountains of beer, and they instantly ran out of champagne – the club was unprepared for such a huge order. As bartender Maksim Gurzhy said, patrons drank six times more beer than usual, and champagne was in increased demand at 3000 rubles a bottle. After celebrating the victory in clubs for half an hour, fans spilled out into the streets. They were joined by people who had watched the match at home. Fans from sports bars on Belorusskaia headed towards the center to Manezh Square in groups of 20-50 people. According to police estimates, nearly 5000 people were gathered there. Universal fraternization began on the streets. Truck drivers traveling along Tverskaia were besieged by dozens of red-and-blues [the team colors]. CSKA and Russian flags stuck out of most of the cars, and the passengers leaned out of the hatches waving banners and bottles of beer. They chanted “Soldiers of Moscow – the country's champions” and “Red and blue is the strongest” to the interminable wail of sirens. Several fans moved a portable toilet to Pushkin Square and began to prance around it with wild cries. After that, one of the fans clambered up the Pushkin monument and wound a CSKA scarf around it. Then, the crowd headed to the fountains and the fans bounded there in whole companies.
From Manezh Square, the fans joined hands and raced along Tverskaia. A procession about 200 m long headed back to Belorusskaia, blocking traffic on the street. Some of the fans blocked traffic on the Sadovoye Koltso and Novy Arbat. Another several dozen fans blocked Volokolamskoe Shosse. Taxi drivers still on the streets took advantage of the situation and more than doubled fares.
The police didn't interfere in the fans' exultation. A police captain patrolling on Pushkin Square admitted to Kommersant that the head of the Main Administration of Internal Affairs (GUVD) of Moscow had given orders to treat the fans with understanding. Chance passersby on Sadovoye could see a crowd of a thousand people walking along the ring road and a column of GUVD cars opening and closing.
The revelry lasted until 6 in the morning. At the GUVD office, they told Kommersant that the police had been expecting disorder on the streets in the event of either a victory or a defeat. “There was some reinforcement of patrols on the main streets and avenues, for example, on Kutuzovsky Avenue, “ the GUVD's press service told Kommersant. “But there were no major incidents – three or four fights. On Pokrovsky-Streshnev, for example. Eighty-four people were arrested, but there were no knife fights.” Igor Koloskov, a member of the press service of the Moscow traffic police (GIBDD), told Kommersant that the highway patrol was also ready for thecelebrations that were taking place all over the city. “We quickly blocked off streets when necessary. We kept an eye on the city center and federal highways. But there weren't any excesses at night. At one o'clock in the morning, the city was asleep,” Koloskov said. Sergey Fedotov, a doctor on duty at the medical and accident center, told Kommersant that “there weren't any serious injuries in the city during the night.” According to Moscow's paramedic service, only ten people with minor injuries went for medical help on Wednesday night.
Vladikavkaz Greets the Victory with a Salvo
The victory celebration also lasted until morning in Valery Gazzaev's native city in North Ossetia. There hadn't been a football celebration like it in Vladikavkaz for ten years. The last time football fans organized something similar was when Alania became champion of Russia in October 1995. Gazzaev also won that victory.
There are only three football bars in Vladikavkaz, and seats in them were booked in advance. The owners of other bars hurried to buy wide-screen TVs, knowing their costs would be paid back with interest thanks for the final match of the UEFA Cup. Those who couldn't get into the bars gathered in apartments. At the end of the broadcast, everyone poured out into the central streets as one. Cars were lined up in noisy processions.
The work of the GIBDD patrols increased as a result, as they tried to somehow maintain order in this spontaneous street scene. However, they didn't quite succeed in avoiding incidents. The press service of North Ossetia's Interior Ministry told Kommersant, a man and a woman were run over by a reckless driver at one of the central intersections. The woman died without regaining consciousness.
Fans on foot were more peaceful, although they didn't deny themselves the pleasure of drinking to victory. They tried to express their emotions mainly by dancing. The sound of salvos of gunshots was heard throughout the city. People didn't spare the ammunition and kept firing all night.
“CSKA's victory is our victory,” Dmitry Reisikh, the leader of the Alania Panthers fan club of the local Alania team, told Kommersant. Gazzaev is our countryman, and today everyone in Ossetia is happy for him.”
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They rejoiced over the victory in the home of Gazzaev's mother, Olga Semenovna Makieva. Her home is situated on the outskirts of the city on Metallurgists' Street. She lives with the family of her younger son, Eduard Gazzaev.
“We couldn't get to sleep until morning. The telephone broke down from the calls. Everyone was hurrying to congratulate us. In the morning, relatives and close friends began to arrive. We met each of them according to tradition with three Ossetian pirogis,” Makieva said.
Journalists gave them no peace either, with one film crew following another. Makieva received all of them hospitably. Eduard Gazzaev tried to avoid interviews. “I'm still trembling after the victory; I doubt if I can say anything sensible to you, “ he said, excusing himself.
Makieva said she was certain of CSKA's victory, even when they lost. Although she admitted that 2:1 was enough for her. The day before, she had gone to church and asked God to help her son's team. Now she promised to organize big family celebrations like the ones ten years ago after Alania won the championship.
Aleksandr Dzasokhov, the president of North Ossetia, began his day by congratulating Valery Gazzaev by telephone and reported that there was so much celebrating in the republic all night in honor of the Russian club's victory and in honor of Gazzaev, the republic's favorite that it was unlikely anyone would make it to work today.
Aleksey Zhuk, Lisbon; Vadim Tokhsyrov, Vladikavkaz; Yulia Taratuta; Ekaterina Savina
All the Article in Russian as of May 20, 2005
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