Interview by Oleg Kusov. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
Interesting guests are always welcome at Vestnik Kavkaza. Oleg Kusov gives all guests in the studio an opportunity to speak. These conversations are not only about the Caucasus. A half-hour conversation over tea passes quickly. The section "True Word" records conversations in video, audio and text formats. The guest of Vestnik Kavkaza today is Valery Vinokurov, a sports journalist and writer.
- Valery, in due time the sports press made a lot of coverage of the success of the Dynamo Tbilisi and Ararat Yerevan. There was less coverage of Neftchi Baku (Neftyanik), although football there was no less interesting, no less unique. What was the peculiarity of Azerbaijani football?
- Oleg, you got right to the point. I was a football observer for over half a century. At different periods of life, different teams were becoming closer or less close, depending on the circumstances. Concerning Neftyanik Baku, the Neftyanik Club was organized instead of Progress in 1937, it was renamed Neftchi in 1968. As a result of different circumstances, the team was very congenial to me.
I will start with 1966, the first World Championship I was covering. Back then, two Baku natives, Eduard Markarov and Anatoly Banishevsky, played for the USSR national team. A different story is that we were in anguish that they had never been given a chance to play together for the team at the games. Either one player or another, but they were strong as a pair! The World Championship ended in 1966, and the USSR championship continued at that time. Neftyanik was ranked third that year. Our national team achieved the greatest success, coming fourth in the World Championship. Since then, it has never been any closer to that. It has often been in the top eight, but never in the top four. Neftyanik made its greatest achievement the same year. Then, there was a magazine in Moscow named Neftyanik. It hired me to write a feature story about the team. Doubtless, I had to go to Baku. I already had ties with the team then. Alekper Mamedov and Yuri Kuznetsov – remarkable, outstanding masters – were playing for Dynamo Moscow when I was young. They are some of my all-time favourite players. Recently, Alekper Mamedov died. I will never forget that unique person! We cherish the memory of him. I express deep condolences to his relatives.
- Vestnik Kavkaza joins your words. At that time, were Alekper Mamedov and Yuri Kuznetsov both playing in Baku?
- Yes. Then, they moved to Dynamo Moscow. Mamedov in 1954, Kuznetsov a year later. They were wonderful players in the team. They became champions of the USSR, recognized as best players as part of Dynamo. Alekper Mamedov became the champion of Europe in 1960 because he was part of the group that won the medals. Yura Kuznetsov played in the famous match with the world champion, the FRG national team, in 1955. I really loved those players.
I was a kid then, I just loved them, remarkable masters. When I worked as a sports journalist (somewhere in 1962) I met them, they were playing in Neftyanik then. We quickly started understanding each other and became friends then. Now, back to 1966. I work at the Football daily. One in a while, Moscow was visited by Baku judges Tofik Bakhramov, Eldar Azim-Zadeh, Teymur Veliyev and Alesha Balayan, he was younger then them, mostly judging matches of the first league, he was an assistant in the higher league. Usually before the match, I would enter the judges’ room to take a protocol, greetthe referees. You are not allowed anywhere these days, there used to be peaceful communication before. They would always convey the greetings of Alik Mamedov, and I met Alexey Balayan, he was the deputy executive editor of the Baku Rabochiy paper, in other words, a journalist, a colleague. And so, then, when I needed to make the visit to write the feature story, I contacted him, visited the team. Thanks to Balayan and judges, I met Azerbaijani journalists very fast, because when you collect materials it is good talk with people who know everything there from the inside… There, I met the team, chief coach Ahmed Aleskerov. I remember him as a good midfielder: thin, acute, combinative. He played for Neftyanik when Mamedov and Kuznetsov returned from Moscow. Perhaps the team has not won much but it had beautiful gameplay, everyone loved it for the beauty. It is also an answer to your question about the team’s difference. The beauty was amazing, Aleskerov, in particular, played an important role in it as a midfielder. Then Banishevsky appeared with Markarov, they had already played with Kutnetsov by that time. Thanks to the game with Aleskerov, Kuznetsov, Mamedov, Golodets, they quickly grew and entered the USSR national team in 1966. That year, I met Aleskerov, we found common ground fast, I wrote the feature story. Since I liked the team, I was visiting it once in a while, meeting journalists. The Baku Rabochiy was a miraculous newspaper. Now, everyone says that being third in 1966 is the team’s best achievement. But the next year, fifth place in the union championship of 20 teams. Then, for years, the team was among the top ten, seventh, ninth, once eleventh, but out of 22 teams. The team was stable. That is how it should be, because the attacking was incredible: Tuayev Kazbek with Edik Markrov, Anatoly Banishevsky, midfielders Gryazev, Semiglazov who played for CSKA later. There were many good football players and the team was very international. The excellent goal keeper Serezha Kromarenko, he has already died unfortunately… We were good friends with Aleskerov for probably 10 years, then we lost contact when he moved to train at Chernomorets Odessa and started living there. I do not know what the circumstances there were. But the fact is that we somehow lost contact. Chernomorets was never a familiar team for me, even when Bazilevich played in it with Lobanovsky.
To be continued
Says Valery VinokurovInterview by Oleg Kusov. Exclusively for Vestnik KavkazaInteresting guests are always welcome at Vestnik Kavkaza. Oleg Kusov gives all guests in the studio an opportunity to speak. These conversations are not only about the Caucasus. A half-hour conversation over tea passes quickly. The section "True Word" records conversations in video, audio and text formats. The guest of Vestnik Kavkaza today is Valery Vinokurov, a sports journalist and writer.- Valery, in due time the sports press made a lot of coverage of the success of the Dynamo Tbilisi and Ararat Yerevan. There was less coverage of Neftchi Baku (Neftyanik), although football there was no less interesting, no less unique. What was the peculiarity of Azerbaijani football?- Oleg, you got right to the point. I was a football observer for over half a century. At different periods of life, different teams were becoming closer or less close, depending on the circumstances. Concerning Neftyanik Baku, the Neftyanik Club was organized instead of Progress in 1937, it was renamed Neftchi in 1968. As a result of different circumstances, the team was very congenial to me.I will start with 1966, the first World Championship I was covering. Back then, two Baku natives, Eduard Markarov and Anatoly Banishevsky, played for the USSR national team. A different story is that we were in anguish that they had never been given a chance to play together for the team at the games. Either one player or another, but they were strong as a pair! The World Championship ended in 1966, and the USSR championship continued at that time. Neftyanik was ranked third that year. Our national team achieved the greatest success, coming fourth in the World Championship. Since then, it has never been any closer to that. It has often been in the top eight, but never in the top four. Neftyanik made its greatest achievement the same year. Then, there was a magazine in Moscow named Neftyanik. It hired me to write a feature story about the team. Doubtless, I had to go to Baku. I already had ties with the team then. Alekper Mamedov and Yuri Kuznetsov – remarkable, outstanding masters – were playing for Dynamo Moscow when I was young. They are some of my all-time favourite players. Recently, Alekper Mamedov died. I will never forget that unique person! We cherish the memory of him. I express deep condolences to his relatives.- Vestnik Kavkaza joins your words. At that time, were Alekper Mamedov and Yuri Kuznetsov both playing in Baku?- Yes. Then, they moved to Dynamo Moscow. Mamedov in 1954, Kuznetsov a year later. They were wonderful players in the team. They became champions of the USSR, recognized as best players as part of Dynamo. Alekper Mamedov became the champion of Europe in 1960 because he was part of the group that won the medals. Yura Kuznetsov played in the famous match with the world champion, the FRG national team, in 1955. I really loved those players.I was a kid then, I just loved them, remarkable masters. When I worked as a sports journalist (somewhere in 1962) I met them, they were playing in Neftyanik then. We quickly started understanding each other and became friends then. Now, back to 1966. I work at the Football daily. One in a while, Moscow was visited by Baku judges Tofik Bakhramov, Eldar Azim-Zadeh, Teymur Veliyev and Alesha Balayan, he was younger then them, mostly judging matches of the first league, he was an assistant in the higher league. Usually before the match, I would enter the judges’ room to take a protocol, greetthe referees. You are not allowed anywhere these days, there used to be peaceful communication before. They would always convey the greetings of Alik Mamedov, and I met Alexey Balayan, he was the deputy executive editor of the Baku Rabochiy paper, in other words, a journalist, a colleague. And so, then, when I needed to make the visit to write the feature story, I contacted him, visited the team. Thanks to Balayan and judges, I met Azerbaijani journalists very fast, because when you collect materials it is good talk with people who know everything there from the inside… There, I met the team, chief coach Ahmed Aleskerov. I remember him as a good midfielder: thin, acute, combinative. He played for Neftyanik when Mamedov and Kuznetsov returned from Moscow. Perhaps the team has not won much but it had beautiful gameplay, everyone loved it for the beauty. It is also an answer to your question about the team’s difference. The beauty was amazing, Aleskerov, in particular, played an important role in it as a midfielder. Then Banishevsky appeared with Markarov, they had already played with Kutnetsov by that time. Thanks to the game with Aleskerov, Kuznetsov, Mamedov, Golodets, they quickly grew and entered the USSR national team in 1966. That year, I met Aleskerov, we found common ground fast, I wrote the feature story. Since I liked the team, I was visiting it once in a while, meeting journalists. The Baku Rabochiy was a miraculous newspaper. Now, everyone says that being third in 1966 is the team’s best achievement. But the next year, fifth place in the union championship of 20 teams. Then, for years, the team was among the top ten, seventh, ninth, once eleventh, but out of 22 teams. The team was stable. That is how it should be, because the attacking was incredible: Tuayev Kazbek with Edik Markrov, Anatoly Banishevsky, midfielders Gryazev, Semiglazov who played for CSKA later. There were many good football players and the team was very international. The excellent goal keeper Serezha Kromarenko, he has already died unfortunately… We were good friends with Aleskerov for probably 10 years, then we lost contact when he moved to train at Chernomorets Odessa and started living there. I do not know what the circumstances there were. But the fact is that we somehow lost contact. Chernomorets was never a familiar team for me, even when Bazilevich played in it with Lobanovsky.To be contin
