So here is the secret of Krasnodar: it is displayed on the screen of the phone that Irina Vidmankina holds out. This late November afternoon, his weather app showed a proud 10 degrees Celsius. With a flick of the thumb, there you have Omsk, in Siberia, the town Irina and her family left eighteen months earlier. Twenty degrees less than in Krasnodar, the place of their new life. Out of curiosity, we are pushing the trip to Rennes: the clubs of the two cities compete in the Football Champions League (C1), Wednesday, December 2. Eliminated from the competition, the two neophytes in C1 can further extend the European adventure in the Europa League. When it comes to temperatures, it’s a draw.
The terrible Russian winter is very mild in the south, between the coast of the Black Sea and the mountains of the Caucasus. “The first few weeks, I often looked at the weather there, to remind myself of our luck, laughs Irina, 43 years old. Then I quit. I don’t even miss the Siberian snow. In large industrial cities, it is blacker than white… ”
In a Russia where the demographic question is an obsession, with a constantly declining population (- 100,000 Russians in 2018), Krasnodar is an insolent counterexample, a showcase. The city is experiencing massive and continuous growth, like its football club, propelled in a few years to the heights of the Russian championship. Behind this success, the businessman Sergei Galitsky. It was already he who, after failing to buy a local club, had created FK Krasnodar in 2008. Founder of a supermarket chain, billionaire, Galitsky understands the mood of the moment: to please the government and Vladimir Putin , we must invest in sport.
Training of young talents
But unlike the oligarchs who are infatuated with a football club, Sergei Galitsky will patiently develop a healthy structure, without excessive expenditure and by relying on some intelligent recruitments, such as the former Montpellier and Stéphanois Rémy Cabella, as well. than on the training of young talents. The results will be there, with three third places in the league gleaned in recent years and a growing local enthusiasm.
The demographic dynamism of Krasnodar is the mirror of the purge suffered by the Far North, the Urals and Siberia, which seem doomed to depopulation. The figures are uncertain, the last census dating back to Russia in 2010. The mayor, Yevgeny Pervychov, fought for a long time to receive the symbolic title of “millionaire city” (there are fifteen in Russia). This was done in 2018, undoubtedly a few years late. Some estimates put it at 1.5 million inhabitants, including those not officially registered. In 2005, Krasnodar had 700,000 inhabitants. Such a progression is unprecedented in Russia.
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