Why again? Because both before Lenin's revolution and after it, and in the days of Tsar Gorokh, foreigners flocked to this territory like flies to honey. Something about us, our lands and opportunities is attractive to them. Off the top of one's head, one can recall one of the founders of Donetsk, formerly Yuzovka, the English industrialist Hughes, and the German barons Falz-Fein, who created the unique Askania-Nova nature reserve in the Ukrainian steppes. The list of names could go on forever. In short, history is repeating itself.
Sport is an integral part of life, and so it is no surprise that financially strengthened sports clubs and federations of the former Soviet republics began to invite foreign coaches to cooperate. Moreover, foreigners of not the worst quality. Again, turning to history, we can recall the Italian Nevio Scala, who won European football cups with Parma and then worked with Donetsk's Shakhtar and Moscow's Spartak. Or the Portuguese Artur Jorge, who won the European Champions Cup in 1987 with Porto, and in 2004 headed the Moscow club CSKA. Or the late Czech Ivan Hlinka, the great coach of the Czech national hockey team and the NHL club Pittsburgh Penguins, who led Omsk's Avangard.
Foreign specialists can be found anywhere. In Georgia, the Frenchman Giresse and the Dutchman Boscamp coached the national football team. In Armenia, the Croatian Susak held a similar post. In Azerbaijan, the Brazilian Carlos Alberto is currently engaged in similar work. In Belarus, the national hockey team was coached by a Canadian, in Lithuania the national basketball team by an American, in Estonia the national football team by a Dutchman. In Russia, there are three foreign specialists who have coached only national teams: the South African Stoffberg (rugby), the German Steiert (ski jumping), and the Serbian Gajic (volleyball).
But there are even more well-known masters of their craft in clubs. Especially in the rapidly developing hockey and basketball ones. One of the most successful is David Blatt, who took charge of St. Petersburg's Dynamo (men's basketball) last summer. In the spring of this year, Dynamo won the FIBA EuroLeague, which is a huge success for a young club. It is no surprise that Blatt's persona has begun to attract attention not only in St. Petersburg, but also beyond the Northern Palmyra.
Blatt is a US native, but he spent a lot of time in Israel and considers himself a European basketball specialist. He is married to an Israeli woman whose name, translated from the ancient Hebrew language, means 'Sea of Galilee'. David is also not particularly modest, claiming that by nature he is a winner. However, it is hard to argue with him now. After all, before winning the 2005 FIBA EuroLeague, he won the 2004 ULEB EuroLeague with Tel Aviv's Maccabi, where he assisted the head coach of that team, Pini Gershon.
"I set the task for the players to win every match," says Blatt. "Focus on the maximum result allows the team to win more often than lose. This is very important for Dynamo. This team is a completely new project. Our task is to put the St. Petersburg club on the basketball map of Russia and Europe. We are trying hard and, it seems to me, have already achieved certain successes. Although there is still a lot of work ahead. Of course, we need time. Superclubs are not created in one evening. But I am glad that we managed to gather in St. Petersburg a group of very talented players. They work hard and, as a result, achieve success."
Blatt also is credited with the phrase: "An intelligent person should remain intelligent in any company." Probably, it is this philosophical approach to life that helps him remain a sociable person in a variety of situations. Even when tension reaches very serious limits, David remains calm and tries to answer journalists' questions. They do their job, he does his.
Even before arriving in St. Petersburg, Blatt already knew a few phrases in Russian. As the coach of Maccabi, which met CSKA in the ULEB EuroLeague, he communicated with Russian journalists. Along with the greeting, he would ask in the language of Pushkin: 'How are you?' And when they answered him: 'Great. And you?', David would say: 'Also good,' after which he switched to English. Where do these learned expressions come from? It is explained quite simply - such phrases can be heard in Israel almost every day, because many people from the former Soviet Union live in this country.
Perhaps it was a certain closeness between Israel and Russia that played a role in Blatt's decision to move to St. Petersburg. Although in one of his first interviews with St. Petersburg media, David said that Russian basketball is very popular in Europe, that it is often spoken about, and exclusively in warm tones: "My contract is for three years under the '2+1' scheme. And I believe that someday I will feel at Dynamo as I did at Maccabi. That is, to be at the top of European basketball. There is a lot of talk about Russia now in Israel, throughout Europe, and even in America. In any case, in the summer of 2004, in NBA training camps, the combinations of words Russia, basketball, CSKA and marketing could be heard on every corner. Everyone notes that your league is gradually becoming the strongest in Europe. And the point here is not that they pay a lot of money in Russia. You have learned to make a quality basketball product. Consequently, the market is growing, and so is viewer interest. And these parameters for leading players and coaches are sometimes much more important than 'the amount in words'."
I had two options for continuing my career. Either stay with Maccabi and take the post of general manager, or try something new. I chose the second path. In Tel Aviv I worked for five years: two years on my own, three as Gershon's assistant. During that time the club reached the Final Four three times and won two ULEB Euroleagues. After such results, finding new motivation is not easy. I wanted to build a team from scratch, and in that sense Dynamo's offer came in very handy. It looked more attractive than the invitations from French PSG and two other European clubs. I explained my position to Maccabi's management, and they accommodated me. I parted with Tel Aviv very warmly."
The main initiator of creating Dynamo practically from scratch (and, accordingly, of inviting Blatt) was Russian businessman Vladimir Rodionov. He is known for having created in Saratov in the mid-90s a very strong club, Avtodor, with which he challenged Moscow's CSKA. But it was hard for Rodionov to compete in financial power with the capital's club, and he moved to St. Petersburg, where there are far more opportunities. Interestingly, Rodionov used to be called a brawler, a boor, and a tyrant: Avtodor's coaches often were fired before completing their first year of work with the team. In such cases Rodionov would take up coaching himself: "Weak coaches in this country. Hard to withstand the ambitions of my team." Blatt held on. And not just held on, but also brought Dynamo the first title in its, so far, meager history - the strongest club in Europe according to FIBA.
And almost a year ago, Blatt could not stop being amazed when Rodionov showed him and journalists the training hall and the locker room, which had undergone major repairs: "A month ago everything looked like after a bombing. In the USA such a large-scale renovation would take five years! I hope we'll be able to build a team at the same pace. Living and working in Russia today is truly fascinating. Such history! Such dynamics of modern life!.. Comparing Russia with the States in this respect is like comparing diving in the ocean with diving in a swimming pool.
Do you think that to prefer Russia to the countries where I have lived - the USA and Israel - one has to be a decent adventurer? Maybe five years ago it would have smacked of adventure. But now Russia is the most rapidly developing basketball territory in the world! Every year a dozen new stars appear in the Russian championship. Everything here develops rapidly, as far as I can judge. In the evening you go to sleep seeing a small sprout, and in the morning you wake up next to a blossomed flower! Well, you understand, I'm speaking figuratively. I have always loved to challenge fate. I told myself: 'Since 23 years ago you decided to leave the USA and go to Israel, it means now you can safely set off for Russia.' I am fascinated by history. The USA as a nation is less than three hundred years old, while in Israel or in Russia, to explain something with due depth, you need to start with events a thousand years old. But even so, many things are very hard for me to understand. Jeeps! There are incredibly many of them everywhere - in Moscow and in St. Petersburg. Are your roads really that bad?!"
Blatt is American by origin (although his great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers moved to the USA from Russia). He is 46 years old, was born in Boston, and his mother worked as a literature teacher. He graduated from the philology department of Princeton University, played basketball on the university team, was its captain. But he did not make it into the NBA and in 1981 left for Israel, where he spent 12 seasons in the local basketball league. He was captain of a team from Haifa. There he moved into coaching (his first club was Galil Elyon, then Maccabi Tel Aviv) and rather quickly earned very serious respect (in Israel he and Pini Gershon are considered the most knowledgeable basketball specialists).
Blatt's name often appeared in news reports. At one time he was considered one of the most likely coaches of the NBA club - the Boston Celtics. The management of Tel Aviv's Maccabi, where David worked at that time, confirmed the interest of the club from Blatt's hometown in this specialist. It was rumored that the bosses of the Italian club from Siena - Montepaschi - had expressed a desire to invite the Israeli American (or American Israeli, whichever is more convenient) to their team. Among the candidates for Blatt there was also the Greek Panathinaikos, which allegedly offered David an annual salary of $1.2 million. (There is no reliable information about the coach's salary in St. Petersburg, and somehow one does not believe in the figure of $400,000 a year - it's too little.)
But he chose St. Petersburg and does not regret it. He says he is happy for every day spent in Petersburg. Even before signing the contract with Dynamo, the club's management invited him to visit, and this visit left an indelible impression on Blatt. It happened at the end of June, so he had time to admire the white nights. And he declared that Petersburg is the most majestic city of all he had seen (and he probably has something to compare it with).
"My family stayed in Israel. They cannot stay with me for long. The explanation is simple - the children need to go to school, and changing their place of study just because dad got a job in another country is not worth it. My relatives in full (wife, 12-year-old twin girls, an eight-year-old son, and a six-year-old daughter) visited me in Petersburg. We spent ten days together, and my wife and children were delighted with their stay in this city.
The club's management and the city administration created all the conditions for my comfortable stay in Petersburg. The lion's share of my time is devoted to the team, but when I have a free minute, I take walks along Nevsky Prospekt. This is my favorite place. I go into cafés, small shops, just talk to people. However, the most delightful thing is a trip to Peterhof together with my family. The city of fountains aroused our admiration."
By working in St. Petersburg, Blatt further raised his authority in the basketball world. He was tasked with leading the rest-of-the-world team in the traditional FIBA EuroLeague All-Star Game. By the way, Blatt also won this match, defeating the European team with a score of 106:102. Unsurprisingly, when rumors of David's possible resignation appeared after a series of unsuccessful Dynamo games, the Israeli Basketball Association immediately included the Dynamo coach in the list of candidates for the post of head coach of the national team. Moreover, the Israeli press claimed that Blatt, as soon as he terminated his contract with St. Petersburg, would be offered a three-year contract. But in St. Petersburg they did not act rashly (although this is very similar to Vladimir Rodionov's style of work) and gave the American coach the opportunity to improve. And now they certainly do not regret it.