The New Hooligans Of Russia

They battle in the forest, soccer gang against soccer gang. They are the underground fighters the host country doesn’t want you to see.

- Sam Borden

Over nearly four decades on earth, while living in half a dozen cities and two countries, whether employed or not, happy or not, sober or not, I have never—not ever— punched someone. 

Have you? 

Vova laughs at me. Of course Vova has punched someone. Vova lives in Moscow, on the edge of Russia’s capital. He says he has been punching people for years, says he loves punching people, says it is part of his identity. He thinks I am an alien, basically, and that a man without scars on his hands is no man at all. 

Vova is 19. 

By any measure, Vova has a comfortable life. His mother is a flight attendant, and so his room in the family’s apartment has pictures and posters from the places he has traveled. He is studying to be a graphic designer, and he loves surfing. He also has an affinity for poetry (including Pushkin and Yesenin, who wrote about, among other things, hooligans in the early 1900s). Vova enjoys literature, particularly the writings of famed German novelist Erich Maria Remarque. In a coffee shop one afternoon, we briefly debate The Night in Lisbon versus All Quiet on the Western Front. (Lisbon is his favorite book of all time.)

Yet in the evenings or on weekends, Vova says, he goes to the forest. He says he is part of a group of hooligans known as IX Legion, which supports a professional soccer team, Dinamo Moscow, and which fights against other groups supporting other teams. These fights almost always take place in the woods, away from the eyes of the police (or anyone else, really). These fights have no written rules or regulations, have no certified referees or officials, and while it is generally considered gauche to murder someone at one of these fights, everything short of that is pretty much fine.