Sergei Leybgrad does not mind admitting that he is exhausted but when it comes to Samara and football, the reserves of energy run deep. He is standing in the basement that has become home to a lifetime’s work, a labour of love in which 17,000 artefacts present an astonishingly textured picture of a city’s relationship with the sport. For the umpteenth time in the past month he has spent an hour talking through the highlights but nobody is allowed to depart without undertaking an essential ritual.
In the sixth and final chamber – “the magic room,” he calls it – stands a cylindrical supporting column; hands are placed on it and then the incantation can start. Eyes now alight, Leybgrad takes the lead and soon the walls are reverberating. “Futbol v Samare bolshe chem futbol!” – “Football in Samara is more than football!”
England supporters will be able to assess that pronouncement for themselves this weekend when they visit Samara, a strange and compelling place that has throbbed with energy during the World Cup and regards itself as a crucible of Russian football culture.
As recently as 1990 this was a closed city, Kuybyshev, located appealingly on the bank of the Volga but inaccessible to foreigners through its critical importance to the Soviet space and aircraft industries. That sense of mystery lingers in some areas but the city is now more open than ever and the effects have been dizzying. “It’s a thrill,” Leybgrad says of the chance to show scores of visitors around his museum, an extraordinary Aladdin’s cave with few obvious analogues anywhere. “If I wasn’t satisfied I’d just go off and hide myself by now, flying away somewhere like a hunting bird. I feel dead on my feet. But we’ve wanted to have this World Cup for 100 years; finally our dream has come true.”
He is not exaggerating. One of Leybgrad’s favourite tales recounts how, in the early years of Fifa and when the idea of a World Cup presented a blank canvas, Samara was one of several cities to express an interest in hosting. The idea was that some form of tournament would take place in 1918; the first world war and Russian revolution rendered that impossible, though, and in the intervening century its relevance to the global football scene has been, at best, moderate.
Famous names have passed through. The museum is primarily a shrine to the local top-flight side Krylia Sovetov – “Wings of the Soviets” – and among its exhibits is a suitably giant pair of boots worn by the Czech striker Jan Koller, who spent the 2008-09 season at Krylia. A letter from Lev Yashin, dated 1969, asks friends from Krylia to source him spare Fiat parts after the opening of the AvtoVAZ plant in nearby Tolyatti. Nearby hangs a photograph of Viktor Karpov, a legendary player and coach who encouraged his team-mates to dance the Argentinian tango before games.
The festivities have taken on a similarly international flavour over the past month. Along Samara’s river embankment, a joyous stretch of promenades and sandy beaches that has come into its own during a particularly scorching summer, Brazilian fans spent Wednesday taking on their Russian counterparts at five-a-side football and volleyball. Colombia’s fans won particular approval during their visit to face Senegal on 28 June and there was a certain amount of disappointment among locals watching England’s shootout win in the Na Dnye bar, that no repeat visit will be forthcoming.
England’s support will receive red-carpet treatment nonetheless. “When you invite friends into your house you are trained to clean it and make it look as best you can,” says Elena Kuzina, the director of the city’s space museum. The city centre, almost entirely closed to traffic in order to insulate Fifa’s Fan Fest, is certainly a far cleaner and more walkable place than it was 12 months ago and most of the sights are conducive to a whistle-stop visit. It is hard to miss Kuzina’s establishment, which she estimates has seen a fourfold rise in visitor numbers, due to the extraordinary sight of the 68-metre Semyorka rocket attached to it; the nearby Monument of Glory, erected in recognition of Samara’s aircraft-industry workers, is a breathtaking Soviet-era tribute to working-class heroism. Half a mile away is Stalin’s bunker, a well-preserved world war two air-raid-shelter complex, and if that is all too sobering then the famous Zhigulevskoye brewery, situated by the river, sells fill-your-own litres of beer for less than £1 straight from the taps at the back of the building.
It should all make for a pleasant and unusual weekend break although events at Samara Arena, a gleaming out-of-town venue that is challenging to access, will doubtless colour many impressions. Krylia will move in there after the World Cup and the hope for Leybgrad and company is that the club will grow accordingly, further boosting the profile of a city whose adjustment to the USSR’s break-up was unsteady. Many of its 1.1 million inhabitants saw their roles change as the space and aviation industries’ importance declined and Samara had to change, focusing more on metallurgy, chemicals and plastics. “Lots of things have changed and we’ve become more self-confident,” Kuzina says of the World Cup’s impact on a city whose outer fringes project a very different image to the party unfolding in the centre.
“Samara is one place that definitely won’t have a legacy problem after the World Cup,” said the businessman German Tkachenko, who was president of Krylia a decade ago. “Even back then our average attendance was 26,000‑28,000, which was really high for Russia, and I have no doubt that they will fill this new bigger stadium. I’m so proud of the city for getting this new stadium, for me it’s the best part of this World Cup.”
Others are more equivocal. “The World Cup is being used for propaganda purposes,” Leybgrad says, his tone heavier when discussing its wider benefits. “Tourists can do everything, drink everything, but there is a worry that nobody knows what will happen here afterwards. On the other hand, football is like great music: when you hear it, you forget everything.”
Additional reporting by Shaun Walker
