People · Full text
How Andrei Mendel waited six years in the second division — and became Baltika's captain
The long road to the captain's armband: Andrei Mendel's story.
Read on this site
Topic
History
Archives, long careers and childhood football: texts about what came before today's Baltika.
People · Full text
300 matches before the Premier League. How Ilya Petrov was led around the RPL for ten years
Ilya Petrov's story: a long road through leagues and clubs to the Premier League.
Read on this site
People · Full text
Stefan Kovac, the most mysterious footballer of today's Baltika
Not a single RPL start in a year. He was told to find another club, but stayed. The story of Baltika's strangest transfer.
Read on this site
People · Full text
Offor was asked to find a new club. He answered with an RPL record
On 24 July 2026 Chinonso Offor scored against CSKA after 35 seconds — the fastest first goal of a season in Russian league history. A month earlier Baltika had asked him to leave.
Read on this site
People · Full text
34 countries, almost 150 foreigners and not a single Argentine. Baltika's history through its imports
Baltika always bought the part of the world it could reach: first Ukraine and Belarus, then a few FNL foreigners, now four continents.
Read on this site
From the stands · Full text
When Baltika was Spartak. A big archive investigation
A badge, forgotten newspaper files, a youth title under the Spartak sports society and the club's own archives — a page of history almost nobody remembers.
Read on this site
People · Full text
Ilya Kirsh: the boy from one edge of Russia who chose the long road to the other
How a Zenit academy graduate from Nakhodka, with every Russian youth team and five loans behind him, ended up at Baltika — and why he is paid for his head, not his centimetres.
Read on this site
From the stands · Full text
Not the main ones, but ours. What 6 July 2026 meant for local football writers
The first Winline RPL Heroes media evening in Moscow, and the first award category the league has ever given to local authors — one per club.
Read on this site
From the stands · Full text
The football of our childhood: two bricks, a plantain leaf and crocodile sneakers
Yard football as we remember it from childhood.
Read on this site
People · Full text
The captain who went through everything
The big story of Aleksandr Filin — from a second-hand shop in Simferopol to Baltika's armband.
Read on this site
People · Full text
The first Kalmyk in the national team. How Beveev crawled his way there
His first coach said he had no talent. Ten years in the lower leagues — Nosta, KAMAZ, Yenisey — and at 30 he became the first Kalmyk to play and score for Russia.
Read on this site
From the stands · Full text
Eight years ago Modric, Iniesta and Courtois played here. Now Trinidad and Tobago are coming. An interactive guide
In 2018 the Island hosted Modric, Iniesta, Courtois and a future World Cup top four. In 2026 the Russian national team returns for a friendly.
Read on this site
From the stands · Full text
Dad, they shout so loudly here. Baltika through the eyes of a six-year-old
I started supporting Baltika in 1994. Now I take my son to matches — and learn again how love for a club is born.
Read on this site
From the stands · Full text
I never finished the Panini USA 94 album as a kid. Now I am collecting World Cup 2026
In 1994 a ten-year-old in Kaliningrad had a door made entirely of football stickers.
Read on this site
Matches · Full text
Grozny Groundhog Day: how Baltika turned a tactical masterpiece into a serving of Baltic melancholy
Baltika laid a perfect tactical table in Grozny and dropped it on its own boots at the last moment. Why total xG dominance became another portion of melancholy.
Read on this site