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1986 (Russia, Braynsk) my First Russian National Junior Olympic Champion: Andrey Nosov, 119 lb (54 kg) At this time, Mikhail Gorbachev was gaining power in the USSR. Alot of things were changing. Companies were becoming privatized and the "black market" became the only market. The economy was crashing. A lot of athletes, mostly boxers and wrestlers, became gangsters. I remember, at one of the coaches meetings in Moscow, the president of The Moscow Boxing Association, said. "A great time is coming for boxing coaches, because all the kids waned to be gangsters, driving BMW's and Mercedes Benz, and for this they go to boxing gyms." It was bittersweet. At this time, we had no idea how many of our boxers would soon die at the hand of the mafia. Slowly but surely, Moscow was turning into Chicago in the period of Al Capone. Movies like the "The Godfather" and "Scarface" with Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro were our reality.
In 1988 my 15 year old student, Andrey Moskvichov (106lbx, 48 kg), made the Russian National Team. He was my first student to box internationally, in Norway. I could not go with him, because I did not have an international passport. At this time, it was nearly impossible to get out of the country. For example, just to request a simple travel visa you had fill out countless applications and send 24 pictures of yourself to the government. It took many months while they did a background check not only on you but on the last five generations of your family. The privatization of Russian companies continued, and as a result, many coaches (of all sports), became unemployed. The government no longer had the money to subsidize the athletic programs. It was a shame to see so many great coaches who had made their country proud, with no job. In order to avoid the same fate, I opened my own boxing and tennis club, "Kolomna." It was fashionable among the rich people to play tennis. They brought the necessary funds to support the boxers. In 1990 (Kolomna, Russia), I made my first training camp for the Turkish National Team
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Russian Version
