Finding Fedor
Early Training Days
Evgeni Kogan Dec 26, 2007
When Fedor was 11, he began training with the Vladimir Nevsky club
on a recommendation from judo instructor Vasilyi Ivanovich
Gavrilov. There was a problem, though: The family did not have the
money for Fedor's training gear.
Seeing something in the boy's physical attributes and the way he held himself, Gavrilov bought the young Fedor a judo uniform and training shoes. He also gave him his first piece of advice, telling him that wrestling was a serious and manly pursuit. In interviews Fedor often expresses much fondness for his first trainer, who was later killed in an accident.
Fedor was 12 when he started training grappling under Vladimir
Mihailovich Voronov, who remains his trainer to this day. For 20
years Voronov has been as much a part of Fedor's life off the mat
as on it.
"When training a boy you can't just finish the training session and say that whatever happens outside of the club is your problem," Voronov said. "You have to be interested in everything -- the boy's relationship with his parents, his schoolwork, etc. … The club is sport, but everything outside the club walls is life, with its many daily problems. I aimed to help Fedor, not to burden him but to provide for him the conditions to achieve sporting excellence. In reality, the issue is not in sporting excellence, but in enabling the person to give it his all. But that only happens when nothing gets in the way. Sports help to mature. However, Fedor has from childhood been an independent and responsible person."
He chose judo.
By the time he was a teenager, Fedor aspired to join the Russian national team. He didn't partake in life's pleasures but instead spent all of his time studying and training. Two factors were constant in his life then: a lack of money and the presence of his family and team.
Frequently there wasn't enough money for food. Fedor and his brother Aleksander were constantly growing and training, and their mouths were not the smallest to feed. The food Olga Emelianenko grew in her makeshift garden was often not enough, and come winter a garden was impossible.
Voronov pitched in, dropping off bags of grain or potatoes. The harder life became, the closer Fedor and his family and his team grew. The more they depended on each other's existence, the less money mattered.
The Russian Psyche
It was a tough upbringing, but Fedor remains, first and foremost, a Russian. His relationship with his country can be summed up by the centuries-old tradition of Russians lovingly calling Russia "Matie Rodina," or Mother Russia.
This may seem contradictory, considering the incredibly hard life Fedor and millions of other Russians have had. But to see contradiction is to misunderstand the Russian psyche. The concept of "nastoyashyi muzhik" or being a "real man" is alive and well here. A man is either a real man or life destroys him -- and destruction happens plenty in Russia, where the average male dies at 58.
The idea of "nastoyashyi muzhik" is taking on the chin whatever life has to throw at you. It's about taking pride in being strong enough to survive and thanking your country, which makes you stronger. In Soviet times the effect was a sort of lifelong Stockholm syndrome with perhaps misplaced loyalty, but now challenges are seen as merely hurdles in the sprint for a bigger, brighter and more global future in which the runners themselves are the architects.
Fedor is the definitive "nastoyashyi muzhik."
This ground, these forests, these buildings, his city, his country -- it all means as much to him as his family, his club and his team does. Not in the sense that his family is here in Stary Oskol, though his mother and sister are, but in the sense that he is just as inseparable from his land as he is from his relatives.
This is not the most Western of concepts. No doubt the idea seems somewhat disingenuous to people who have held exploration and the nomadic spirit in the highest esteem for centuries. But Fedor's paradigm is one that many indigenous peoples of the world share: the inextricable link between land and ancestry, ancestry and land, to the extent that often their languages do not distinguish in meaning between the two.
When it came time to serve his country, Fedor was ready. Unlike most male youth of today -- whose suicide statistics are shocking and who fear the hazing and "dedovshina," or rule of the grandfathers, in the Russian army -- Fedor enjoyed his time of service.
"I, of course, had the desire to go into the army," he said. "I look at our teenagers now and … I had the desire to go, to serve in the army. Let me put it like this: It warms my soul that I went through it. I grew up. I developed my character there, toughened. I went in as a boy and came out a man with a hardened resolve."
Fedor volunteered for a fire-fighting unit. When he wasn't putting out fires, he was lifting weights and exercising. He had no opportunity to train sambo or judo. Later he was transferred into a captain's group of a tank division, which allowed him to continue training while he ran a gym.
"In the army I was never disrespectful, never cocky, though I could always stand up for myself," Fedor said. "And I always tried to help those younger than me. I did have to fight a lot but only at the very start."
Following his return from the army, Fedor once again fell into serious training with the Russian national sambo and judo teams, but there was not enough to eat, no money for uniforms or shoes.
He had married his childhood sweetheart, Oksana, near the mats and in front of Voronov and his team at the Vladimir Nevsky Club -- the gym where he had trained since he was 11. The trainer helped the young couple renovate their small temporary flat while they waited impatiently for the arrival of their daughter, Mashenka, and their first studio apartment that the city would give them.
During this time Fedor was accepted onto both the Russian national sambo and judo teams. Though he was representing his country, he had no income.
In the late 1990s the legacy of Boris Yeltsin's reforms was wrecking havoc on the country's economy. Inflation was rocketing into the stratosphere. Crime and corruption were almost completely unchecked, and there was very little or absolutely nothing for employees of the state, which is what national athletes basically were. The problems with compensation for athletes worsened to the extent that it became common practice for various factions of the Russian mafia to use nationally ranked wrestlers and boxers as hired muscle. The fighters were thankful for any opportunity to work and feed their families.
With no future or prospects of doing what he loved doing, Fedor tentatively turned to MMA as a way out. After much trepidation he floated the idea of fighting in the sport with his trainer.
Voronov was not against it, thinking that Fedor would be able to handle himself in MMA. Leaving the Russian judo and sambo teams for the totally unknown, with no certain future, was an immensely hard decision. But with the blessings of his wife and trainer, Fedor stepped into the ring.
Seeing something in the boy's physical attributes and the way he held himself, Gavrilov bought the young Fedor a judo uniform and training shoes. He also gave him his first piece of advice, telling him that wrestling was a serious and manly pursuit. In interviews Fedor often expresses much fondness for his first trainer, who was later killed in an accident.
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"When training a boy you can't just finish the training session and say that whatever happens outside of the club is your problem," Voronov said. "You have to be interested in everything -- the boy's relationship with his parents, his schoolwork, etc. … The club is sport, but everything outside the club walls is life, with its many daily problems. I aimed to help Fedor, not to burden him but to provide for him the conditions to achieve sporting excellence. In reality, the issue is not in sporting excellence, but in enabling the person to give it his all. But that only happens when nothing gets in the way. Sports help to mature. However, Fedor has from childhood been an independent and responsible person."
One last hurdle had to be cleared before the young athlete could
devote himself to training and the path that has made him what he
is today. He was gifted musically, but there was not enough time to
be a musician and an athlete. His mother gave him a choice: the
accordion or judo.
He chose judo.
By the time he was a teenager, Fedor aspired to join the Russian national team. He didn't partake in life's pleasures but instead spent all of his time studying and training. Two factors were constant in his life then: a lack of money and the presence of his family and team.
Frequently there wasn't enough money for food. Fedor and his brother Aleksander were constantly growing and training, and their mouths were not the smallest to feed. The food Olga Emelianenko grew in her makeshift garden was often not enough, and come winter a garden was impossible.
Voronov pitched in, dropping off bags of grain or potatoes. The harder life became, the closer Fedor and his family and his team grew. The more they depended on each other's existence, the less money mattered.
The Russian Psyche
It was a tough upbringing, but Fedor remains, first and foremost, a Russian. His relationship with his country can be summed up by the centuries-old tradition of Russians lovingly calling Russia "Matie Rodina," or Mother Russia.
This may seem contradictory, considering the incredibly hard life Fedor and millions of other Russians have had. But to see contradiction is to misunderstand the Russian psyche. The concept of "nastoyashyi muzhik" or being a "real man" is alive and well here. A man is either a real man or life destroys him -- and destruction happens plenty in Russia, where the average male dies at 58.
The idea of "nastoyashyi muzhik" is taking on the chin whatever life has to throw at you. It's about taking pride in being strong enough to survive and thanking your country, which makes you stronger. In Soviet times the effect was a sort of lifelong Stockholm syndrome with perhaps misplaced loyalty, but now challenges are seen as merely hurdles in the sprint for a bigger, brighter and more global future in which the runners themselves are the architects.
Fedor is the definitive "nastoyashyi muzhik."
This ground, these forests, these buildings, his city, his country -- it all means as much to him as his family, his club and his team does. Not in the sense that his family is here in Stary Oskol, though his mother and sister are, but in the sense that he is just as inseparable from his land as he is from his relatives.
This is not the most Western of concepts. No doubt the idea seems somewhat disingenuous to people who have held exploration and the nomadic spirit in the highest esteem for centuries. But Fedor's paradigm is one that many indigenous peoples of the world share: the inextricable link between land and ancestry, ancestry and land, to the extent that often their languages do not distinguish in meaning between the two.
When it came time to serve his country, Fedor was ready. Unlike most male youth of today -- whose suicide statistics are shocking and who fear the hazing and "dedovshina," or rule of the grandfathers, in the Russian army -- Fedor enjoyed his time of service.
"I, of course, had the desire to go into the army," he said. "I look at our teenagers now and … I had the desire to go, to serve in the army. Let me put it like this: It warms my soul that I went through it. I grew up. I developed my character there, toughened. I went in as a boy and came out a man with a hardened resolve."
Fedor volunteered for a fire-fighting unit. When he wasn't putting out fires, he was lifting weights and exercising. He had no opportunity to train sambo or judo. Later he was transferred into a captain's group of a tank division, which allowed him to continue training while he ran a gym.
"In the army I was never disrespectful, never cocky, though I could always stand up for myself," Fedor said. "And I always tried to help those younger than me. I did have to fight a lot but only at the very start."
Following his return from the army, Fedor once again fell into serious training with the Russian national sambo and judo teams, but there was not enough to eat, no money for uniforms or shoes.
He had married his childhood sweetheart, Oksana, near the mats and in front of Voronov and his team at the Vladimir Nevsky Club -- the gym where he had trained since he was 11. The trainer helped the young couple renovate their small temporary flat while they waited impatiently for the arrival of their daughter, Mashenka, and their first studio apartment that the city would give them.
During this time Fedor was accepted onto both the Russian national sambo and judo teams. Though he was representing his country, he had no income.
In the late 1990s the legacy of Boris Yeltsin's reforms was wrecking havoc on the country's economy. Inflation was rocketing into the stratosphere. Crime and corruption were almost completely unchecked, and there was very little or absolutely nothing for employees of the state, which is what national athletes basically were. The problems with compensation for athletes worsened to the extent that it became common practice for various factions of the Russian mafia to use nationally ranked wrestlers and boxers as hired muscle. The fighters were thankful for any opportunity to work and feed their families.
With no future or prospects of doing what he loved doing, Fedor tentatively turned to MMA as a way out. After much trepidation he floated the idea of fighting in the sport with his trainer.
Voronov was not against it, thinking that Fedor would be able to handle himself in MMA. Leaving the Russian judo and sambo teams for the totally unknown, with no certain future, was an immensely hard decision. But with the blessings of his wife and trainer, Fedor stepped into the ring.
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