Here is a nice Finnish article about his friendship with Roman Galay. Unfortunately, Google Translate is terrible with Finnish, but I guess we can get the idea.
https://www.skatingfinland.fi/ajankohtaista/onoff-ice/ystavyksista-tuli-treenikavereita/
Just had to see how it worked out - I use GT a lot for Russian, Japanese and sometimes Spanish, but have to say it is particularly useless with Japanese (you can recognize the topic if you're lucky, but not what the text is really about!)
From Finnish to English it was not half bad. Here a slightly corrected version:
"In figure skating, athletes are already travelling the world at a young age. Camps and competitions create international friendships, and this happened also for Finnish Roman Galay and Russian Dmitri Aliev.
Both of them participated in a Junior Grand Prix competition in Slovenia, and two of them seemed to have things to talk about. The start of the friendship was helped by the fact that Roman was born in St. Petersburg and mastered the Russian language, but common ground was found also beyond the language. A friendship developed between the boys.
This friendship got a new dimension this fall, when Roman Galay, who had studied at Vierumäki [a well-known Finnish sports facility with schools etc.] in recent years, decided to go to St. Petersburg to train with coach Evgeni Rukavic. Dmitri Aliev, who comes originally from the Republic of Komi, trains in the same group.
- I have always admired Dmitri's skating style, and of course his skill level is quite different than mine. He is a good example for me in the group, says Roman Galay, now 20 years old.
Dmitri Aliev, who is a year younger than Roman, is equally pleased with the fact that a friend found earlier became a training mate. ["nuoruusvuosina" feels so funny when we are talking about guys who are barely of age... They are still in their youth.]
- We have a good team, but I have often wondered how nice it would be if it were international, not just us Russians. I was really happy when the international skater who joined our group was Roman.
On the same competition ice
The first competition on same ice for the teammates took place last weekend at Finlandia Trophy in Espoo. Roman Galay, who has only recently recovered from an injury and who is only getting used to a full training program, found himself at the last position in the men's result list.
The silver medalist at the European Championships last spring Dmitri Aliev was brilliantly third after the short program, but some fateful - and for the audience surely surprising - errors occurred in the free. A man accustomed to podium finishes had to settle for an overall fifth place.
- Any kind of performance after a break is always good. And it is always wonderful to skate at the Trophy with the audience encouraging you. Of course, I really rooted for Dmitri. And I was nervous for him. I knew he had a minor injury in training, Roman Galay said after the free program.
The friends returned to their training rink in St Petersburg immediately after Finlandia Trophy."
I guess the difficulty comes from the way you can form sentences fairly freely and use participial phrases also pretty liberally (and yeah, the 15 cases are also bummer to get absolutely right in different languages). Kaisa Viitanen also uses some colloquial forms there which are difficult to translate - "harkkajäilleen" ('to their training ice') turned somehow into 'beloved people' which really beats me, maybe somehow connecting it with "rakkailleen" which would be 'to their beloved people'.
E
A real ambassador for the sport.
hoping for a silver medal, if the jumps are on form! 
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