Russian Schools Power Rankings 20-21

[Backoutside]

Rank the Top 10 schools in Russian.

 

[Flying Feijoa]

Good initiative
I'm not going to rank, but I guess the top 20 list would consist almost entirely of Moscow/St Petersburg schools. Perm (pairs) and Sochi (Urmanov) are the only exceptions I can think of...

 

[Flying Feijoa]

Thing is there are multiple coaching teams per school/club, some of which don't work with each other at all (e.g. in Moskvich, you have Zhulin doing ice dance and Butsaeva coaching many of the men's singles). Some schools only specialise in one or two disciplines. So maybe it makes more sense to rank coaching teams instead of schools?

Off the top of my head here are some in no precise order (current coaches only, not retired):

Pairs:
-Top-tier: Tamara Moskvina, the current incarnation of the Mozer team (can't remember their names...)
-Good in juniors: the Velikov family, Pavel Sliusarenko (a Permian)

Ice dance:
-Top (at least in political influence): Alexander Zhulin, Irina Zhuk + Alexander Svinin
-Dunno about top tier but I like some of their teams: Denis Samokhin, Rubleva + Shefer

Men:
-Top-tier: Hard to say, nobody really dominates and Nats is a bit of a free-for-all... plus each coaching team often has just one or two top contenders.
-Establishment: Elena Buianova (+ Svetlana Sokolovskaya maybe, both are CSKA), Alexei Mishin, Evgeni Rukavicin, Eteri Tutberidze (debatable, is 10 years established?)
-Lower profile but lately quite successful: Veronika Daineko, Kirill Davydenko, Alexander Volkov (+ Plushenko? But been coaching more than a decade before moving to AoP)
-Special mention: Valentina Chebotareva (for Kolyada), Viktoria Butsaeva for re-homing a lot of would-be retirees

Ladies:
-Top-tier: Tutberidze (current)
-Established but lately superseded by Tutberidze: Buianova, Mishin (? not really known for girls except Tuktik and Samodurova)
-Good feeder coaches whether they like the status or not: Sergei Davydov, Svetlana Panova
-A bit early to say: Plushenko's younger coach sub-groups (Rozanov, Mikhailov)

Moscow seems to be the main place for ladies and dance, while it's more split between Moscow/SPb for men and pairs.
Disclaimer: I'm a newbie fan and don't understand Russian so could have missed some people out. Not meant to be an exhaustive list, just names I remember. Maybe it will help orient other newbie fans of Russian skating.

 

[kolyadafan2002]

Konek Tchaikovskoi FSC (davydovs team). They have lots of success with men and are very good female coaches too.

Alexei Mishin (mainly male success but also Tuktamysheva).

 

[flanker]

Pity I didn't preserve the link to the article enumerating somehow important skating schools all over the Russia. It was precisely about that vast majority of succesful schools are in Moscow or St. Petersburg (and that something should be done to support schools outside those cities), but were giving examples of the teams from other places.

 

[LadyB]

Off the top of my head here are some in no precise order (current coaches only, not retired):

Pairs:
-Top-tier: Tamara Moskvina, the current incarnation of the Mozer team (can't remember their names...)
-Good in juniors: the Velikov family, Pavel Sliusarenko (a Permian)

Leading coaches of Mozer Team are currently Vladislav Zhovnirsky (chief coach overall), Max Trankov (Tarasova/Morozov), Filip Tarasov (Pepeleva/Pleshkov and several juniors), Fedor Klimov (junior teams, Varvara Kurnosenko and Hana Cvijanovic) and Dmitrii Savine (international teams).
I'd also like to mention the school in Kolpino (Sports School of the Olympic Reserve), St Petersburg region, where Elena Klimova (Fedor's mum) is a coach and which has not only put Fedor on the path of glory, but also Nastia Mishina, Alexandra Boikova and Valery Kolesov.

Brilliant thread, btw. Well done @Backoutside !!!
You're right, it has to be looked at from different angles, this will be very interesting.

 

[Edwin]

In the Russian Cup events you can see the regions often have decent basics in their skaters, but often lack the means to develop skaters to the level achieved in the top schools.

 

[LadyB]

In the Russian Cup events you can see the regions often have decent basics in their skaters, but often lack the means to develop skaters to the level achieved in the top schools.

Interestingly, Nina Mozer about two years ago highlighted that and said she would love to boost these regions to make themmore competitive in their own right. Various MT coaches are involved in skating schools in other regions.

 

[Edwin]

Steady money is needed to offer the trainers perspective and make them stay in their regions and develop themselves, alongside the skaters.

I think there is considerable pull by the many commercial rinks that start to appear in Moscow.

 

[Skatesocs]

the current incarnation of the Mozer team (can't remember their names...)

Stanislav Morozov, and Vladislav Zhovnirski? I didn't know that Moskvina is an "incarnation" of the Mozer team, though. I thought Moskvina was already the coach of Berezhnaya/Sikharulidze (I might be misunderstanding you). (ETA: Didn't know it was Dr. Tamara Moskvina, Ph. D. Hahaha)

Kadyrova/Balchenko and Panfilova/Rylov are both Perm teams. I hope they make a splash in seniors.

 

[Flying Feijoa]

Yeah, sorry for the ambiguous wording! Should have used a semicolon...

 

[Skatesocs]

I am studying to navigate the sport by these constellations of skating schools.

Personally, I am not sure if studying schools is worth it, I usually just follow the "sport" if that makes sense. I do respect the post you made by equating ballet company to skating schools. It might be a bit hard to do in skating, with all the coaching changes that go on (we sometimes don't even know the foundational coaches, I was trying to search that with some Japanese skaters once), but I wonder if we can study "schools of technique" like we might in dance. The Perm pairs have great throws, for instance. And the Russian pairs in general have beautiful twists and throws, some notwithstanding.

 

[Skatesocs]

Not to speak of heavenly objects in retrograde motion.

Amazing. Take all my likes.

 

[Tolstoj]

I'll consider clubs, but always referring to the active coaches and how many skaters to brought to Olympic medals and World titles during their entire careers. So some of the medals i'll refer below may not be achieved at that specific club (coaches often changed clubs), but with that coach.

Tamara Moskvina Figure Skating Club - they have currently the best pair in Russia, Boikova/Kozlovskii, potentially in the world in the future. Mishina/Galiamov won everything in juniors, bronze at GPF last year, probably Russia's No. 2 in the near future. They have promising talents in Men's skating also (Petr Gumennik currently their biggest, junior world bronze medalist last season)

The club is new but the coaches there have a huge history of successes, Moskvina has perhaps the longest career while still being an active coach, with 4 Olympic Champions and 4 Olympic Silver medalists and 8 World Champions.

Oleg Vasiljevs also works at the club, he coached Totmianina/Marinin (2006 Olympic champions, two-time World Champions)

Звездный лед (Star Ice) - Alexey Mishin's club also has a long history of successes, with Plushenko (2006 Olympic champion, 2 time Olympic silver, 3 time World champion), Alexey Urmanov (1994 Olympic Champion), he brought Yagudin to his first world title in 1998 and more recently Tuktamysheva won Worlds in 2015.

Sambo70 - Eteri Tutberidze has started more recently, she brought Zagitova to gold at the 2018 Olympics and 2019 Worlds, and Medvedeva (2 time World Champion and Olympic Silver medalist). Her students has consistently dominated in Ladies figure skating in the past 5 years. Anna Tsareva also works there (Pogorilaya's coach and now Zakharova)

CSKA - If we look at the history alone, they probably have the biggest in figure skating. However all the coaches that brought those successes retired and / or passed away. Currently they have Elena Buyanova, she coached Adelina Sotnikova (2014 Olympic Champion), and currently coaches Artur Danielian (one of many top contenders in men skating). Sergey Davydov also works there, he has very talented junior girls.

Sport Club Moskvich - Zhulin and Volchkova work there i believe, Alexander Zhulin coached Navka/Kostomarov (2006 Olympic Champion, two-time World Champions) and now Sinitsina/Katsalapov (2019 World Silver medalists)