The Samara Football Museum

The idea of creating the museum belongs to poet and journalist Sergei Leibgrad, who in 2006 shared this vision with Alexander Chernyshev, one of the leaders of the football fan movement. First based on their personal collections and then with the support of football veterans and fans, they managed to form an extensive and unique exhibition. In 2007, the Samara administration provided the premises for the museum in the historical part of the city.

The museum regularly hosts tours, initiations, thematic evenings and theatrical performances for fans, tourists, schoolchildren, students, young football players, students at the Krylya Sovetov Football Training Center and the Yuri Konoplev Academy, youth football clubs and schools of the region. The museum hosted an initiation into the Krylya Sovetov FC. In June and July 2018, The Samara Football Museum became a center of attraction for numerous fans, diplomats and journalists from countries participating in the World Cup in Russia. Films and stories about The Samara Football Museum were filmed and shown on all leading Russian state channels, FIFA-TV, and channels in Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Poland, the Netherlands, Egypt, and other countries.

The museum has an original design: in addition to the traditional museum exposition, it displays authentic fragments of a football stadium, gates, artificial turf from the Krylya Sovetov FC base, samples of natural turf, and paintings and photographic artwork, as well as football themed installations. Samara football, the 110th anniversary of which will be celebrated in 2021, is presented at the museum with unique pre-revolutionary exhibits and the history of leading regional teams.

A significant part of the museum’s exposition is dedicated to the Krylya Sovetov FC. Among the museum rarities are Viktor Karpov’s boots, a typewriter of the creator of the Krylya Sovetov FC Alexander Abramov, a T-shirt, a watch, a cup and the boots of Galimzyan Khusainov, the uniform of the first foreign national in the history of Soviet football, Bulgarian Tenjo Minchev, the boots, leggings, uniforms, and personal belongings and documents of Boris Kazakov, Alexander Sokolov, Alexander Gulevsky, Pyotr Burmistrov, Anatoly Fetisov, Evgeny Getsko, Viktor Kirsch, Gennady Platonov, Ravil Aryapov, Gennady Sarychev, Yuri Kapsin, Anatoly Kikin, Matthew Bout, Jan Koller, Andrey Tikhonov, Zurab Tsiklauri, Andrey Karyaka, Alexander Anyukov, and Andrey Gusin and many other former and current football players, referees and coaches. There are also badges, key rings, souvenirs, anniversary medals, tickets, programs, cups, posters, scarves, pennants, photographs, soccer balls, books and booklets with autographs of famous Krylya Sovetov FC players and world football legends such as Lev Yashin, Guus Hiddink and Louis Van Gaal, an award ribbon from the RSFSR champions of 1961, the bronze medal of the 2004 Russian championship (a gift from Gadzhi Gadzhiev), color graphics and paintings by Yuri Voskoboinikov, archival photographs, photographs by Yuri Strelets and watercolors by Alexander Sokolov.