A Russian comes 'home' to Marseille

More than 10 percent of the TP 52 fleet involved this year in the Audi MedCup Circuit comes from… Russia. If the 2006 Botin Carkeek design Rusal Synergy has now taken an option towards a more international team, Valars is almost entirely Russian. Serge Kotsiouba is the project manager of Valars is no stranger to Marseille, where the second Audi MedCup Circuit regatta starts on Monday.

He set up his business in France and has been involved with Valars since the beginning. With the former Caixa Galicia in 2006 and 2007 they learned the class and the circuit.
Now this year they have the former Mutua Madrileña, a 2007 Botin Carkeek design.

Kotsiouba arrived in France in the early 1990’s when an initiative between the French and Russian governments was established to grow the sport of sailing in Russia. There was an Olympic sailing culture but no cruising, cruiser or big boat racing and very few private boat owners.

“A selection has been made across the whole of Russia and I was one of the five selected candidates." he recalls, " I spent a year in France. I succeed in passing my exam (BE1 = sailing certificate that allows you to teach in a sailing school) at Paimpol and spent a lot of time there, as in Concarneau and Marseille. Finally, when I went back home, the Russian project to build up and develop sailing schools was aborted. By 1995, it wasn’t a priority any more. But I had those contacts in France and settled here in 2004.”

“ Kirill Podolsky, Valars’s owner is a friend of mine. We started a sailing project in 1997. We were sailing in in the south of Russia. But he wanted to race outside, in Europe and we needed a boat. In 2001, we bought an IMX 45 and start to participate at the IMS and IRC circuit. We made Les Voiles de St Tropez, sailed in Med, Bretagne. We started to understand what to do to be a pro team looking at the Italian crew. Kirill is young. He’s 38 years old. Valars, is a grain and cereals trading company that he owns. He started sailing quite late, but he is always on board, sailing is really his pleasure.”

The first Valars was an older boat but was a good introduction to the MedCup Circuit :
“We joined the TP 52 circuit in 2006 with an old boat, the former Caixa Galicia built in 05. We still have this boat, sailing now in Great Britain in the IRC circuit. That means that we run two circuits, two projects at the same time. This year, we charter the ex Mutua Madrileña. We were planning to build a boat, but we wanted to wait to see how the 2007 generation goes. I think that we don’t need to be in a hurry. We still need to learn and to “absorb” what goes around.”

“ The whole crew is from the same town in Russia : Taganrog. This town has been founded by Peter the Great, the Tsar and is the native city of Chekov. All the crew members are sailing since their childhood, practising Optimist, 420 and 470….Our skipper, helmsman and tactician has lived in Italy for 15 years. I used to be navigator on board, but now, the level is to high for me… We probably have the youngest crew on the circuit. The average age is about 30 years. The most difficult thing for me is looking at the logistic, is to organise the schedule with the visas. We have a limit of 90 days for 6 months (or 180 for a year). We only have enough time to compete, not to train."

"We can’t say that sailing was Putin’s favourite sport, and I don’t know if it will be the same for Medvedev ! There is a Russian Sailing Federation but with no real means from the State. There is a lot of Russian boat owners with boats about 40 to 50 feet Russian, but the majority of them are based in the Med. We don’t have the infrastructures in Russia to welcome cruising boats…But with and us Rusal Synergy we work hard to promote our campaigns and sailing back home."