Back in the USSR

Well done to Zenit St. Petersburg for wrapping up the Russian championship. It's the first win since 1984, when I guess they were called Zenit Leningrad. What's happened since then? Glasnost, Perestroika, Chernobyl, Armenian earthquake, end of the Warsaw Pact, collapse of the Soviet Union, name changes galore, Yeltsin shells the Russian parliament, Chechnya, Yeltsin first ever Russian leader to be democratically re-elected, Chechnya again, Putin assumes presidency, cooling in east-west relations. Apropos the film, Goodbye, Lenin, Hello St. Peter.
Well done too, to Vladivostok, for staying in the top division. On one of the far corners of Russia, along the Pacific Ocean, those away trips must be gruelling. And Newcastle think they have it bad! I'm just hoping some Russian oligarch sinks a fortune into the team to put them into the Champions League and force all those moneyed, famous clubs to make a journey across eight or nine time zones to near enough the other side of the world.