Since the new academic year, the Volga sports Academy has opened a specialisation in handball. Raising the sport in the region will be 46-year-old Alexey Popov. In his time, he won the Russian and Italian Championships and was recognized as the top scorer of the Italian League. Last year, Popov moved to Kazan and became the head of the Academy's handball teams.
In the future, the University will not only serve as a base for training the team, but also train coaches in this direction. In the bachelor's program, 12 budget places were prepared for handball players. If earlier athletes were trained at the General physical culture faculty, now they will have a specialized group. No one has set high goals for the men's and women's national handball teams: they still have the task of qualifying for the world University games.
In an interview with BUSINESS Online, Popov told about the beginning of the path in Kazan student handball, recalled the bright episodes of his professional career and spoke about the difficulties of developing the sport in the country, as well as the features of the new direction in the Academy.
 "VICTORY AT THE 2000 OLYMPICS-THE FRUIT OF SOVIET TRAINING" 
- Alexey Alekseyevich, the Russian men's national handball team won the 2000 Olympics, took bronze at the 2004 Olympics, and now it has been 12 years since it can't qualify for the Games. What is the reason for this drop in results?
– Yes, there is a trend. The system was different then. The fact that we won at the Olympics is not a miracle, it should have been so. Those athletes were students of the Soviet system. But now we have lost the coaching staff.


Funding for clubs is being cut and lost in many places. After all, Kazan also had a club called KAI-Zilant, which played in the super League and played in European competitions, but then handball was lost in the Republic. You can also say about the Volgograd "caustic", in which I played for a long time. Now this club has lost funding and is in last place. Yes, they have a strong Academy, but without money it is impossible to solve serious problems.
In General, there are two problems: the material and technical base and the coaching staff.
– The Russian handball Federation is headed by Sergey Shishkarev, the richest man in the field of logistics, and Dmitry Rogozin and Ivan Savvidi are on the Board of Trustees. Is their influence not enough to attract serious investment in the development of this sport? 
– It is difficult for me to answer, since I am not familiar with them. I don't know how much they want to develop handball. We hope that in the near future our sport will flourish and regain its former popularity.
"THERE ARE NO PLAYGROUNDS FOR HANDBALL IN REGULAR SCHOOLS»
- The parent chooses which section to send the child to. Why can he choose handball? What is this sport notable for and what does it develop in a person? 
– There is an opinion among handball players that a person who plays this sport can play everything: football, volleyball, basketball. I can tell that by myself. Handball develops coordination, quickness of reaction – a lot of aspects.
I can play beach volleyball myself, regular volleyball, and basketball well with my driving skills. The only thing that needs to be added to the ring is accuracy.


Looking at my students who were engaged in football or basketball, I can say that they should be taught handball. This is a specific type, in which there are many complex coordination movements. Handball is not as hard as hockey or Rugby.
– How does jumping in handball differ from jumping in other team sports?
- Volleyball players jump over the net and their jumps are very high. In basketball, too, there are jumps and they, like in volleyball, pass without contact. In handball, you must not only jump high, but also be prepared for the fact that you can meet – push. So you need to land correctly, coordinate correctly, and fall gently. Hard pushes are chased by the judges, but this does not exclude this element, so contact must always be waited for.
- Handball is an ideal sport for a Northern country like ours, where there are many parquet halls. Why doesn't it develop better than football, which needs weather conditions?
– In our country, most school halls are built under the format of a basketball or volleyball court, and there are no gates. The size of the field for handball is 40x20, and all playgrounds are 24x12, sometimes 36x18. In other words, there are very few suitable fields and it is difficult to teach handball in schools. You can only do it in small groups, and you also need markup, which is not available in schools. Let's say I train and paint with tape specifically mark up, so that the children approximately understand where to throw from. If you take Germany, then there is handball-the number two sport after football. In all schools there is a marking for handball in the halls. The absence of such conditions in our country greatly hinders the development of handball.
– Maybe we don't have enough activity in the field of media promotion for the development of handball?
– That's one of the points, Yes. Now our professional clubs do not have management. Those people who could present sports in the right way. On television now it is shown, but little. The Russian championship is now shown on Match TV, but very rarely. The world Championships have started to be covered – this has not happened before. Yes, this is all developing, because before there were no broadcasts at all, but it seems to me that it is slow for handball. It all depends on the heads of the Russian handball Federation, who are trying to make it better covered. At the moment, there are steps, but timid.
"IN TATARSTAN, HANDBALL KEEPS AFLOAT, BUT IT NEEDS TO BE RAISED HIGHER" 
- Handball in Russia is strong in Chekhov, Volgograd and a couple of other cities near Moscow. Ufa is represented by clubs in the men's and women's leagues. Why isn't Kazan or Tatarstan on the elite list? There is no desire in the region to revive a successful team a team in this sport?
– You know, I am from Izhevsk and came to Tatarstan at the invitation of the local Federation, to work at the Volga Academy and the AK Bure sports school. I came here to develop this sport. Yes, it is always difficult at the initial stage, because you can destroy it overnight, but to build again is a long process that needs funding. We are working on this now, together with the Federation and the Ministry of sports. The specialty of handball was opened at the initiative of the rector of the Academy in order to create a team for the implementation of high achievements in handball. I hope that Kazan will soon have a team of a higher level than at the moment.
– So, the opening of the direction in the Volga Academy is the first step towards creating a super League club in the region? 


"Yes, I'll say it's a push. Two years ago I came to work in Kazan and there was not much to see. Now there are already student teams that can declare themselves. In fact, Kazan has the first handball League, where handball veterans usually play. And the sport is still afloat, but you need to raise it higher.
When we start receiving applicants who will play in this League, the team will probably achieve great results-it will go to the top League. And maybe the government of Tatarstan or the Ministry of sports will consider our ambitions for further development. A lot of things depend not on us, but on funding: who will do it and how – there are a lot of pitfalls and difficulties.
– What do you need to create a club with a claim to medals in the men's championship of Russia? After all, infrastructure in Kazan is exactly where to create such a team.
– In the Volga region Academy infrastructure has already been created, now it only remains to recruit students who are engaged in handball. In the student League, it's easier – people who know how to play will come to you, they just need to be directed. And for the results of a serious team, you also need serious investment.
– The Academy has had its own handball team for several years. Tell us who played for it and what results did this team achieve?
– This is my second year working with this team. I received an offer from the Volga Academy to lead this team. It is mainly composed of students who are not involved in handball, from other sports, who for some reason decided to choose this sport. Our goal was to participate in the student handball League, which was organized with the support of Burevestnik. In the first year of participation, we took the second place, then took the third position. Taking into account that our students play with a completely different specialization, they came from other sports, and they trained conscientiously, the result is not bad to start with.
– How did the direction of training "handball"open in the Volga Academy?
– There were 19 specializations in the Volga Academy, but there was no handball, although it is an Olympic sport. There was an initiative of the rector of the Academy, Yusup Yakubov – to create a student team that will participate in the University games and, possibly, in the Russian Championships. While solving this problem, he was interested in the prospects for the development of handball in the Academy and in Tatarstan as a whole. As a result, it was decided to open a specialization to attract students who play handball. In the future, these are coaches who will further develop the sport.
– Now those people who already play for the national team will enter or transfer to this direction. But at the expense of what is planned to fill future groups? 
– The first set will be the most difficult, especially because of the history of self-isolation, because we can not watch the children live, knowing only their experience of playing or studying in schools. Visually see what they are-such an opportunity now, unfortunately, is not available.