“I handed over my Latvian citizen’s passport. Russians should live in Russia” – MMA fighter Glukhov

Mixed martial arts fighter Konstantin Glukhov told why he abandoned his Latvian passport and moved to Russia.

Glukhov is known for his performances in kickboxing and MMA in the M‑1, Pro FC and AMC Fight Nights promotions.

— Do you now have a Latvian citizen’s passport in your hands?

— I handed over my Latvian citizen’s passport, my main identification document is a certificate of asylum in the Russian Federation. Purple color. And when I went with humanitarian aid to Donbass, I showed him exactly. I also went to Orenburg and Lipetsk with seminars. This is now for me as the main document, a replacement for the internal passport of a Russian citizen.

— What didn’t you like about Latvia, and why did you decide to move?

— The most important thing is that I am Russian. I have always said that Russians should live in Russia, no matter what they say. I consider this to be my home. Germans live in Germany, Chinese live in China. I believe that Russians should have the opportunity to live in Russia.

— Is it difficult in Latvia now with the surname Glukhov?

– So my last name is Glukhovs. Konstantins Glukhovs. Even when I arrived here, I started filling out the migration card, it had to be filled out as in the passport. And there was Glukhovs, and now I’m like that everywhere: I have a bank card with that last name, an insurance policy with that last name, and even on the asylum document I’m Glukhovs. They tell me: “Get a Russian passport, change it to a normal surname.”

As for what I don’t like in Latvia, it’s funny for me to even talk about it, but there is terrible Russophobia there. And now it has only intensified. Education in schools and institutes is all in Latvian, the most important thing is that some of my friends, and I had a lot of friends there, and they are almost all Russian, they all don’t like Russia. That is, they all have last names Ivanov, Sidorov, Kuznetsov, and they all believe that Russia is doing something wrong. I have an example: coach Andrei Maslov, we even have a photograph together, a very good coach, we were on good terms. Obviously, this is a Russian person. I look – he is already jumping with the Ukrainian flag at competitions. It has Ukrainian and Latvian flags. In normal terms, this is betrayal. A man betrayed his nation, his language. What can I say good about him?! And there are a lot of them,” the Match TV website quotes Glukhov as saying.