The attitude of the leadership of the majority of the Baltic states to Russia has long been clear, and the party’s policy has only intensified in recent years in connection with geopolitical events. However, some moments amaze with the absurdity and absurdity of even those who have long been nourishing any illusions regarding the same Estonia. The banal New Year’s dinner of the head coach of the Russian national football team Valery Karpin with the current and former football players of the Estonian national team caused an actually international scandal.

How it all began

Karpin has long had both Russian and Estonian citizenship. Valery Georgievich was born in Narva, so it is completely logical that he often visits his homeland and repeatedly said that he would like to meet his old age there. Actually, even at the time, to put it mildly, unfriendly relations between the two countries, Karpin found time and the opportunity to go to Narva, and there was no mention of any politics here.

At the end of 2022, the Russian team coach went on the New Year holidays for his historical homeland, where he met with a group of Estonian football players. For dinner, the ex-player of Khimki and Torpedo Andrei Stepanov initially invited him to dinner. In addition to him, at the table were the captain of the national team Konstantin Vasiliev, as well as Sergey Zenev, Andres Oper, Sergey Pariaiko, Arthur Kotenko, Dmitry Kruglov, Evgeny Novikov, Alexander Dmitriev and Igor Morozov.

Many names are probably known to football fans at the Russian Championship. Everything was very cute and at home, and Stepanov signed the photo with the following words: “One company, 10 friends, 100 memories, 1000 games. New Year’s party that will be remembered. ” And then it rushed!

The anger of the Estonian fans poured outside the rational, even a statement of the unification of fans was published, the essence of which was that representatives of Estonian football should not communicate with the Russians. An emphasis was placed on the lack of moral principles among the players who visited dinner with Karpin. Poor Vasiliev was completely called to deprive the captain’s bandage.

Konstantin Vasiliev / Photo: © Eesti Jalgpalli Liit

Absurd and Russophobia

We must pay tribute to the Estonian players, who at first tried to calmly explain everything to angry compatriots. The same Vasiliev assured that they spoke only about football with Karpin, and Zenev admitted that initially he did not even know that the head coach of the Russian national team would be present at the table. He did not say a single bad word about him.

After that, completely Russophobic statements of the Minister of Culture and other representatives of the Estonian authorities went. Only the head of the local football union, Aivar Pohlak, urged everyone to calm down and remain people in any situation. However, the sound and logical words of the stiff did not find a response from the Estonians who were ready to tear to pieces of everyone who dared to be in the same room with Karpin. As a result, the players of the Estonian national team had to make public apologies.

– We are very sorry about the current situation and apologize to everyone whose feelings were affected by this dinner and publication on social networks. We talked only about football, we did not talk about politics or conflicts. We always defended Estonia on the football field and beyond, so we will do this further, the statement said.

The surrealism of the situation lies in the fact that the usual dinner provoked an international scandal that was trampled in the media for a week or more. So is it surprised that recently happened to the player of Dynamo and Israeli national team Eli Dasa in Estonia, when the football player spoke complimentary about Russia and was forced to deal with the Estonian police for this? It is terrible to imagine what will happen to the Baltic states when Russia is returned to international football and our wilness of the calendar will play with Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania.