After 46 years

Two beginnings

For Uralmash, participation in the United League is the second coming to the top division of domestic basketball. In 2015 the club was recreated after a long period of oblivion and made its way to the top through the lower Russian leagues.

The official founding year of the basketball Uralmash is considered to be 1960 - then a club was created at the Ural Heavy Engineering Plant (UZTM) on the basis of three teams - Avangard, Zenit and Trud. The team did not shine in the USSR championships, although it gave the country many famous graduates, including CSKA legends Sergei Belov, Anatoly Myshkin, Stanislav Eremin. The squad from (then) Sverdlovsk played in the major league for only eight years, the last one being the 1976-77 season. Then - on February 21 and 22, 1977 - the last meetings with CSKA took place. The Muscovites won crushingly both times – 121-75 and 130-73.

In 1984, the “old” Uralmash ceased to exist due to the fact that its funding was simply cut off, and disappeared from the basketball map for a long 31 years.

Historical moment

The team hosts opponents at the local Palace of Team Sports, where the women's UMMC is used to play. The arena was built in 2003 and has recently undergone significant renovation. On the eve of the game, CSKA had time to try out the parquet, conducting a practice session with the full team.

“It’s a historic time for local club as they’ve returned to top division of Russian basketball and bring some big teams to the city to please the fans,” CSKA head coach Emil Rajkovic said. “The city has great traditions in both men and women basketball, people here understand the game, so we expect great atmosphere here in the gym. I think the game is going to be interesting. We know perfectly how good is Uralmash, not only because they’ve started the season impressively, but also because we played in the preseason. This team is well-coached and play with high level of energy that we need to match first of all.”

A matter of principle

In the new history, the teams have already crossed paths - and we don’t even count games with CSKA-2 in the Superleague. In September of this year, the rivals collided in Krylatskoye in a preseason game that was closed for the fans. Then the guests stunned the Muscovites, winning 92-96 even without Octavius Ellis, now the top scorer of Uralmash (19.8 points, 6.5 rebounds). Perhaps this was a good thing: CSKA has no chance to underestimate the opponent. On the contrary, the desire for revenge is fundamental.

The five Americans, plus Russian Alexander Zakharov, who started the season well (10.7 points, 3.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists), form the backbone of Uralmash.

Let us note in the rotation of rivals Ivan Pyn’ko and Kirill Mikheev, two pupils of CSKA Youth Project.

Brief dossier

Uralmash Ekaterinburg
Founded: 1960
Colors: orange, black, green
Home arena: Palace of Team Sports (5,000)
President: Viktor Ganienko
Head coach: Milos Pavicevic
Website: bcuralmash.ru
Trophy case: 2-time SuperLeague champion (2022, 2023), SuperLeague vice-champion (2021), SuperLeague-2 bronze winner (2018), SuperLeague-3 champion (2017)