“At the age of 13 I almost died”: Kavazashvili — about Yashin, the KGB and friendship with his “brothers”

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Two-time USSR football champion goalkeeper Anzor Kavazashvili in an interview with Sport shared frank stories about how was hiding from the KGB, about competition with Lev Yashin, corrupt football, the help of representatives of various groups in business and girls who are “led” to the fame of celebrities.

Kavazashvili began our conversation with a monologue that largely reflects his personality.

“In some places my career was bright, in others it was complex and difficult, but all this led me to the podium that I occupy in the football hierarchy. I’ll explain right away: I am an Honored Master of Sports of the Soviet Union, a multiple champion and winner of the USSR Cup, but my main award is that only I and Lev Ivanovich Yashin went down in history as winners of bronze medals at the 1966 World Championship. The teams of the Soviet Union and Russia have never achieved such success. For Georgia, I am a national treasure, because I am the only Georgian in the world with such merits. Despite the fact that they had excellent goalkeepers, I was the most honorable.

“Without Yashin there would have been no Kavazashvili”
— Anzor Amberkovich, but why? did it all begin?

— I had a very serious situation: at the age of 13 I almost died. It all happened like this. It was customary for us that in the evenings all the children would gather at my mother’s. One day they were preparing something and handed it to me, but I refused, I couldn’t eat anything. The mother touched her head, everything seemed fine, but she sent her to lie down. An hour later my sister comes up to me, and I’m completely cold. It turned out that pus was coming out of my gallbladder. I spent forty days in the hospital, they gave me penicillin injections three times a day. At that time, it was very difficult to get such medicines, but my father was the head of a fuel warehouse in Adjara, a very senior person, this helped. After this incident, I was banned from moving too actively for the rest of my life. For me, this ban was like murder.

— And what happened next?

— Mother went to the village to see the grandmothers who treated different ways. From there I brought three-liter liquid. And you won't believe it! I drank it, everything went away for me. After that, I began to quietly go to training.

— How long did your mother not know about this?

— Apparently, one of her neighbors Still, he snitched on me. When my mother found out that I had to leave for the competition, she said: “Anzorchik, I know that you have been training for a long time. If you have recovered, go.” And so my serious career began.

— Did you find a team right away?

— At the age of 15, I was hired by a motor transport office; they had a very good football team. A little later, several messengers came to my mother and said: “Tekle bitsola (Aunt Tekle in Georgian — editor’s note), your Anzor is a very talented boy, let’s give him to another team?” Mom refused. A month later, guests come again, and the Spartak coach from Yerevan came with them. They began to offer my mother various benefits so that she would agree to give me away. And suddenly she asks: “So he’s Georgian. How will he be?” And he answers her: “Don’t worry, we will make him Kavazian.” At this point the conversation was closed.

—Where did you continue your career?

— I was taken to the reserve team of Dynamo Tbilisi. Everything was fine, from time to time I was put in the main team, but I was offended by this. At the end of the 1959 season, the team went to Belgium for friendly games, but they didn’t take me. For me, this was a sign that it was time to run away from Georgia. By coincidence, I received a call from the former head coach of the USSR youth team, Georgiy Ivanovich Zharkov, who invited me to play for Zenit Leningrad. I agreed, I go to the ticket office, I want to buy a ticket, and then the saleswoman says: “Son, we have instructions from the KGB not to issue a ticket to this name.” Everything was taken care of so that it wouldn’t go anywhere.

— What were your thoughts at that moment?

— I cried! But at that moment my son-in-law was passing by and he asked: “Are you crying because of this? I’ll take a ticket in my name now, and you put on your cap in the morning and go on the plane. No one will kick you out.” And so it happened.

— Nobody looked after that?

— What are you talking about! Of course they did. People from the Georgian KGB came to Leningrad. I was placed in the apartment of the team leader, his wife hid me. Every time the KGB officers came, she answered: “What kind of Kavazashvili? And there was nothing like this in life!” You see, if they found me, they would arrest me. They already had a document from the Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs to find me, arrest me and take me to my place.

— Wasn’t it scary?

— Did I understand? I just knew that I couldn’t get caught. When they had already become frequent, the Zenit management came to an agreement with Tashkent. They flew to Indonesia for friendly games, and I traveled with them for a month and a half. They wanted to leave me, but I couldn’t let Georgy Ivanovich down. The next season I played so well at Zenit that Moscow Torpedo paid attention to me. But at that time, Tolya Glukhotko stood at their gate — a handsome Siberian with curly blond hair, tall with broad shoulders. Why did I just go there? Can not understand. But a person must still have luck. Suddenly CSKA decided to grab talented football players of the Soviet Union. “Torpedo” was left without players, including without a goalkeeper. I started playing and, excuse me, I didn’t lose the goal to anyone for eight years.

— For a long time you and Lev Yashin had a rivalry. Did you look up to him?

—That’s all I did. I was very brave in goal, I was never afraid and always tried to predict the opponent’s actions. This most important factor was especially improved with Yashin. Leva was ideal in this regard.

— Was it really possible to compete with him?

“I had to beat him at the World Championships in Mexico, but at that moment he was old for a goalkeeper. He started taking more time outs, didn’t train for a month or two, then showed up again. Apparently he's already tired of it. And, of course, it was difficult with a stomach ulcer. When heavy loads began, he immediately drank soda, smoked Belomorkanal, and for a while he felt better. But if I had been with him at the time when he was young, perhaps no one would have known Kavazashvili. On the other hand, I was also constantly stepping on his heels, so this competition also spurred him on, and I was happy that I was changing Leva.

— Will we have goalkeepers of the same level as you, like Lev Yashin?

— A very difficult question. A goalkeeper is selected according to several criteria: he must be calm, well-rounded and must be taught by qualified goalkeeper coaches. Now I often say: “Goalkeeper coaches, what are you doing? Why are you ruining them?” The goalkeeper Safonov is a talented boy, but he makes serious mistakes. His self-confidence simply outrages me, because he puts his defenders in a difficult situation and the whole team comes under attack. The goalkeeper must be the first to provide his teammates with a quick pass.

— Some call Igor Akinfeev the best goalkeeper in Russia.

— This is true. He rarely makes passes in the penalty area. He has never allowed the ball to be intercepted from his defender and a goal scored. He serves the ball where there is less chance of loss, that is, Akinfeev prolongs the attack. That is why, regardless of his age, he is the most sought-after goalkeeper.

«Amigo, we will pay you any amount»
— Have you ever been called to play abroad?

— Many times. In 1965 we had big tournaments with good teams in Australia. It was generally in great demand there. But our mentality is different. Our generation did not know that it was possible to leave somewhere. When someone offered me something, I said: “Well, how about that? I have a mom and dad. How can I leave them? My homeland is the Soviet Union.” This issue is now easily resolved, everything is bought and sold.

— That is, none of the athletes agreed to leave?

— Not among football players, although Lev Yashin, for example, was invited many times. It happened in Spain. We were sitting in a bar near the hotel and the president of the football federation drove up there, he was also the president of Real Madrid. He came up and greeted everyone, they were all easy-going, relaxed, there was no such thing as a big rank for them. And so he sat down with us and through an interpreter began to talk to Leva: “Come on! We need you on the team!” And Leva was a shy man, so modestly he answers: “No. I can’t.” They continue to lure him: “Amigo, we will pay you any amount.” Leva replies: “I already get a lot, 300 rubles.” And that one is corrosive, an infection. He immediately translated into dollars: “How much, how much? We have a beggar sitting here, they give him this amount a month! Yashin! Yashin! Come on, we’ll pay you more.” Leva laughed and refused. It was a useless conversation.

—Did you receive money for foreign matches?

— I’ll tell you about England: we were given only $800 for bronze awards. They deceived us! In Mexico City they promised more than 5 thousand dollars, they gave 200 or 300. Even when we traveled to South America, meetings with fans were organized in each country. There was always Yashin, me, Shesternev, Voronin. For Yashin's autograph they paid 100 dollars, for Voronin's autograph — 75 dollars, for mine — 50. Our impresario Lanz received money for this, but, the asshole, he gave us nothing. Maybe he gave it to the coaching staff, I don’t know.

— At competitions of any rank, sports companies come to you. Then there were Adidas and Puma. For example, Puma paid Pele $30,000 to wear their boots. We were paid no more than 2 thousand dollars. I'll tell you a story for fun. Murtaz Khurtsilava decided to take boots and money from both companies. He came out to play: he had Adidas on his left foot and Puma on his right. The heads of the companies saw this, they ran into the locker room during the break, angry, and just shouted: “Khurtsi, whore!” In general, this was the case.

— What did you mainly spend the money you earned on? Did you like to spend on fashionable things?

— My first fashion was in 1957, when I was taken from Dynamo Tbilisi to the USSR national team. Then at the European Youth Championship he received a gold medal as the best goalkeeper of the tournament, and the football players were given $300. With them I bought beautiful fashionable tapered trousers, a Bologna shirt with three buttons, and for the first time brought grease for styling my hair. I come to Tbilisi, and there is nothing to do there in the evenings; you go out onto Rustaveli Avenue and walk back and forth. And so we were walking with the guys and one of them said: “Well, come on! How p……!” After that, I threw away this grease and never smeared it again in my life. But I always loved beautiful clothes, although they were never an end in themselves.

— Did money make you dizzy? Have you always continued to follow the regime?

— I don’t drink at all, I don’t know how to drink by nature. If I drink too much, I will feel very bad, I can’t recover for several days. Those who say that we drank a lot are not true. But there were rare cases, of course. For example, in Spartak in 1969 we started winning matches and there was a break of two weeks between the first and second rounds. And we had a crazy fan — an engineer from the Badaevsky brewery, he invited us to try a new beer. Me, Logofet, Khusainov, Lovchev, Abramov and Vadik Ivanov arrived there in my car. But what was there! Everyone started trying, and there were huge vats. You have to walk 100 meters to get around everything. So we got drunk. Only Lovchev and I didn’t drink. And so I’m driving everyone, the back doors are open, one is vomiting in one window, the other is vomiting in the other. So we drove all over the city.

“The KGB watched every step”
— Many took advantage of the fact that they could travel abroad and carried contraband. You too?

— To be honest, I once came to a store in South America that sold car alarms. There was such a huge selection there that it was dizzying. I bought several signals and wanted to give them to my brother. At that time it was a great gift. We returned to the USSR and a day before the match in Kutaisi a man came to my hotel and said: “Anzor, the Georgian football players told us that you brought horns. Sell them to us.” I won’t say exactly how much they paid, but the amount was oh-oh-oh.

— Was this a one-time incident?

— I’ll give you one more example. The team and I flew through Paris to Moscow. I had just started to fall asleep when there was a knock on my door. There is a man on the threshold: “Anzor, I am the father of Sasha Levinson (one journalist), can you give my son a gift?” I agreed and put this package in my suitcase. We were quietly released from Paris, but at our customs they stopped me. They asked me to open the suitcase and asked: “What kind of package?” And they point specifically to him, nothing else. I say: “It’s written here for Sasha Levinson. I’m bringing a gift from my father to a friend.” They tell me to open it, I refused. Why on earth, it's his own package. They ask for a second time, I refuse again.

—Wasn’t it scary to argue like that?

— Am I afraid? Healthy football players, what are we afraid of? I was taken to a room, and it was glassed, that is, you could see everything that was happening inside. Our guys are standing and watching. The customs officers opened the package and mohair threads began to jump out. There were 30 pieces! There was still a suede jacket there, and at the very bottom there were small perfumes. They tell me: “Pay the fee.” I answer: “I won’t pay anything.” But they still gave me a fine and confiscated everything. That's how I got there. Then I called Sasha and said: “Take the deed of seizure from me, pay the fee and take your gifts. Tell your father, let him remember who he told that he was giving me the package, he snitched on me.” After that, I never sent anyone’s parcels again.

— Did the KGB keep a lot of surveillance on football players at that time?

— Yes, almost every step. There was one case in New York. Once I was going down from my room to the hall, the doorman stopped me and asked: “Are you from the Soviet team? What is your name?” I answered him: “Do you want to meet?” He explains to me that there is a man sitting opposite in the park and wants to meet me. I approached this man, greeted him in Georgian and he began to talk. He was 16 years old when he went to the front. And these boys, without weapons, without uniforms, were driven to another detachment, where they were supposed to hand over all this. But German planes attacked, bombed more than half of the detachment, and took the living prisoners. They were sent in trains to Belgium, where he worked in a mine, extracting coal. He was then sent to Australia, where he married a German woman. In the photograph he showed me his wife, a shepherd dog, and the house where they live. And he tearfully asked to give the letter and photograph to his family in Kutaisi, because they didn’t even know whether he was alive or not.

He wrote letters home several times, but they were returned. At that moment our KGB officer saw it all. As soon as I left this man, the KGB officer came up and asked: “What kind of intelligence did you receive?” I hand him the envelope so that he can check that it is just a letter. He cut it culturally, I read it to him in Georgian. In the end, he made a remark, but gave everything. And then a month later we came to play in Kutaisi, and I went to the address that the Georgian man gave me. I saw the old lady standing in the yard, I called her over, I told her the whole story… It’s still difficult to remember… Her hysteria, of course, was terrible. But there were also such cases. African countries.

— It’s a common story when, after finishing active work, football players try to find themselves as coaches. I worked in Kostroma for three years, assembled a team in a hurry, but chose strong athletes. We immediately became champions. This was a great joy for me, but then came the behind-the-scenes games of various football officials, and I felt that I couldn’t work in football with my character. I can cause trouble: either tear off the judges' heads, or come to a high-ranking official and tell him in front of everyone that he is a scumbag.

— Was it like that?

— Yes, but I don’t want to go deeper. After that I decided to go work abroad. I spent a year and a half on my first trip to Chad. They carried me in their arms, despite the fact that Chad is the poorest country. I was fully supported by the state, wherever I went, I was guarded by the president’s assistant. But there was an attempted coup. Our people urgently took me out of there so that I wouldn’t get into this mess.

— Liked it so much in Africa that you decided to return to Guinea?

— At that moment, Konstantin Chernenko, General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, died. And as is customary, whoever leads the funeral procession becomes the next Secretary General. Then Gorbachev became it. As he stood at the coffin, I saw leaders of various countries approaching him. At one point, a healthy, handsome black general approached and lingered near him for a while. Literally two days pass, they call me from the Ministry of Sports and say: “Anzor, come urgently and bring your passport with you.” I don’t understand anything, I ask: “What happened?” And they angrily answer me: “A foreign passport!” I arrive at the international office and they hand me tickets to the Republic of Guinea.

— So this wasn’t even agreed upon with you?

— Yes, they sent it in a strong-willed way: “Here are your tickets, you’re leaving the day after tomorrow.” There was also a ticket for my wife. Later, on the sidelines, they told me that this general approached Gorbachev and said: “We know that you had a good trainer in Chad, we need him.” And after that they gave the following command.

— How did your wife react?

— She simply went crazy! And most importantly, we were told that there was nothing to eat there. We had a signature huge suitcase. We filled one half with Apollo cigarettes, the other half with canned food.

— Is the mentality of Africans very different?

— Absolutely! It was like I was in my own home. They accepted us so much, you can’t even imagine! When we arrived, we were met near the ramp by a representative of our embassy and the Minister of Sports of Guinea. We were all taken to the parliamentary government hall and the minister addressed me: “Our president asked Gorbachev to send you to work with us. Now we offer you two options: go to a hotel or choose a car in the presidential garage.” I think: “Why bother thinking about it at all? The second option, of course!”

— Which car did you choose?

“I’ll remember for the rest of my life how we got there.” There were French, German, American cars there, all shimmering. I saw the latest Mercedes model, my eyes immediately became like this, I asked: “Can I?” They tell me: “No problem!” They immediately gave me the keys and documents, I was already walking to the car, and then our translator pinched me on the buttock, I started screaming. I said to him: “What are you doing?” And he whispers: “Give up this car. Only the ambassador has one like this.” Communist, fool. And I would have sent him away, but no, I listened. I approached the Africans and said: “Sorry, I don’t have the right rank.” Then I chose a black Volga, the twenty-fourth.

— Have you sorted out the food?

— Pfft, we just arrived, the director came straight to me hotels, head waiter with gifts. And so my wife and I sat there for a year and a half and didn’t spend a penny on food. Everything was free: gasoline, security, whatever you want.

— When you returned back to the USSR, you opened your own business. Have you ever been threatened?

“We athletes are always protected from all sides. Of course, as citizens we trust our police, but there were a lot of fans in all areas of our hierarchy. For example, there was such a head of the Solntsevskaya lads, the famous Sergei Mikhailov, known as Mikhas. Even when he was young and stood at the gate, he shouted: “I am Kavazashvili.” We had so many friends that we never felt any disadvantage or fear.

— Without such support, was it possible to build a business?

— It was very difficult. The entire business was distributed among various groups. One day there was a call from my friend. He was the general manager of a large grocery store. The voice is simply creepy, it says: “Anzor, can you come to me? I have a problem.” I came and saw two young, broad-shouldered boys sitting there. They say threateningly: “Dear Alexander must be paid.” I ask: «Solntsevsky?» It turned out yes. Right in front of them, I dialed a Georgian and said: “Vakhtang, this is the matter here. Can you figure it out?” The boys, as soon as they heard his voice, immediately stood up and left. Nobody else came up.

— They tried to get money from you like that?

— No, no one. Many people simply know: we have connections all around. We are noticeable people, if someone dares to approach us, we are able to culturally explain that they are in the wrong place. But we are solid, shooters are not our method.

—Have you ever threatened your connections?

— No! We didn’t even advertise that we were friends with someone. There was such a famous Otar Kvantrishvili. I was on good terms with him. In the same circle I was on good terms with Kobzon, and to this day I am friends with Anzor Kikalishvili. These were the people who oversaw the entire business in Moscow and some parts of Russia. And Otar always said: “If I hear that someone offended Anzor Kavazashvili, you will deal with me!” He loved me as a goalkeeper and as a Georgian. That's all.

“Without love, you are an empty place”
— Were there many fans during your career?

— Of course, it happened. Some even went to cities to pick up football players. Valerka Voronin was very handsome, and of course he had a tail. But why hide it, I had such sins in my youth.

— They say that a woman’s love can raise a strong man to the skies and bring a weak man down to the ground. Do you agree?

— Women play both positive and negative roles in the fate of a man. Maybe I’m wrong, of course, but I’ve always believed that when a talented, famous man in his youth chooses a beautiful girl as his wife, then she often enters into a relationship not with this man as a devoted woman, but goes as a person who is attracted to a golden shell, to a person from whom there is a bright light, a lot of money.

— How then to find true love?

— Complex issue. Many of our athletes fell for this. I won't talk about my first wife. Then I saw the girl’s bright appearance and lost my head. A month and a half later he got married, but it turned out that the attitude towards each other was uneven. We didn’t live like human beings.

— When you met your second wife, did you immediately understand that it was destiny?

— Yes! Firstly, when I saw her outwardly I almost went crazy. We first met at the Russian Ministry of Sports, she worked in the affairs department, and I periodically came to the football department on various reports. I was stunned then and asked: “Where is such a beauty from?” She laughed, walked past, and didn’t even pay attention. We communicated warmly for more than two years, and then got married.

—Are you romantic?

—Very! I definitely have to come to a date with my wife with flowers in my hands. But my wife says that the most important thing for her is when I come home healthy and smiling. I never allow myself to come home with an angry face or make noise. I make only one noise: “Hello, my family! Hello, my good ones!” And I am very upset if my wife or daughter is in a gloomy mood.

— Can you live without love?

— You cannot live without love. Love should be for a woman, for beauty, for art and, most importantly, for one’s country. If you don't have these four factors, you have no business living in this world. You are an empty place, a person who came into this world by mistake.