Former Kryvbas midfielder Mykyta Tatarkov shared his experience of playing in Armenia ("Pyunik") and Belarus ("Shakhtar" Soligorsk).
Mykyta Tatarkov. Photo — fckryvbas.com— Throughout your career, you played in Armenia and Belarus. Tell us about this experience, the level of football, and life in the country.
— Armenia is a championship of one city, where all games take place in Yerevan. There are no facilities, just three fields, one of which is artificial. The level of play is the same. It’s very hard to play, there is no atmosphere. It feels like you are playing constant friendly matches. Compared to Ukraine, it’s about the middle of the First League here. There are about 2-3 teams of decent level: "Pyunik", "Ararat", and I can’t name any more.
— Why did you only stay in Armenia for half a year?
— I didn’t like it, I went to see how it would be. They promised good conditions, but expectations were not met. I tried it and left.
— What can you say about Shakhtar from Soligorsk?
— To be honest, I have not seen a worse city than Soligorsk in my life. It's a complete "soviet", a nightmare. The championship has the same situation, there are only a few decent teams, every year two teams withdraw. Even now, I looked: Shakhtar has already minus 20 points at the beginning of the championship. Who is playing there and why? I don’t know.
— What about the standard of living in Belarus and Armenia?
— The Belarusians have only 2-3 decent cities: Minsk, Gomel, and everything else is the Soviet Union; they remain as they were.
— Kryvyi Rih is a very harsh and somewhat depressive city, is it the same in Belarus?
— Yes, it's just that all the cities there are like Kryvyi Rih. (Laughs).
Ihor Lysenko
