At the end of last year, newspapers reported: “The USSR State Prize was awarded to a group of Leningrad civil engineers. They were awarded for the creation of membrane coatings for long-span buildings and structures.” The first on the list of laureates was the chief specialist of the Leningrad Zonal Research and Design Institute for Standard and Experimental Design of Residential and Public Buildings, Alexey Petrovich Morozov.

The design style of engineer Morozov is well known not only in Leningrad, Moscow and other cities of our country, but also far beyond its borders. A world-famous specialist, he devoted his life to the development of spatial structures and membrane coatings, which brought him well-deserved fame. But there were times when the name of Alexei Morozov was famous for completely different reasons...

Let's open the directory "Masters of Sports and Records", published in 1935. Among the participants in the national tennis championship we will immediately meet the name Morozov. After turning over a few pages, we come across the composition of the Leningrad basketball team, the USSR champion in 1934. And A. Morozov is also listed here. Finally, here is the list of basketball players elected to the country's symbolic teams. The second team includes Master of Sports A. Morozov. And everywhere we are talking about the same person - Alexei Petrovich Morozov.

His creative obsession as a civil engineer and his love of sports were closely intertwined in his life. Wasn’t the result of the combination of these two passions the creation by a team led by Morozov of membrane ceilings over the largest sports facilities in the country.

It all started in 1925 at the stadium near the Engineering Castle, where there is now a kindergarten,” recalls Alexey Petrovich, “it was there that I, an 18-year-old boy, turned from an athlete into a basketball player. Two years later I got into the second Leningrad team, two years later - into the first... And then I became interested in tennis. He was considered the fifth racket of Leningrad, and this was quite an honor, because the first four places were then occupied by the country's strongest tennis players - Eduard Negrebetsky, Vyacheslav Multino, Evgeny Kudryavtsev, Archil Mdivani.

Keeping up with training, playing and studying at the Civil Engineering Institute was not an easy task. But no matter how difficult science was at times, Morozov did not give up any of his hobbies.

In April 1934 in Kyiv, at the All-Union Basketball Festival, the Leningrad team successfully passed the preliminary competitions. Confident victories over the teams of Tiflis - 53:23, Kyiv - 36:20, Rostov-on-Don - 75:18 opened the way for her to the final of the national championship, where the Leningraders met with their eternal rivals - the Muscovites. The Leningrad team entered the final match with the following composition: Nikolai Kuznetsov, Georgy Tishchinsky, Anatoly Krasovsky, Fedor Gostilov, Alexey Morozov.

The first half, Alexey Petrovich testifies, ended in a draw - 14:14. In the last minute of the game, the Muscovites took the lead, but two shots by our center Kuznetsov brought us victory - 35:32. Everyone played great then - the powerful Nikolai Kuznetsov, the balanced, persistent Fedor Gostilov, the agile, technical Anatoly Krasovsky, the youngest in the team, and our tallest player (195 cm), Pavel Osipov, who came on as a substitute. But, of course, the best among us was Georgy Tishchinsky - a true virtuoso, whose talent had no equal in those years. Alas, like Krasovsky, Kuznetsov, Osipov, and many other athletes, Georgy Tishchinsky did not return from the war...

Soon after winning the national championship, Morozov had to defend his diploma. And a few more months later his biography of an engineer began.

A busy life, full of creative work, his favorite thing - spatial structures, which completely occupied his imagination, and sports. It seemed that everything would be like this, dreams would come true one after another. But the war interrupted them.

Civil engineer Morozov, like many other Leningraders, began to build fortifications. Support points were erected on the outskirts of the city, on street corners where the enemy was not supposed to pass. Then we had to dismantle wooden houses - the city needed fuel. Death lay in wait everywhere - on deserted, constantly shelled streets, where severe frost reigned, on the stairs, in an unheated apartment... The terrible blockade winter of 1941-1942, chronic hunger, dead windows of houses, stationary trams... All this was overcome by a powerful organism athlete. Although was it possible to think about sports during these difficult days? But it turned out that the basketball players did not forget about their favorite game.

Here we will break the sequence of the story and talk about one more hobby of Alexei Petrovich Morozov - history. In his apartment, most of the walls are occupied by bookshelves, on which heavy tomes of genealogical research and volumes of rare historical magazines coexist with literature on construction and architecture. Here and there - sayings of great people written in whimsical script. Half-jokingly, half-seriously, the amateur historian Morozov, according to all the rules of heraldry, compiled a coat of arms for himself. Above the shield, containing various symbols, is the motto: "Do what you have to do, no matter what happens." There are no jokes here - this is exactly the rule Alexey Petrovich adhered to all his life. Morozov and his fellow basketball players acted according to this motto during the difficult blockade spring of 1942.

Many players of the pre-war Leningrad national team then worked at the Karl Liebknecht plant.

They, having lived through the most terrible days, had the idea to revive basketball and start training again. Today it is not easy to imagine - people, extremely exhausted by hunger and hard work, decided to resurrect their favorite game. But basketball needed a gym.

A group of enthusiasts walked around more than one room of the besieged city. finally stopping at the Palace of Culture named after the First Five-Year Plan. It was closed and boarded up, but soon basketballs started pounding in its small, 18-meter hall. However, for the exhausted people this hall looked gigantic...

At first, the ball seemed “foreign” to us, recalls Morozov, and we couldn’t get into the basket. But gradually we managed to somehow regain our strength and regain our forgotten skills. By the summer they were out in the open air, and in August 1942 a real basketball tournament took place. It took place at the V.I. Lenin Stadium and four teams took part in it. Three of them were “military” - they represented the 36th division, or “General Bystrov’s unit,” as it was then called, air defense units and a naval crew. The team from the Karl Liebknecht plant performed fourth.

It was a blitz tournament. We played 10-minute halves, and before the start, in order to play out the field, we took free throws. All matches were judged by all-Union referee Vladimir Semenov. Spectators also gathered and were not scared off even by the artillery shelling - the Leningraders had managed to get used to it. And we didn't stop the games. At the same time, they also tried to ensure that no one was injured. We had to take care of each other. after all, everyone had to fight, work, live...

All participants won this unforgettable basketball tournament. It was a moral victory of brave athletes over the enemy. evidence of the civil courage of people who once again proved that Leningrad is alive and will not surrender.

The siege basketball of Leningrad, which came to life in 1942, was gaining strength. This is what the “Sports Bulletin of the Basketball Section of the Leningrad Committee of Physical Culture” reported, the executive editor of which was A.P. Morozov: “In the city championship held in the summer of 1943 (where 6 men’s and 3 women’s teams took part), 96 percent of the games were played in the air alarm and shelling, but there was not a single absence of commands..."

In the summer of 1944, Leningrad Zenit, led by its captain Alexei Morozov, went to Tbilisi for the USSR Championship. The next national championship, also held in the capital of Georgia, became the last performance of 38-year-old Alexei Petrovich in big-time basketball. And Morozov continued to play on the tennis court until he was 50 years old.

Now almost all of his time was devoted to realizing the dreams of his youth - spatial structures. Alexey Petrovich erected them not only over sports facilities, among his creations are standard industrial long-span buildings and metro stations, a shopping center in Chelyabinsk and a showroom of a Leningrad studio, a customs building near the Soviet-Finnish border and a bus depot in Leningrad. The range, as we see, is quite wide. But the honorary builder A.P. Morozov still considers sports facilities to be the main milestones of his many years of design activity. The reinforced cement vault of a swimming pool in Leningrad, the suspended cable-stayed ceiling of the Leningrad Yubileiny Sports Palace (for which Alexei Petrovich was awarded his first State Prize in 1969), similar coverings over sports palaces in Berlin and another German city, Suhl, Olympic buildings in Moscow.. It’s impossible to list everything. Although the closures alone of the cycling track in Krylatskoye and the Olympic Sports Palace, where the ideas of the Leningraders were used, would deserve a separate story. But we will dwell in more detail on another creation of Alexei Petrovich - the Sports and Concert Complex named after V.I. Lenin in Leningrad.

The Leningrad Sports and Concert Complex named after V.I. Lenin, which can accommodate 25 thousand spectators, was covered with a steel membrane for the first time in the world. The diameter of this hanging shell is 160 meters, the area is 20,000 square meters. meters. It is made of stressed steel strips, the thickness of which is only 6 millimeters. Attached at 112 points to the support ring, the membrane reliably covers the huge structure. And its beauty, as well as the beauty of the airy structure of the cable-stayed ceiling of the Yubileiny, can be judged by anyone who has visited these two miracle palaces of Leningrad.

This November, Alexei Petrovich Morozov will turn 80 years old. He arrived at this date having retained not only his athletic bearing, but engineer Morozov continues to dream of developing the idea of ​​spatial structures.

By the end of this century, he says. - humanity will learn to cover spans of 500-600 meters. Well, today... Today we are ready to close, for example, the famous Maracana stadium - after all, a larger sports facility has not yet been built in the world.

Grigory Morozov: If I start bending my fingers, they’ll immediately give me a smack

The prominent Dynamo defender talks about how he learned to dance and became a football player.

21-year-old Dynamo defender Grigory Morozov played four matches for Dynamo, scored two goals and generally showed himself. The club hastened to conclude a long-term contract with Morozov...

“THOUGHT WHY ALL THIS?”

After signing a contract with Dynamo, in an interview with club TV they said that this was one of the happiest days in their lives. What other happy days do you remember?

Probably when I was accepted into the Konoplev Academy. This was a big deal for me. And when I got to Dynamo. I also had to go through this for a long time, I had to go through a lot. Now I have a long-term contract...

-What did you have to go through?

Probably the most difficult thing is the injury and more than one operation on the left leg. All sorts of thoughts crossed my mind, including why is all this necessary? Everything was hard, really. Not so much physically, but emotionally. When you watch how the guys run, but you don’t... At the tryout at Krylya Sovetov this winter, they told me that I wasn’t suitable. Then I was ready to leave the Dynamo reserve even for the second league. I'm very glad that it all happened in the end. Andrei Kobelev began to trust us, the young people. Many thanks to him.

- Before Kobelev there were Petrescu and Cherchesov. But with them you only trained with the main one.

Well, yes. Under Petrescu, I was only 18. Then I got injured and after that I mainly trained with the reserve team. Cherchesov also allowed me to train with the main team, but when it came to official matches, I was pushed into the background. Probably, this attitude towards me also hardened me. Life goes on.

And quite good for you. We scored against Loko, Ural, and now the contract has been re-signed. But at the same time, when answering the question whether you will feel dizzy after this, firmly say no and note that you did not have such an upbringing. Which one?

My parents never spoiled me. My father grew up in a poor family and tried to raise me so that I would not be spoiled. He taught me that you need to achieve everything yourself. Of course, I will not behave differently, because my father is always an example.

- Although there are a lot of temptations, especially after signing a new contract.

What kind of temptations? Nothing has changed fundamentally. There will simply be more opportunities to help parents and sisters.

- You have a big family?

Yes. Two older sisters, two nephews - a boy and a girl.

- Everyone lives in Izhevsk, where are they from?

Yes. The older sister got married and gave birth to two children. The youngest is two years older than me. Studying and working. Everything is fine.

- How do they greet your successes?

They constantly worry and watch. I always dreamed of having my family watch me on TV. When I first started playing for the first team, my parents had crazy emotions. And I am grateful to them that they did not interfere with me when I decided to go to football. Well, for them I remain the best son and the best brother.

“IT’S ON THE LEFT. BUT MORE COMMON"

- Which place on the field is more comfortable for you? Is it left or right guard?

It's more convenient to play on the right because I'm right-handed. But the coaches noticed that I also played well on the left, so they put me on the left flank. But I’m still more used to it on the right. I always played there. But when he came to Dynamo, he began to play on the left. It seems to be working out.

- They say that Zhirkov can move to Zenit. If so, you will become a full-fledged replacement on the left.

The question about the transition is not for me. But if I have to, I'm ready.

So you say that you started playing thanks to Andrei Kobelev. What about the limit? Some believe that the limit creates hothouse conditions for Russian football players.

It's a double-edged sword. Always ready to compete with good players. When I came to Dynamo, the team had a bunch of players you could look up to and watch how they trained and played. And you yourself improve by training next to them. And when you are 20–21 years old, at any limit you have to really compete. What they say is that the limit is an artificial limitation... There are coaches who bring players and place them undeservedly. This is what I don't like. The strongest should play, and not the one who was brought.

- Have you met Pavel Pogrebnyak, who recently signed a contract with Dynamo?

I didn’t know until recently that this transfer could take place, although I also signed a contract at the club. And Pavel is a big player, this strengthens the team.

“I TOOK DANCING AT FIRST...”

- You yourself ended up at Dynamo thanks to your uncle. How is that?

When you look at your surroundings, you absorb something. And my uncle was a policeman in the past. He always worried about Dynamo, I don’t know from what age. This was passed on to me. When the time came to choose where to go, he immediately said that it would be Dynamo. I initially had a six-month lease here, an incomplete contract. But I even agreed to this. I felt like I could play here. When you sympathize with something, it turns out better.

- Is your uncle happy now, like your sisters and their parents?

Certainly! I call him constantly. Of course, it is his merit that everything worked out this way. He is probably watching Dynamo matches with friends over a glass of beer, where I now play. Where Kobelev, Semshov, and many other players he told me about played.

- I read in your interview with the club website that your father wanted you to become a dancer. To be honest, it was unexpected.

What a story there. By the way, my father and I recently discussed this topic. And he sorted everything out for me. In Izhevsk, it was not clear where the road would lead me. I always talked with older guys. And that’s still the case today, by the way. It's more comfortable for me. And there was yard life, and we had to smoke all sorts of bulls. My father noticed me doing this several times. He told me that he wanted to get me as far away from this as possible. I still listened to him, first of all. He took me to the dance so I could do something. There was no goal to make me a dancer. The task was to somehow fill my free time.

- Dancing – ballroom?

Yes, yes! We danced in pairs. And cha-cha-cha, and rumba. But I wasn't good at dancing. I understood this, and so did the teacher. I didn't hear the music. But now I'm better with it.

- How were you released? My little sister goes to ballroom dancing. There boys are worth their weight in gold.

Yes? - Gregory smiles. - Maybe times have changed? They let me go quietly.

- But is there anything left after class? Can you show me the class?

My friend and I were recently in a restaurant, and then we walked around Catherine Park. Grandparents were dancing there. And I asked my friend if we could do it like this. We agreed that it was quite possible.

- Did you dance?

No. We just decided that we could do the same.

- But you still don’t wait until retirement age. We must seize the moment.

I think so. We need to improve our skills a little. And after celebrating a goal, you can also dance something.

- That would actually be cool. Especially since the goals are coming.

Well, they are not easy, to be honest.

- You talk about ballroom dancing, walks in the park. Is this kind of vacation better for you than going to a nightclub?

There absolutely must be a measure. My father taught me this feeling. We are the same people as others. We can go to the park, to a restaurant, to the theater, and to a club. If there are two or three days off, why not? You just need to know when to return home.

Igor Denisov. There is nothing to think about here.

- Why he?

Professional through and through. How to prepare for matches, how to recover... There is a lot to learn from him. I asked Igor for advice more than once, because he won a lot. Of course he always answers. He's a great guy overall. And always for the youth. This is correct, I think.

- How did you perceive the situation when he was transferred to the reserve team for disagreements with Cherchesov?

This is the relationship with the coach. But even in doubles he remained a master. Denisov understood what he wanted, he understood that he could play and that he needed to keep himself in shape.

- And Kokorin?

Kokorin is a very strong player that Dynamo needs. The game is built on it. Tip. It's hard without him. The fact that he was sent off in the game against Terek... After that the team showed character. We didn’t fall apart, but played for each other. This shows that we have character. As for the rumors about Kokorin leaving, we all want him to stay. I think he will continue to play for Dynamo.

- What is the peculiarity of the current Dynamo, where many players have left and may still leave the team?

Understanding that there is nowhere to retreat, that Moscow is behind. We have a mixture of youth and experience.

- And the opportunity to prove yourself young, the opportunity to sign a new contract.

What about the contract? Now fold your arms? The World Cup is just around the corner. And we all want to play there. Maybe we can at least get on the extended list to begin with.

- Yes, this is an important point.

I have a dream to play at the World Championships. Like bringing your parents to the Dynamo match. I hope this happens soon. And the fact that I made it from the yard to the main Dynamo team is a big incentive for many guys. But this is not a reason for me to bend my fingers. Otherwise I’ll get it right away. But at the same time, I myself cannot imagine such a situation. I’m telling you: my father didn’t raise me like that.

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Grigory Morozov: “My parents are still arguing about which of them sent me to football”

Portrait of a young football player who quickly broke into the Dynamo team

Morozov became one of the discoveries of the new season. Just a couple of months ago, few people knew about this guy. Now he plays consistently in the defense of Dynamo, whose general sponsor is VTB Bank. The site's correspondent met with the 21-year-old football player, who told how his life has changed in a few months.

Morozov became famous after scoring against Lokomotiv in his debut match. Before that game, the young defender was very worried. He says he couldn’t even sleep the night before the meeting in Cherkizovo. The coaches informed Morozov about the debut at the last moment, but the footballer himself understood everything.

“They didn’t tell me anything, but I felt from training that I was being played in the first team. I later talked to Uncle Roma Berezovsky (goalkeeper coach. – Website note). He said: “We didn’t want to disturb you ahead of time,” Morozov recalls.

After the goal against Lokomotiv, the defender began slapping himself in the face. It was hard for him to believe what was happening. Just recently he was ready to go to the second league, and now he’s making his debut in a team like Dynamo. Moreover, he scores the ball, which is rare even for an experienced defender. It is not surprising that Morozov refused to believe what was happening. Just one successful match, and attention to the player increased many times over.

“Fans on social networks began to send messages and subscribe to me. And there was also attention from the media. I understand that interviews are part of a footballer’s life. I don't feel any pressure. And when fans meet you at the stadium and say: let’s take a photo, then this is new to me. I'm the same as everyone else. Just a guy starting to play football, and already so much attention. Recently, friends approached my father at the market: “Remember, we gave a stroller for our son. Let’s write “Dynamo” on it,” Morozov is surprised.

It is curious that Morozov was close to leaving Dynamo several times. He had options to continue his career in Khimki and Voronezh. And before the start of the season, Kuban head coach Dmitry Khokhlov was personally interested in the defender. As a result, Morozov doubted until the last moment, but decided to stay in Moscow. But not long before this he was not taken seriously:

“In January, I came to a tryout at Krylya Sovetov in Samara. Trained with the team. As a result, I was not hired. Then I found out that they didn’t count on me from the beginning. They took it for the quantity - they just needed to register someone for the tournament. I was like a chip lying on the lawn during training,” says Morozov.

The example of this defender has become a reference point for many. People even began to contact Morozov with requests to get their son into football. According to the player, such requests put him in a stupor. After all, parents often want to see their son play football more than he does. Especially after they find out that the best football players in Russia receive several million euros a year. It is clear that Morozov is still far from the highest paid player on the team, but already at the age of 21 he knows what to spend money on.

"I have a big family. I am always pleased to help my parents financially. Moreover, in small towns the salary is low. My parents don’t work - it’s hard to find work in Izhevsk. Friends talk about this too,” Morozov regrets.

Gregory has two older sisters, two nephews - a boy and a girl

Mom and dad are still arguing about whose original idea it was to send their son to football. The mother claims that she found an advertisement in a regular school. Dad says that the initiative came from him. The truth has not been established to this day. There are similar debates about physique:

“Dad says I have his legs. Mom replies: “Look, it was clearly passed on from me - they look like my legs.” My parents planned to send me to the Konoplev Academy when I turned 14 years old. But I was called there at the age of 10,” says Morozov.

Morozov’s parents at first did not want to let their son go to the football academy, which is located in Togliatti, 600 kilometers from Izhevsk. However, the father, seeing the zeal of young Grisha, decided: let him go. Why was Morozov invited there? To this he himself responded as follows:

“We have a good school in Izhevsk, and we were invited to Togliatti for a tournament. There I was recognized as the best midfielder. Me and two other guys were offered to stay at Konoplev’s academy. At that moment, tears came from my eyes, honestly! This was my dream. Mom was very worried. Dad too. He told the coaches: “If your son does not fit the football standards, then kick him out immediately - we are always waiting for him at home.” I quickly went to Izhevsk to get my things and stayed at the Togliatti Academy for 8 years,” Morozov shares his memories.