RF: When did you start your journalism way?

Yura Zemlyanov: When I was a student I wrote about a sport for our university paper “Energy”. Then I began writing for city newspapers. I weren’t interesting in my university studies at all and I dropt them for a job at the cable TV-channel as a sport correspondent. 
 
RF: But I know that you create a students’ football league. Can you tell me about it?

Yura Zemlyanov: I've made it with my friends from Novosibirsk State Technical University. Once we played a football near by students’ residents and decided to organize a tournament. We wrote about it at the students’ web-forum. Everybody could make a team. It was only one criterion for this: if you are the fans of Manchester, for example, so you play in one team.  And we were surprised when a lot of students agreed to take part in a fans’ football tournament. Two years later we renamed FFT to SFL. And now there are 8 Novosibirsk universities in SFL. Also students from Barnaul organized own students’ football league.

RF: Anybody help you and your friends?

Yura Zemlyanov: Of course, in general we do all by ourselves, but administrations of universities give some money for presents. As well my partner Maksim Kharitonov makes the project for SFL in order to receive more money from City Administration to have green grass football fields and fans areas made. Today SFL teams have own fans. 200-300 persons come to watch a match but the several stadiums aren’t equipped for it. And it’s very important to organize now because in future we are planning to make Russian Students’ Football League. 

  
RF: You often travel around Russia. Does it have something specific? 

Yura Zemlyanov: First of all I travel because I’m interesting in Russian areas, people from different cities, architecture and various places for fun. Secondly, most of my trips are football trips. In other words I go to watch matches with my favorite team “Lokomotiv” (Moscow). Sometimes these are business trips. But always I try hitchhiking. Sometimes I travel by train.

 

 RF: Can you share your hitchhiking experience?

Yura Zemlyanov: Nowadays in Europe people usually use special web-sites to arrange about where and when to get somebody. But in Russian I don’t know such portals. And I’m classical hitchhiker. So I go to a highway, raise my hand and wait when somebody stops. Sometimes it takes 5 minutes, but in the other from 1 to 3 hours. In my experience I was waiting for 5 hours. 

RF: Have you ever spent the night at the highway? 
 
Yura Zemlyanov: Yes, I had such experience. I had no time and I needed to stay at the roadside rest area. Although I try to plan a route in order to stay for night in cities or towns.

RF: How many places did you visit?