Where do extreme athletes train? 7 Russian cities ideal for street sports

General Director of the CARDO Street Sports and Culture Development Award

How do you perceive the city? Perhaps for you it is just a set of interesting locations: parks, squares, schools and roads. But it’s not quite like that. Today we will tell you what places in Russia are suitable for street athletes to train. You will find seven spots where athletes flock to train hard and repeat legendary tricks.

Yalta

Routes for destinations: breaking, hip-hop, graffiti, parkour.

Why go: architecture, climate, legendary events.

Best season: July through October.

People from all over the world try to get to Yalta for the main hip-hop events of the industry, enjoy the sun and do a couple or three spectacular stunts on camera. Of course, people also come here to rest, but it is the architecture and events that have made this city a real “mecca” of street culture and sports. Legendary figures from dozens of countries annually visit Yalta, and raters constantly leave their imprints in the city architecture. The city is very much loved by traceurs for the height difference.

St. Petersburg

Routes for destinations: breaking, hip-hop, graffiti, parkour, triking, skateboarding, BMX, scoot.

Why go: exclusive street architecture, inspiration.

Best season: June to August.

Only a lazy person hasn’t wanted to go to St. Petersburg, but few people know that it’s home to an incredibly strong street world community. The unique style of the Northern Capital has inspired at all times and still does. Dozens of tricks invented, hundreds of millions of views and the most memorable spots. This is where hip-hop culture started in Russia, and scoot-rider jams on the streets gather hundreds of athletes from all over the country every year.

Stavropol

Routes for destinations: parkour, vorkout.

Why go: legendary videos, climate, spots.

Best season: August – October.

Long summer and warm velvet fall create excellent conditions for street training. In addition, over the last 15 years, this city has been at the heart of the formation of the main street projects of recent times. The architecture of the center of Stavropol is recognizable to any parkour and freerun athlete. The most famous athletes of the past decade have shot videos here and demonstrated their incredible skill level. The close-knit community with a southern character has been preserved to this day, annually welcoming extreme athletes from all over the country.

Moscow

Destination routes: suitablefor all extreme athletes.

Why go: concentration of key industry athletes.

Best season: May through September.

There is rhythm and people here. Such a number of legendary personalities of the industry, as in Moscow, can’t be found anywhere else. Here you can just come to any spot and see a living legend, a blogger or a professional rider you’ve only seen before in a live broadcast of a competition. It is the high concentration of athletes and mass events that attracts this city. Despite this seemingly decisive indicator, the infrastructure of the spots is extremely average, perhaps because of the distance between them. But these spots are where the legends of the street sports industry train.

Sochi

Routes for destinations: parkour, skateboarding, BMX, scoot, vorkout.

Why go: developed infrastructure and climate, “wintering”.

Best season: October through February

This city has been attracting everyone for hundreds of years, but what have street athletes forgotten here? Everyone loves warmth and training all year round, and Sochi allows you to train outdoors and hone your skills when most of the country is already under a good level of snow. Over the last 10 years, Sochi has been very successful in developing the infrastructure for extreme sports. National teams have moved here to train athletes in the off-season. And, of course, the landscape, the whole city consists of various streets and roofs, short distances and constant height differences. Representatives of most street sports will find their place here.

Zheleznovodsk

Routes for directions: parkour, freerun, skateboarding, BMX, scoot.

Why go: infrastructure and urban landscape.

Best season: August – October.

A city of discovery! Not many street athletes have discovered it yet, but those who have visited it once come back again and again. Parkourists and freerunners called this city Russian Santorini. The location of the city in a gorge with a mild southern climate makes it very convenient for street training. Small streets, beautiful slopes and cascades, flat roofs and height differences. All this creates an opportunity to assemble various tracks and combinations into long and original trick routes against the background of mountains and sun. Zheleznovodsk is not distinguished by a set of events in the theme, but clearly captures its infrastructure. It is definitely worth going there to shoot a cool stunt or a new showreel.