"Pri hokeju ne razmišljaš z glavo, ampak z instinkti."

Alexander Sokolovsky in the TV series “Youth”.

– What kinds of sports are you fond of?
– Hockey, soccer, running, swimming has been practicing since childhood, this is my sport. I reached the junior level and finished. Snowboarding in winter, wakeboarding in summer. I try to find time, but usually I don’t have it. Well, of course, the gym. Depending on the role, I have to gain muscle mass or lose it, we are always walking on such a parabola.

– Did you start playing hockey after your role in the TV series “Youth” or before?
– I played backyard hockey before “Youth”. Then I started playing in the Night Hockey League – there are a lot of divisions, teams of different levels. Last year, for example, we flew to Sochi with a team and won our division. Everyone was surprised, as we didn’t have a single professional hockey player in the squad.

– What kind of team?
– The team I flew to Sochi with is called “ComAr” – a team of artists. It was organized by producer Alexander Morozov, and it has a huge number of stars.

– What is the peculiarity of hockey training?
– Hockey is a cool sport, it really changes you a little bit. It’s a sport for absolutely fearless people. There are as many injuries as in hockey in no other sport. In Sochi, for example, in the semifinals, I went under the puck. We won that game at the cost of part of my injury. My hip was blown out and I limped for four days. In hockey you don’t think with your head, there are instincts – as soon as you immerse yourself in this game, you start to think reflexively and the fear goes away.

– Were you specially engaged in hockey for shooting in the series?
– We were prepared very seriously, almost as an adult team is prepared before the season, the so-called hockey training camp. Three times a week we had ice, three times a week – the ground. The task was to put us on skates at least somehow for a few months, so that we understood what the puck was, how to throw it with a stick, how to give a pass, to see a partner, to raise our heads, so that there was no misunderstanding in the process of filming.

– What about your passion for snowboarding? Did you have to choose between board and skis for a long time?
– When I was 11 years old I had an attempt to go skiing and then until I was 25 years old I forgot about it and didn’t even remember about it. I bought my first snowboard when I was 25. I decided long ago that I would not get on a board until I bought a car. I couldn’t imagine a situation when I would be shaking in an electric train after a ride, all tired and wet(laughs).

– What does it mean to you to ride a board?
– Snowboarding is a part of my culture, which appeared when I was about 14 years old. At that time I started spending a lot of time on hip-hop – not only music and dance, but also philosophy. I wore wide pants, caps, bandanas, balaclavas, durags. Now I’m 28 and I’ve grown out of the hip-hop culture image a bit, but I can still afford to dress that way sometimes.

“Snowboarding is a dream come true.”

– How do you see yourself when you’re on a board?
– There are different directions of snowboarding: simple riding, freestyle (jumping on jumps), jibbing (sliding on rails, walls, etc.), freeride and off-piste. And each direction has its own challenges. I like trick skiing, I like jumping, for me it’s the thrill – in ramps, in pyramids. The most difficult thing is to catch the coordination. In snowboarding you have a completely unfamiliar body position, because in any winter sport you have a natural body position: you ride facing forward, and then you just have to catch your balance. In snowboarding, you stand awkwardly, it’s unfamiliar to your body, so it’s difficult. The hardest thing is to overpower yourself and go down once from start to finish without falling once.

– How long have you been skiing?
– I’ve been riding for three seasons, but I’m lying. With my trademark schedule called “months without days off” sometimes it just happens that there is no opportunity to ride. If I manage to get out at least ten times during the winter in the Moscow region, I consider it a successful season. Last year I learned for the first time in my life what mountains are like. I flew with friends to Sheregesh. This year for the first time in my life I learned what Krasnaya Polyana is. This is my first serious experience in the mountains, and, of course, after a tiny track in the Moscow suburbs, the mountains are just space.

– Are there any idols among pro-riders?
– I consider Travis Rice to be the coolest snowboarder. The man sees extreme sport as a philosophy, as the meaning of life. To me, any activity that you do, that you give yourself completely to, should fill you up so much that you don’t see it as a fan, it’s much more than that. People who snowboard because they see it as the meaning of life are really cool. I saw the movie Phase Four with Travis and a whole new world opened up for me. Before that I was snowboarding just because I loved it, and after this movie I came out of the gym a different person and realized that snowboarding is something different for me.

“The snowboarder’s journey is a little bit special.”

– What are your impressions of Quiksilver New Star Camp?
– It’s a very cool organization. A huge plus of this festival is that here you are completely disconnected from the outside world, from Moscow, where you will have to come back and your worries and business will come upon you. Everything is beautifully done here, it’s as if you get into a special world where skiers and snowboarders come, hang out, ski and enjoy themselves.

– Where have you been so far?
– I’ve traveled to almost all the slopes, watched pro-riders in the park doing all their tricks on the big air. Every time I look at a person doing 6, 8 or even 3 turns and I think: he might not land now. It’s so tough, to me it’s space, crazy guys

– What about your plans for the future? What athlete’s role would you like to play in a movie?
– Since I wouldn’t need an understudy for swimming, I would love to play one of the famous Soviet or Russian swimmers.

As for a snowboarder, I don’t know how relevant it is here, maybe something about Vic Wild. I would love to play a figure skater, especially after “Ice Age”, in which I participated in the fall. I would play Alexei Yagudin, someone from the Soviet Union. Figure skating is absolutely our sport.