They’ll all burn: from footballer Lyosha Smertin, who likes talking about the poet Joseph Brodsky (and not just about football) – to the figure skater Irina Rodinina, who I personally like for her intelligence, endurance and irony, even when she takes part in stupidities by United Russia. From the charming Andrei Arshavin to the peculiar Evgeny Plyushchenko (he takes part in these party stupidities quite seriously).

In Russia they are tempters of children and the powerless in general, and their sin is great; I’ll explain why.

Professional sport has nothing to do with a healthy lifestyle, or middle class values (comfort, family, a happy old age); professional sport is all about injuries, money (and more money is made from the sportsperson than the person makes themselves), it means a disastrous personal life (tennis player Elena Likhovtseva once said she was lucky she had a husband who agreed to accompany her to matches – there are a lot of lesbians in tennis, she added, lesbians out of desperation, so to speak).

That is to say that the heroes of professional sport are not examples of virtue, they are examples of deviations from the norm, the embodiment of the live fast & die young philosophy, examples of burn-out, money-grubbing or prolonged suicide. And they are not sinners only when most of the rest of the population leads a healthy lifestyle, and keeps fit in their spare time, i.e. plays sport for fun.

When a small number of people among all the boys and girls who run, skate, cycle, swim, jump and so on suddenly decide that their destiny is to break their bones, tear their tendons and deprive themselves of ordinary human happiness for the sake of extreme exertion, for the sake of millimeters or milliseconds of records – this is quite normal. It is even interesting and instructive. In the end, it is also quite safe – when there is a percentage of people in the country who are not like everyone else, and when these people direct their destructive energy towards professional sport, and when everyone has a choice: to follow them or to stay with the rest.

In a country like this, this special group is where the champions come from – without tempting those who were not made to be champions. This group absorbs those from the common mass who on a physiological level are not capable of living like everyone else. Then the professionals who separate themselves from the amateurs gather similarly abnormal people around them – and they are without sin.

But this does not apply to Russian sportspeople. Because in Russia there is no mass concern for health, and no culture of mass sport. In Russia there is a belief in miracles and a greediness when parents force their children to play tennis or football not to develop them physically, but because they think that their child will be a champion and get rich. Some parents get rich from their own children. They are convinced by the example of star sportspeople that you can get rich from sport. Who would be interested in the footballers in Zenit if they didn’t earn millions with their legs? The first time this has happened in Russian history – not counting ballerinas.

Only Rodinina, perhaps, will avoid the torments of hell – because she became 4-time Olympic champion during the Soviet period, when there was a skating rink in every second yard. And Smertin, perhaps, will also be spared, because he played for Portsmouth, and he couldn’t walk around Portsmouth without being mobbed by crowds wanting autographs. And in Portsmouth, where the stadium was built by Conan Doyle (who also played as a goalkeeper), children spend all their spare time kicking a ball, because they are crazy about football. And so are their fathers and grandfathers.

But in Russia, I repeat, everything is different.

I have never seen a less sporting nation, in the mass sense, a people that was less worried about the health of their bodies.

Believe me: Russia is a desert in the sense of sport for the sake of health. A desert where these famous sportspeople appear from time to time, alas.

* * *

Russia and Pan-Atlantic civilization (and particularly Anglo-Saxon civilization) have perpendicular attitudes towards sport. If you go to London, you’ll see joggers in every park. There are endless fitness clubs in London, and they are one and a half times cheaper than the Russian World Class. Reports on golf tournaments, horse races, cricket (and croquet) matches are watched avidly – because almost everyone plays these sports themselves. And this picture, with small variations, can be seen everywhere from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

It’s not like this in Russia. In Petersburg, my wife and I go jogging around the Peter and Paul Fortress – but we rarely see any other joggers. It’s not surprising: jogging is not fashionable, and my compatriots only like things that are glamorous and fashionable. Mass sport in Russia is generally suffocated by glamour and money. If you have money, then you must immediately spend it on a glamorous appearance, and if you don’t have any money, then you have no business in sport.

But to get the blood running in your veins, to get your heart working properly, lose weight, improve your figure and pump up your muscles, you don’t need anything at all – just comfortable clothing and a pair of dumbbells. But that’s not glamorous at all…

* * *

Professional sport is full of injuries; amateur sport (i.e. physical culture) is designed to improve your health, but the border is transparent. Another difference between Russian physical culture and the western style is the disregard of safety. Look at the rollerbladers here – most of them (including children) have no protection; cyclists, skiers and snowboarders hardly ever wear helmets.

And this is the magnificent, or rather idiotic, Russian disregard for consequences, and almost demonstrative refusal to take responsibility for one’s actions – anything but seeming to be weak. And we refuse to learn from our own experiences. In January 2007, during the Russian season at Courchevel, in one of the hotels there was a coffin: a 14-year-old Russian girl went snowboarding and died when her head hit the pole of a ski-lift. She wasn’t wearing a helmet. And she wasn’t in Courchevel by herself, she was with her parents, who evidently also thought that only cowards wear helmets. 

But never mind Courchevel – just look at the Petersburg streets. There are more cyclists now (which is good) but there isn’t a single cycle lane for them (because governor Matvienko calls on people to play sport, but doesn’t build cycle lanes). Everyone rides mountain bikes (which you won’t find in any other flat world capital: mountain bikes are expensive, but they’re ineffective on asphalt), but car drivers don’t consider cyclists to be people (which is something you also won’t find anywhere else in the world). It’s a picture of clinical idiocy: mountain bikers ride around the city hunted by cars – and few of the targets try to protect themselves. In June, almost right in front of my eyes, a car hit one of these easy riders on the Petrograd Side – do I even need to mention that the rider wasn’t wearing a helmet, that the bike didn’t have a back light, and that during the so-called white night (in fact it was dark because of the rain) the street lights weren’t working (the city authorities was economizing on electricity)?

* * *

In this Russian mental hospital, sportsmen could have become doctors telling everyone: “Russia, wear a helmet!”, or “Russia, jog in the mornings!”

But no – as the favorites of the public and constant guests of talk shows, they talk about something else: how Russia’s going to beat everyone at the European championship, or the world championship, or the Olympic Games.

The Olympics in Sochi are the culmination of this madness. I don’t understand how one of the worst holiday resorts in the world got the right to hold the games (the sea is dirty, the beaches are pebbly, horrible concrete piers and Russian pop music blaring from every speaker – and the Krasnaya Polyana ski resort of similar quality). But they’re doing everything for the Olympics. Not for the health of the nation, but to show everyone how great we are. For the sake of this they are prepared to evict people and demolish a sanctuary. I was told that when the International Olympic Committee came to Sochi, all the adults were sent to the non-functioning airport to pretend its was working, and children were given skies and snowboards to cross the road in front of the committee cortege. And a ski pass to Krasnaya Polyana for a family of 4 costs 4,000 rubles – obviously there are few Sochi residents who could actually ski.

And did any of the sportspeople protest?

Not at all: they all shouted – “Onward, Russia!”

And Russia is moving onward: towards an abyss, with its mass lack of interest in sport, its disregard of safety, its average male life expectancy of 58, with its bottoms and stomachs that are already fat by the age of 30. And the sportspeople, like the Pied Piper, are leading this march.

Everyone else who doesn’t want to take part in this Breughel painting can only look on in horror, cross themselves and prepare some money for the monument to great sporting achievements.

Amen.