Nigel Sylvester, Ralphy Ramos, Brian Kachinsky, Ryan Fudger and myself arrived earlier in the week. We checked out the red square, met up with some awesome locals and visited a local jam on Thursday. 
But Friday was the big night, the night of the Russian BMX Awards. More and more riders made it to town and both Hummers were well filled up with riders, media and the industry folks. Traffic in Moscow can be a bitch. With no traffic, you could get somewhere in 10 minutes but it can also take you 90 minutes for the same way. Being inside a Russian Hummer with 
alcohol supplies cruising around Moscow, we could be in a lot worse situation. The VIP lounge was upstairs and offered free beers for the time being. Coors Light I believe, but whatever, I opted to stay on beers for the night which turned out to be a good decision. Russians are proud of their Vodka but it can bite you in the ass, as some of us experienced. The place got crowded when the first awards were handed out. Here are the award winners of 2011:
-Street - Galas Borya
-Park - Evstifeev Anton
-Dirt - Evstifeev Anton
-Flat - Savichev Artem
-Video - Belous Nikita (Sham)
-Photo - Bivol Alexander
-Breakthrough - Pavlov Denis
-Breakthrough by online vote - Nikylin Alexander (Kucher)
-Respect - Kosiakov Vladimir
-Respect - Komisarov Alexey
The Russians were stoked to meet us. We were stoked to meet the Russians. BMX is a worldwide activity and it's nice to exchange our experiences. A big thank you goes out to everyone involved, especially Alexander Furaev and Alexander Sokolai, or Sasha 1 & 2. Had a blast the couple of days we were in town. Hopefully back in 2012.BdJ
Pics provided by Alexander Furaev/RBA
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.