Russia included five foreign-based players in their squad for the country's inaugural Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.
Five-time defending champions VVA-Podmoskovye provide 13 players
The Bears have announced the make-up of the 30-man squad for the country's inaugural Rugby World Cup in New Zealand this September.
There are five foreign-based players in the squad: Melbourne Rebels lock Adam Byrnes, Northampton Saints wing Vasily Artemyev, Sale Sharks lock Andrey Ostrikov, Viatcheslav Grachev (France), and Konstantin Rachkov, the current Russia-only record points scorer, who plays for Jonah Lomu's Stade Phocéen in Marseille (France).
The squad will be led by experienced hooker Vladislav Korshunov and is a mixture of youth and experience.
The Bears side that will arrive in New Zealand on September 6 will include wing Andrey Kuzin, who needs one cap to equal USSR legend Igor Mironov's all-time most-capped record. It also features the country's two most-capped forwards - Alexey Khrokin and Viatcheslav Grachev, and another four players on more than 50 caps. A further three could reach that milestone in pool play.
Youth has also been given its chance with Denis Antonov and Mikhail Sidorov two of an extremely promising batch of young Moscow players to be given their chances to shine on the sport's biggest stage. The Slava pair are two of three forwards to have won less than five caps, the third being Novokuznetsk hooker Valeriy Tsnobiladze.
There are two uncapped players in the squad. The first is Melbourne Rebels lock Adam Byrnes. Australian-born Byrnes qualifies for Russia thanks to ancestry with both the forward's maternal grandparents being born in the USSR. His mother spoke Russian to him as a child.
The second is Denis Simplikevich, a late bolter to the squad. The Enisey-STM full-back first came to notice with a series of standout performances in the IRB's Junior World Rugby Trophy in 2010, and backed that up with a series of try-scoring appearances in the 2011 edition. The 20-year-old Siberian full-back is the youngest player in the squad.
Oldest
The oldest is Grachev - named as vice-captain, and at 38 he is the oldest player to feature in a RWC 2011 squad. If he takes to the field in New Zealand, Grachev will become the second oldest-ever RWC participant. He is the only player in the squad to have played in the Soviet League - for Star, a team from Tashkent in present-day Uzbekistan.
One player to miss out on selection is Russia's only French Top 14 player Kirill Kulemin, who has failed to recover in time from an injury suffered early in the year.
The majority of the squad is taken from Russia's professional domestic league and five Super League clubs are represented in the squad, testament to the increasing depth of quality across the country.
Five-time defending champions VVA-Podmoskovye from Moscow Region will be sending 13 players to New Zealand, meaning the team from Monino - population 22,000 - will be providing the largest number of players to the Rugby World Cup of any single club side in the world, although it is equalled by provincial side Leinster, from Group C rivals Ireland.
Russia's World Cup squad: Denis Antonov, Vladimir Botvinnikov, Adam Byrnes, Artem Fatakhov, Andrey Garbuzov, Viatcheslav Grachev, Victor Gresev, Alexander Khrokin, Vladislav Korshunov, Evgenii Matveev, Andrey Ostrikov, Sergey Popov, Ivan Prishchepenko, Mikhail Sidorov, Alexey Travkin, Valeriy Tsnobiladze, Alexander Voytov, Vasily Artemyev, Mikhail Babaev, Andrey Bykanov, Igor Galinovskiy, Igor Klyuchnikov, Yury Kushnarev, Andrey Kuzin, Alexey Makovetskiy, Vladimir Ostroushko, Konstantin Rachkov, Alexander Shakirov, Denis Simplikevich, Alexander Yanyushkin.
