Director of the Association for the Development of Esports Infrastructure (ARKI), Pavel Golubev, in a conversation with Gazeta.Ru, explained why Russia still does not have a strong national esports school.
According to the expert, the victory of Russian Stanislav Malr1ne Potorak at the main Dota 2 tournament – The International 2025 – as a member of the Team Falcons team was his personal achievement and not the result of the systematic development of e-sports in Russia.
“The victory of Team Falcons and the fact that the Russians won the prize at The International is a success of specific players and organizations that can gather these players, support and develop them. This does not speak directly about the development of Russian esports as a system,” Golubev said. — The development of e-sports in the country is determined by other factors: the availability and need for coaches and player training specialists, a functioning competition system with uniform ranking of athletes, accessible offline and online infrastructure for organizing competitive activities and other conditions typical of any official sport. When all these are few or completely absent, it is difficult to talk about systemic growth. Meanwhile, we simply see successful individual careers rather than the steady results of a strong national school.”
