FC Dynamo Saint Petersburg

The glorious past

The club was founded in 1922 as part of the All-Union Sport Society "Dinamo" that had its different sport clubs in variety of sports throughout the whole Soviet Union. That society was the main sponsor of the club at that time. Dinamo debuted in the Soviet Top League in 1936 among the original seven teams in the very first edition of the Soviet Top League. The club reentered the Soviet Top League right after World War II as the member of the interrupted edition of 1941. The club then participated in the Top League between 1936 and 1954, finishing in the top five, three times. In 1954, however, it was decided to replace Dynamo with another club, TRL, after the people in charge of football in Saint Petersburg were left unimpressed with the team's tenth-place finish in the League. From 1955-1961, they had only Jewish striker, Israel "Zolik" Olshanetsky.

The new beginning

Coincidentally, the club was resurrected in 1960 in place of the TRL and spent the next two seasons in "Class B", the second tier of the Soviet league pyramid, before finding its way back to the Top Division.

The other Dark Ages

Dynamo lost its professional status in 2000, because of the lack of financing. The club, however, was immediately re-established by a local building society, but lost its professional status once again in 2004.

FC Petrotrest Saint Petersburg

The new Dynamo Saint Petersburg was established on the base of another Saint Petersburg club FC Petrotrest Saint Petersburg in 2007. After their relegation from the Russian First Division in 2010, they returned to the name Petrotrest and a new team was established as FC Dynamo to play in the Amateur Football League.

The United FC Dynamo Saint Petersburg

In preparations to 2013–14 season, FC Petrotrest and Dynamo signed on an agreement of merging FC Petrotrest into Dynamo in order to play in the Russian First Division, now called the National Football League.

At the end of the 2014–15 season, the club was relegated to the third level league, the Russian Professional Football League. Following the season, the club was purchased by the billionaire Boris Rotenberg (technically, a new club called FC Dynamo-Saint Petersburg was formed, with SMP Racing becoming the new sponsor) and at the end of June 2015 "Dynamo" has with the new founders and sponsors were allowed to participate in the Second Division.

The first season of the renewed team was not easy - meeting in full strength only a few days before the start of the Championship, Dynamo failed to show good performances in the first round, once in the basement of the standings at the end of the first part of the season. But in spring 2016, thanks to high-quality training in the winter and breeding spot, Dynamo straighten their figures, nearly becoming the best team in the "West" zone on the results of matches of the second stage of the Championship. in November 2016 The team finish in the 1st place in the table standing of Western Zone in the 2nd Division. They secured the top spot in their PFL zone and promotion back to the Russian National Football League on 21 May 2017.^[1]

The move to Sochi

Dynamo Stadium

In 1929, Dinamo gained its own stadium, Dinamo.

The Dynamo Stadium was built and design by the architects O. Lyalin and Y. Svirskiy. The stadium was located on Krestovsky Island in Leningrad and was the home stadium for Dynamo F.C., the stadium had a capacity of 500 fans.

On May 22, 1936 the stadium host 12,000 fans in the first ever game of the Soviet Championship. The game was between Dynamo Leningrad and Lokomotiv Moscow and finished with winning of Lokomotiv 1:3. During the Siege of Leningrad, On May 31, 1942, the stadium host The Siege Game, between Dynamo Leningrad and the local football clubs.

Nowadays, the stadium used as a training compound for Dynamo. In 2007 the Saint Petersburg City Administration announced on the project to destroy the stadium and replace it with a housing building and a business center. In 2009 the compound become a full municipal property after the City Administration was purchased the ground from Dymano's owners.

In 2008 The Dynamo stadium has become as a Training center for Dynamo.

Petrovsky Stadium

Since the end of the 2000s, Dinamo plays at Sport Complex Petrovsky in Saint Petersburg. The complex consists of two arenas (stadiums): the central sport arena (CSA) and the minor sport arena (MSA). Dinamo shares the complex with four other professional teams. In 2008 Zenit plays at CSA, the MSA is used by Dinamo, Zenit-2, Zenit-D, and Sever (Murmansk). The MSA provides 2,835 seats to its spectators. There are talks that Zenit will move out of this complex to its new stadium that will be built in 2009 in place of the Kirov Stadium. This migration might provide Dinamo with full exploitation of the whole complex.