Dmitry Uzinskiy: "I can see that St. Petersburg lives and breathes Zenit"

Blue-White-Sky Blues newcomer Dmitry Uzinskiy gave his first interview to the club’s media team, sharing his thoughts on moving to Saint Petersburg, reflecting on last season’s semifinal series, and delivering a message to Zenit fans.

— Dmitry, you’re originally from Blagoveshchensk and started your professional career in Primorsky Krai. Are you happy to reunite at Zenit with Maxim Uchaykin?

— Of course, we worked together before. I used to play against him, and then he became my coach at Spartak Primorye. Maxim was our strength and conditioning coach, and also worked as a scout. Now fate has brought us back together after a long break. I’m glad we’ll be working together again.

— What did Maxim teach you?

— He’s a true all-rounder, he can give advice and help with any issue. So he’s capable of teaching you everything.

— This past spring you often played against Zenit. What stands out from the March regular-season game and the playoff semifinal?

— It was clear that Zenit is a relentless team. You can’t relax when you play them. And in St. Petersburg, with their fans behind them, Zenit is even stronger. In Krasnodar we managed to cope with them, but in St. Petersburg we couldn’t grab even a single game. It was an interesting series. The main feature of Zenit is their relentlessness.

— Did you believe you could beat Zenit in Game 7 in St. Petersburg?

— Yes, we went into that game believing in ourselves. We wanted to turn the series around and win on the road, but it didn’t work out. After series like that it’s always hard to keep playing. You saw that UNICS had more time to recover and prepare, while we were drained after the games with Zenit. We fought until the end in the bronze-medal games, but couldn’t pull it off.

— Did you follow the final series?

— Yes, of course. It was really interesting to watch such beautiful basketball. At times the teams played truly spectacularly in the finals.

— How nice is it for you that several players from Krasnodar also moved to St. Petersburg this summer?

— It’s great, it’ll be interesting for us. It’s also nice that Sasha Shcherbenev met us, showed us around and explained everything. He’s already a real expert on everything in Petersburg. You can always ask Sasha about anything, so there are no problems at all. And in general, I already know everyone. I played with Andrey Vorontsevich at UNICS, with Zhora Zhbanov. There’s also Vlad Emchenko, Andrey Martiuk — we played together in Krasnodar. I also know Sergey Karasev.

— Say a few words about Zenit’s new head coach. Aleksander Sekulic said he’s a demanding coach…

— At the very least it’s going to be interesting, because Sekulic really is demanding. But at the same time, he maintains a perfect balance: he can raise his voice when necessary, and praise when the moment calls for it. Sekulic keeps balance in everything.

— What did your team lack to win the VTB United League when Sekulic coached Lokomotiv?

— Back then we ourselves let the victory slip away in the finals. We were just a little short. Maybe we weren’t mentally ready for that kind of win. Everything was in our hands, but we gave the finals away to UNICS. It was tough, because we were losing games by the smallest of margins.

— So now it’s the right time to fight for victory, do you agree?

— Everything is in our hands! I want to say to the fans: come, cheer, and support us, our beloved club Zenit. I’ve already seen that the city lives and breathes Zenit. We’ll be bringing beautiful basketball. Only together can we become champions.