‘Rafting Is Sport, Journey, Mutual Support, and Pure Motivation’
HSE University has launched its first official men’s and women’s rafting teams, coached by Nikita Zhuravlev—a graduate of the Bachelor’s programme in Media Communications at the Faculty of Creative Industries, President of the Moscow Rafting Federation, and founder of the rowing club Academia. This season, the teams are preparing for six key races as part of the amateur league. In an interview with the HSE News Service, the coach explains how this marks a unique milestone.
Open to a Wider Audience
We are organising the first amateur rafting competitions in Russia under the auspices of the Federation. So far, during the 25-year history of the Rafting Federation, all competitions have taken place purely in a professional format. These events are technically demanding with multiple disciplines and have a very high entry threshold. The people currently involved in rafting are students from sports schools or Olympic colleges who have dedicated their lives to this sport. Despite the Federation’s long-standing activity and development, it attracts very few newcomers. It is extremely difficult to master rafting on whitewater, and, under competition conditions, it is practically inaccessible to beginners.
We have completely rewritten the rules of sport rafting and adapted them for people with no sporting background. Now, we aim to attract university teams as well as participants from the Moscow city government’s ‘Moscow Longevity’ project—older people who may not have encountered rowing or active sports before. They now have the chance to experience our beloved sport and compete with each other at an equal level.
Unique Venues for Competition
All stages of the amateur rafting league will take place at facilities managed by the Moscow Committee for Sport (Moskomsport) and the Russian Ministry of Sport, including Olympic rowing venues that are normally off-limits. For instance, on May 24, 2025, we held a competition at the Olympic rowing canal, which took ten years to build and was only opened last year. This canal is still exclusively used by Russian Olympic teams for training and competitions. We were granted the unique opportunity to be the first to showcase our sport at the canal. After our event, the canal will be fully open for amateur, professional, sports, and commercial rafting activities.
Contributing to the Sport’s Development
Currently, I serve as President of the Moscow Rafting Federation and founder of the rowing club Academia. I did not initially set out to become president, but I found myself in this position thanks to my contributions to professional sports, competing as a member of the Russian national team, and my social efforts to create infrastructure and opportunities for people to participate in sports. Right now, Academia has five branches, each with the necessary infrastructure in place so that people can join rafting without having to buy their own equipment or worry about the details of training, trips, logistics, and so on. We have created an environment where people can easily get involved in this sport. The water areas are fully equipped, the regulations are established, and we have developed a training methodology and a team of coaches.
Rafting for Students
At the first stage of the amateur league, teams from top universities took part—HSE University, RUDN, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, and MGIMO. In the near future, we are planning to launch a separate amateur student league. This is a great opportunity to showcase the achievements of each university, compare their performance, and demonstrate how institutions support their students and contribute to their wellbeing.
At present, I am both the coach and mentor for the HSE University’s rafting team. I still have a strong connection to the university and am grateful for the education I received there, and for the role it played in shaping me both as a person and as a professional. What I value most about the university is its approach to students—it sees them not just as a workforce but as individuals. Therefore, when presented with the chance to give back, I naturally chose to support the student team. As a former student athlete on the national team myself, I also searched for financial support and attended various events and organisations. From my own experience, I understand the importance of having a mentor who directly approaches students and offers pathways for growth, development, and confidence. Our love for the university runs through everything we do, and this ethos guides our actions.
The HSE Team
The HSE team has been formed from student leaders of the university’s sports club XSPORT. Before working with me, these students were already developing various volunteer initiatives and organising sporting events both at the university and across the city.
At the moment, the team is actively competing in the amateur rafting league, which consists of five stages with an overall team ranking. The league winner is determined by the team’s cumulative performance across these five events. During their training, the team learns the technical aspects of raft handling, while coaches improve their general physical fitness, teach them water safety, rowing techniques, sports biomechanics and physiology, and also provide psychological preparation for competition. This year, the HSE team will take part in six official races overseen by the Moscow Rafting Federation: the five stages of the amateur league and the Moscow Championship. If the team qualifies for the city’s representative squad, we will take them to compete at the Russian National Championship.
Training Sessions
Our training sessions are held on the premises of my rowing club Academia. I conduct regular sessions for both the women’s and men’s teams from HSE—12 athletes in total. We have been training since May 1, every Tuesday and Thursday, regardless of weather conditions, air and water temperature. We are currently preparing them for the amateur league, and our main goal is to get the team ready to compete successfully at the Moscow Championship. Good results there will allow the athletes to earn official titles and ranks, and be selected for the Moscow representative team. If that happens, this will be the first ever student crew made up entirely of students from a single university—and I hope they will go on to represent our city in official competitions under the Russian Ministry of Sport.
Why Try Rafting?
Rafting is a sport that combines several elements. There is the pure sporting aspect, the competitive side, but it is also about travel and exploration. Most rafting stages take place in remote regions of our country, in mountainous areas that are otherwise almost impossible to reach deliberately. These are usually places like glaciers, the Altai Mountains, Karelia, or the Caucasus—sparsely populated areas that you are unlikely to learn about through mainstream sources.
In addition to that, rafting teaches people to work together. It is about teamwork, mutual support, pure motivation—sport through the lens of enjoyment, where people do not just come to paddle, but also to socialise.
Plans for the Future
My goal as President of the Moscow Rafting Federation is to make this sport more accessible to everyone and establish a full-fledged student league, a corporate league. I would like to unite student and professional sport and to build a bridge between the two. I strive to provide a smooth transition for those who fall in love with rowing and want to grow and enter the world of high-performance sports. As for specific plans, we aim to enrich our annual schedule with major landmark events—not just competitions, but true celebrations of sport.