Nikolai Starostin - Arrest

Arrest

In the late 1930s many of Starostin's friends and associates were arrested as part of the Great Purge, including Kosarev. There were also attempts to more closely control sporting matters, including forcing the Semi-final of the 1939 cup to be replayed after Spartak won the first match by a disputed goal. They went on to win the replay, which did not take place until after Spartak had already won the final. On March 20, 1942, Starostin was arrested, along with his three brothers and other fellow players, facing accusations of involvement in a plot to kill Joseph Stalin. Following two years of interrogation in the Lubyanka, the charges were dropped but the Starostins were tried and sentenced to ten years in Siberia anyway, having been found guilty of "lauding bourgeois sport and attempting to drag bourgeois motives into Soviet sport". The sentence was very lenient in view of the popularity of football and Starostin. When details from the actual court sentence were published in 2003, it turned out Starostins were not convicted for political crimes, but rather for stealing sporting goods from the stores they were supposed to oversee and selling those goods on. Nikolai Starostin profited for 28,000 rubles, Aleksandr for 12,000, Andrei and Pyotr - for 6,000 each. Also, Nikolai Starostin was convicted of bribing the military commisar of the Bauman district of Moscow, Kutarzhevskiy. Kutarzhevskiy, using his power arranged so that several people who were supposed to have been conscripted to serve in the Army during World War II were not sent to the front and stayed in Moscow instead. Those people included food distributors and food store managers, who in turn provided Starostin with unlimited food supply during the war time, when food shortages were common (according to the sentence, food store manager Zvyozdkin gave Starostin 60 kilograms of butter and 50 kilograms of meat products).

During his time in the gulags, Starostin's skills were highly sought after and he served as coach at various camps. He was treated benevolently by commanders who looked kindly on soccer and gave him extensive privileges. Unlike other notable inmates, Starostin was never mistreated and was well liked among both guards and prisoners, who would gather to listen to his football stories.

In 1948 Starostin received a phone call in the camp from Stalin's son Vasily. The two had known each other in the 1930s when Starostin's daughter had made friends with him at the Spartak horse riding club, when he was using the name 'Volkov'. He was now commander in chief of the Soviet Air Forces and brought Starostin back to Moscow to coach the Air Force's football team, in which role he became a pawn in the conflict between Vasily and Lavrentiy Beria. Beria's secret police soon visited Starostin at his home, giving him 24 hours to leave Moscow. Vasily reacted by taking Starostin into his protection. The two spent all their time together, even sleeping in the same wide bed (Vasily with a gun under his pillow).

On one occasion when Vasily was drunk Starostin slipped out of an open window to see his family. He was apprehended by the secret police at 6am the next morning and sent to the Maykop gulag. At Orel, however, Vasily's head of counter espionage met the train to return Starostin to Moscow. Starostin instead asked to be allowed to live in Southern Russia. Vasily agreed on condition that he coach the local Dinamo team. The secret police intercepted him, however, and he was exiled for life to Kazakhstan. Starostin was initially sent to Akmolinsk, where he coached the local football team. He later moved to Alma Ata to coach ice hockey and football with the Kairat team. Starostin's efforts contributed to the club's position as the leading Kazakh team in the Soviet era.