Time Out at 40

Andrey Arshavin | Liza Boyarskaya | Sergey Shnurov

Andrey Arshavin
He may have spent the summer being courted by some of the biggest clubs in Europe (including Tottenham Hotspur and Bayern Munich), but Andrey Arshavin is still the proud wearer of a Zenit Saint Petersburg shirt (for now, at least). The £20 million-plus man made his debut for Russia in 2002 and has managed to find the net in every competition in which Russia has participated.

If you could use your popularity to become the mayor of St Petersburg, what would be the first problem you'd tackle?
Of course, it’d be our roads and streets! It’s our biggest and most painful problem. Painful both metaphorically and literally. I’m a driver myself and I feel every bump and hole in the road.

What do you think the city will look like in 20 years?
I'd imagine the streetcars would be gone for good, replaced by more modern means of transport, probably airborne. It’d be great. The limits will most probably expand beyond the Circular road, which I hope will finally be finished by then. The city will become more localised, like Moscow. Every neighbourhood will have a big club, a restaurant etc, so there’ll be no need at all to go to the centre for entertainment. And the traffic will be less demonic – I hope.
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You’re probably doing a lot of tours around St Petersburg for your guests…
Well, I used to, but I don’t have time for that anymore. And I used to show not the city itself but its beautiful satellites like Pavlovsk. Now I’d probably do the usual tourist stuff: Zimny Palace, historical centre, Petergof and the fountains. And there’s nothing to be ashamed of, it’s our city, after all!

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Andrey Arshavin | Liza Boyarskaya | Sergey Shnurov