Even his great predecessors admitted him to be closest to the ideal of a hockey defender. He is probably the best attacking defender ever. And he is sure the most versatile one. The great five in TsSKA and in the soviet hockey team was better to be called Fetisov’s one, as it was him to cement it being first among equals. At the end of his Russian sports career he was decorated with Lenin’s Order, which was the acme of recognition on the state level of that time. Two years after he entered the struggle with the state and he won again.          

He has lived another hockey life beyond the sea and it was no less brilliant, where he gained all the possible awards of the world hockey.   

He returned to Russia as a top official. Well, let others praise Vyacheslav Fetisov in his capacity of minister. Novaya Gazeta just wants to congratulate Slava Fetisov, the glory and the legend of the Russian hockey, on his anniversary and we wish him all the best.