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From First Starts to Podium Finishes
© HSE UNIVERSITY
This summer, the HSE Swimming Club organised its first joint trips to open-water swimming competitions. In June 2026, the HSE team competed at X-WATERS Murom, followed in July by the anniversary X-WATERS Volga event in Nizhny Novgorod.
The trips brought together students, staff, and alumni from the university’s three campuses—Moscow, St Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod. The participants included both experienced athletes who regularly compete in open-water events and swimmers taking part in their first-ever race.
The First Joint Trip
The HSE Swimming Club’s first joint trip took place in Murom on June 27. Seventeen members of the university community took part in the X-WATERS event on the Oka River, with six of them competing in the races.
The HSE swimmers chose distances ranging from 500 metres to 10 kilometres. One distinctive challenge of the Murom event was the strong current of the Oka: most routes followed the river downstream from one point to another, so participants had to maintain their speed while also navigating the course correctly.
For Arina Krivenko, a graduate of the Economics programme and a manager at the HSE Sports Community Support Centre, the race marked her debut in open-water competitions.
Arina Krivenko
‘At first, I had no idea how to swim and navigate at the same time, but I quickly figured it out and really enjoyed it. The mile flew by: I hardly noticed the distance amid the excitement of the experience. Next time, I definitely want to choose something longer,’ Arina said.
She explained that making such a trip on her own would have been much more difficult: ‘I only found out about these kinds of races a couple of months ago and almost by chance ended up taking part. I am very grateful to HSE for organising the trip and creating such a friendly atmosphere. I probably wouldn’t have gone to Murom on my own just to, so to speak, “swim in a river.” But now I realise just how great these events are.’
Yaroslava Shalunova, a graduate of the HSE—Nizhny Novgorod Master’s programme in Business Development and leader of the Swimming Club, has a very different level of sporting experience. In Murom, she competed in two distances—one mile and 500 metres.
After finishing the mile, Yaroslava almost immediately headed to the organisers’ boat, to the starting point for the next race. Despite the tight schedule, she finished second among the women in the overall one-mile standings and won the overall 500-metre event.
Yaroslava Shalunova
‘These are two completely different distances. The mile requires endurance and good navigation, while 500 metres is a sprint distance. You need to get straight into the race and maintain a high pace. I am very happy with my result in the 500 metres, especially considering that I had to compete almost immediately after finishing the mile,’ Yaroslava said.
She has been swimming professionally since 2012, competing both in the pool and in open water. She is a record holder for Nizhny Novgorod Region in relay swimming, a finalist at the World Friendship Games, and a winner and medallist at Russian and international competitions.
In 2025, Yaroslava became the overall X-WATERS Global champion, taking first place in the X-WATERS Top 100 championship ranking. The athlete says, however, that she values swimming for more than its competitive aspect.
‘Swimming gives you an opportunity to be alone with your thoughts. It is often in the water that the most unconventional solutions to important problems come to you. Sport has taught me to push my limits, plan my time rationally and achieve the goals I set myself,’ she said.
The Team Is About More Than Just Athletes
An important part of the Murom trip was the support team. Participants who did not compete helped with the organisation, greeted swimmers at the finish, and supported the team from the shore.
For Alexey Petrov, a staff member at the HSE—St Petersburg HR Office, the trip was his first experience attending a competition on such a large scale as a spectator.
‘I was really nervous for our swimmers: open water, the wide Oka, and different currents. From the shore, we watched out for every buoy, cheered for everyone who finished, and really went wild whenever our swimmers came in. It is difficult to put into words that sense of team unity, when everyone is equal and feels close to one another,’ Alexey said.
‘People from different campuses came together in Murom, many of whom had never met before. But from the very beginning, we were united by the atmosphere: no one stayed on the sidelines, and everyone helped and supported one another. The usual workplace formalities seemed to disappear: you simply became part of one big idea, and that is incredibly energising,’ said Vladlena Balandina, Head of the HSE—St Petersburg HR Development and Training Department and one of the trip’s organisers.
According to her, some of the most memorable moments came when team members appeared in sight during the final metres of the race: ‘We tried to spot our swimmer among dozens of participants and immediately started cheering them on. After finishing, people came back to the shore tired but happy. When they saw our team, their eyes lit up.’
In the Rhythm of Running
The sporting programme of the trip was not limited to swimming. After the competition day, the participants went on a running tour of Murom. The route took them past the city’s main sights. The runners had an opportunity to warm up before the competition, get to know one another, and see Murom not from a bus window but on a shared run.
Thus, during this joint trip, two HSE sports communities—swimming and running—brought together different types of physical activity and established a tradition of starting competition weekends by exploring the host city together.
Across the Volga: The Club’s Second Trip
The next event for the HSE Swimming Club was X-WATERS Volga, held in Nizhny Novgorod on July 25–26, 2026. It was the tenth anniversary race in the series on the Volga. The organisers expected around 3,000 participants from Russia and other countries, describing the event as one of the largest open-water swimming competitions in the CIS (X-WATERS).
The trip to Nizhny Novgorod was considerably larger than the first one, bringing together more than 40 HSE students, staff, and alumni from all three campuses. Fourteen swimmers took part in the races, covering a combined distance of more than 35 kilometres. University representatives competed over distances ranging from one to five kilometres.
‘Large-scale sporting events such as X-WATERS are the best way to get to know one another and feel that we are one university. Here, people come together not only through shared professional interests, but also through sporting passions that bring a different kind of emotion and experience. It is impossible to convey the feeling we had when we took to the stage as one huge team. Another particularly memorable moment came when we welcomed our swimmers as they completed their races. It is through events like these that a strong sense of corporate spirit is built,’ says Anna Blyakhman, Director of the HSE Campus in Nizhny Novgorod.
One of the main stars of the competition was once again Yaroslava Shalunova. She won two podium places, finishing first among the women in the one-kilometre race and second overall in the two-kilometre event.
X-WATERS Volga holds special significance for Yaroslava: in 2025, she won the overall five-kilometre event. The athlete trains at the Nizhegorodets sports school under Pavel Nikitin, Honoured Coach of Russia and President of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Swimming Federation.
Other members of the HSE team also put in strong performances. Yana Arsenyeva and Arina Kobozeva completed the one-kilometre distance and finished 20th in their respective categories. Andrey Kraev swam five kilometres, finishing third in the 18–30 age category.
The team in Nizhny Novgorod was joined by Sergey Fedorovtsev, Director of the HSE Sports Community Support Centre and an Olympic rowing champion. At X-WATERS Volga, he took part in his first official open-water race, completing the two-kilometre distance.
‘At first, I couldn’t quite find the right rhythm. The waves coming towards me and the strong currents threw me off a couple of times. But overall, everything went really well. The water was cool and very pleasant, although because it was so murky, I could hardly see anything. At times, my imagination filled in the gaps with a catfish, a crocodile, or even a shark’s fin. But physically, I really enjoyed the swim: I swam, had a great time, and was thrilled with the event,’ Sergey recalled.
A Hub for the Team
In Nizhny Novgorod, the HSE team had its own tent in the event village. It became a shared meeting point for swimmers, organisers, and supporters: participants prepared there before heading to the start, met up after finishing, relaxed, and shared their experiences.
Once again, the competition days were preceded by a joint activity with the HSE Running Club. This time, instead of a city tour, the participants took on a genuine trail route through the ancient forests surrounding Nizhny Novgorod.
The five-kilometre run was a nice warm-up before the race, followed by a shared dinner. The gathering brought together representatives of different campuses even before the competition, turning the trip into more than just a sporting event—it became a fully-fledged inter-campus outing.
All About Water
The HSE Swimming Club was launched at the St Petersburg campus in the spring of this year. For now, its main format is joint trips to competitions, but the first two outings have already shown that there is strong demand for the community and that it brings together people with different levels of experience.
Club members are already among the top ten teams in the X-WATERS club rankings. However, the community’s main goal is not simply to compete for podium places. It is also to help students, staff, and alumni take their first steps: register for a race, choose a suitable distance, and take to the open water together with the team.
The club was inspired and founded by Anna Tyshetskaya, Chief Vice President of HSE University and Director of the HSE Campus in St Petersburg. Anna Kozyreva, founder of the HSE Running Club, helps organise the joint trips, while Evgeny Kanaev, Deputy Head of the HSE Office for Integrated Solutions, regularly represents the university at competitions and helps develop the community by setting an example himself.
‘Sport builds character, teaches you to set goals and achieve them, and helps you switch off and concentrate better on your studies and work. And I think all of this translates very well into other areas of life. That is why I would like the HSE Swimming Club to become another place where our students and staff can train together, set new personal goals, achieve them and simply enjoy sport,’ said Anna Tyshetskaya.
Evgeny Kanaev
‘For me, Murom is already my 50th open-water race, but every time I come to this city, I thoroughly enjoy it. I draw energy from this historic, colourful place and from the atmosphere of the event. This year was the first time I came to Murom with the HSE swimming team. It is particularly rewarding to see colleagues and students discovering the atmosphere of these events and to remember how I felt before my own first race,’ Evgeny said.
He also highlighted how important it is for the swimmers to have the university’s entire sports leadership come to support the team, including HSE President Nikita Anisimov.
On August 21–22, the HSE Swimming Club will take part in a race on Yelagin Island in St Petersburg. Once again, the team will have its own tent, and HSE will take part in the team parade.
You do not need any previous experience or sporting titles to join the team. Professional athletes, triathletes, amateurs and people who have only just discovered mass open-water swimming events can all successfully compete as part of the same team. There is a distance and a reason to take part for everyone. When registering for the competition, participants should select ‘HSE Swimming Club.’
