Travelling to Moscow? Where to Train BJJ!

Guys if you're coming to Moscow, Russia check out these gyms:

Lion Team
Lion is the oldest BJJ club in Moscow and has two branches, Lion Crocus (located on the border between Moscow and Moscow region) and Lion Baza (Begovaya Area)

Both clubs have suitable gi and no gi classes, run regularly by experienced instructors so its worth visiting and giving it a try.

Lion Baza runs regular morning classes, something that is seldom offered by other clubs for those of you with work committments. All the information is available on the website, but if any questions please post here!

The club was founded back in 2006 by Leonid Gatovskiy, first Russian Black Belt. Currently classes are lead by Ali Magomedov, European BJJ Champion at Purple (Now Brown Belt) and Stas Varshavskiy, a well known competitor teaching at Lion Crocus. Both are english speakers.

Ludus Team
A good club based in the center lead by Alexandre Deda Faria, a brazilian black belt who regularly runs seminars across the country. Check out their Frunzenskaya location if convenenient. They run their evening classes open for everybody and you may see some top black belts joining you in training down there.

Checkmat / Adaev Team
Setup as a Checkmat branch, the academy offers both gi and no-gi classes with a focus more on the no-gi. The head instructor is Daud Adaev who was one of the students of Leonid Gatovskiy.

Kristian Cestaro Team (Ribeiro Jiu Jitsu Moscow)
Lead by Kristian Cestaro, a brazilian black belt relocated to Russia, this is one of the leading clubs with several branches in Moscow, successfully competing in the local tournaments. The club is affiliated with the Ribeiro associated.

Ronin Family 
This is one of the local clubs run by Igor Lunyakov, a young purple belt and student of Leonid Gatovskiy. The club is affiliated with Roy Dean academy is despite being one of the younger clubs in Moscow is now active on the local competition scene.

You can find all the information about them on their website roninfamily.ru

Ronin I think has a lot more newer belt competitors but will sure show better results in the coming years.

Strela Team

Despite what people say, Strela Team is perhaps the most successful and big team on the local Moscow competition scene here. A lot of the top guys from Lion moved there 4-5 years ago while others left Strela due to their focus on team loyalty / politics which has pushed also a lot of people away out of the club. You can see this from their interview approach for visitors or new members.

Dmitriy Selivakhin is the head instructor down there and no doubt they will remain one of the most important clubs on the local bjj scene for years to come.



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Drop by a post if you have any questions or comments. I have mentioned a few major clubs with some other notable such as Zaleev Team (focused on No-Gi Grappling), Creonche and a few smaller clubs (without websites) out of the picture and probably no the best choice for visitors coming over.


I also wrote this post many years ago in 2009! if you are interested how the scene has changed