24 years in 140 characters: New boys warmed up by losing 47-7 to Gloucester. The Bears will bear watching, though: there's money in Russia and rugby is going Olympic...
World Cup record: 1987: Declined invitation
1991: Did not qualify
1995: Did not qualify
1999: Did not qualify
2003: Did not qualify
2007: Did not qualify.
Record in 2011: P8 W2 L6
Coach: Nikolay Nerush
Captain Vladislav Korshun:ov
How are they likely to get on? The Russians have had lots of Lancastrian help, with Steve Diamond and then Kingsley Jones having spells in charge of coaching in the run-up to the country's first appearance at a World Cup. Unfortunately, not much of it showed in a one-sided warm-up defeat at Gloucester.
Key player: Northampton have seen enough of the wing Vasily Artemyev to give him a contract and Jim Mallinder doesn't often make big mistakes.
Commentator's kit: Russia's predecessors, the USSR, were invited to play in the 1987 World Cup – the offer was turned down for political reasons.
Squad
Vladimir Botvinnikov, prop, age 27, caps 16
Alexander Khrokin, prop, age 35, caps 67
Sergey Popov, prop, age 29, caps 14
Ivan Prishchepenko, prop, age 29, caps 33
Alexey Travkin, prop, age 34, caps 47
Vladislav Korshunov (c), hooker, age 28, caps 54
Valeri Tsnobiladze, hooker, age 30, caps 4
Denis Antonov, second-row, age 24, caps 2
Adam Byrnes, second-row, age 30, caps 0
Andrei Ostrikov, second-row, age 24, caps 15
Alexander Voytov, second-row, age 29, caps 44
Artem Fatakhov, flanker, age 32, caps 37
Andrey Garbuzov, flanker, age 28, caps 31
Evgeny Matveev, flanker, age 26, caps 29
Mikhail Sidorov, flanker, age 24, caps 1
Viacheslav Grachev, No8, age 38, caps 36
Victor Gresev, No8, age 25, caps 32
Andrei Bykanov, scrum-half, age 31, caps 7
Alexander Shakirov, scrum-half, age 30, caps 46
Alexander Yanyushkin, scrum-half, age 28, caps 42
Yuri Kushnarev, fly-half, age 26, caps 43
Konstantin Rachkov, fly-half, age 32, caps 26
Mikhail Babaev, centre, age 25, caps 33
Alexei Makovetskiy, centre, age 28, caps 11
Sergey Trishin, centre, age 26, caps 34
Vasily Artemyev, wing, age 24, caps 25
Andrei Kuzin, wing, age 32, caps 59
Vladimir Ostroushko, wing, age 24, caps 16
Igor Klyuchnikov, full-back, age 28, caps 49
Denis Simplikevich, full-back, age 20, caps 0
Average age 28.2
Average caps 28.4
