My name is Yuri and this year my passion for ultras literature turns 25 years old. This is a good reason to look back to tell the story of how, from an ordinary hobby of collecting paper selfprint, a large project grew up, known far beyond Russia, where it was born, and Ukraine, where I live and work now, having moved here in 2008.

I bought my first fanzine as an aspiring football fan in 1997. Unlike the official press of that time, it was made by the hands of the ultras themselves, thanks to which it had a characteristic content and a special subcultural style of narration, which became a real discovery for me. Despite their great popularity, in those days fanzines in Russia were freely sold only in a few places in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In other cities of the country, they were distributed mainly among a rather narrow circle of members of individual groups, going beyond it thanks to friendly relations with fans of other clubs or exchange by correspondence. In the same way, publications from abroad came to me, opening up new unexplored horizons that were inaccessible to most compatriots in the era of the early, then still poorly developed internet. Looking ahead, I will say that I still have an active correspondence, exchanging ultras materials with football, hockey and basketball fans from all over the world.

In 2006, I wanted more when I came up with the idea of opening a shop that would offer fanzines from different clubs, so that every person, regardless of place of residence, can buy them and find out what the same fan-culture-obsessed people from other cities and countries breathe. The start of my dream project began with an unpleasant but forced step. There was no money then, so I had to sell my collection of fanzines in order to use the proceeds to go to Poland, to meet the author of the authoritative edition TO MY KIBICE, which still exists, and to see the whole process of the magazine's birth. From that trip, I brought not only knowledge, but also the first copies of fanzines, which I successfully sold, sitting on a bench in the center of the hall of one of the Moscow metro station, having previously agreed to meet with buyers.

This is how began my store MagShop - ultras press or simply MagShop, which in one form or another has existed all these years, trying to satisfy the interest of authors, readers and collectors from all over the world.

Yuri Paretski

Dnipro, Ukraine

Feb 2023