Astrahanochka Women

The club traces back to a coach rather than a committee: in 1993 Nadezhda Badreddinova put together a team that entered the First League that same season, climbed into the Higher League within two years and, by 1997/98, had won it — the result that opened the door to the Russian Super League for the first time.

The next turning point came in 2010, when Astrakhanochka was folded into the structure of Sportcomplex Zvezdny, its home ground ever since, with Vyacheslav Kirilenko taking over as head coach. Reinforcement followed rather than a quiet rebuild: by 2013/14, with Montenegrin Maria Jovanovic and Croatian Miranda Tatari in the squad alongside Russian international Polina Kuznetsova, the team reached the semi-finals of the EHF Cup, and a first Championship bronze arrived a year later under Mikhail Seryogin. The peak came in 2015/16, when Evgeny Trefilov arrived as coach-mentor and the club beat Rostov-Don in the final to win the Russian Championship outright, earning a place in the EHF Champions League. The title emptied the dressing room almost as fast as it filled the trophy cabinet: Olympic champions Anna Vyakhireva and Kuznetsova both left for Rostov-Don, and Astrakhanochka spent the following seasons rebuilding around younger players, a rebuild reflected in the run of bronze medals since — 2017/18, then three in a row from 2023/24 to 2025/26 under current coach Mikhail Izmailov.

None of those medals sting quite like a defeat to Lada from Tolyatti. The two clubs, both anchored on the Volga, meet in what is known as the Volga Derby, and the fixture took on real weight after Astrakhanochka knocked Lada out in the semi-finals on the way to that 2016 title.