Lokomotiv Penza

Every big match against Krasnoyarsk carries an edge, and Lokomotiv-Penza have learned to live with it: their history since 2018 has run almost in parallel with Enisey-STM, a rivalry settled twice a season and, more than once, for a title. It came to a head in the 2022/23 final, when Penza had never won a Russian Championship before and did so at Enisey's expense, 23-20, after two years of finishing second to the same opponent. That result gave the club, formed from the wreckage of the collapsed Imperia project and built around its former players and home-grown talent, its first senior crown in fifteen-a-side rugby.

The club has since added a third-place finish and a Super Cup defeat on penalties to Strela-Ak Bars, close losses that have kept it in the conversation rather than settling anything. Rugby-7 has been kinder and more consistent: three national titles and, this year, the Magnet Cup after Penza went through the sevens tournament unbeaten. A European venture in 2021/22, a group-stage finish in the old Europe Super Cup, remains the club's only look beyond Russian competition.

Reconstruction work forced Lokomotiv away from Pervomaysky Stadium for the 2025 season, with home fixtures shifted to the Mordovia Arena in Saransk — a temporary switch for a side still closely tied to the railway that gave it its name and its white-and-grey kit with red and green trim.

No name is more tied to that rise than Alexander Yanyushkin, head coach since the club's founding and a four-time European sevens champion as a player before he took over on the touchline. Under him Penza went from a rebuilt regional side to champions of Russia inside four seasons, with the captaincy resting on another Yanyushkin, Sergei, who leads a squad that also carries three overseas players in Tian van der Merwe, Rudi van Rooyen and Nika Tsirekidze.