 Elista, Kalmykia Republic - ¡°Kalmykians like soccer, and they have especially fallen for Korean-style football, watching this year¡¯s World Cup.¡± Hwang Hodinovich, the head of Uralan, a professional soccer team in Kalmykia Republic, was not reluctant to express his surprise at the rise of Korean soccer.
A third-generation Korean immigrant, Hwang started the interview with words of congratulations to the Chosun Ilbo correspondent on June 18, when Team Korea made it into the quarter-finals of the World Cup by defeating Italy. Born and raised in the Russian Federation state north of the Caspian Sea, Hwang is an influential big shot in the political scene, and is also the chief secretary to the Kalmykia Republic representative in Moscow.
Hwang proudly says that his club is developing into one of the prestigious teams in the federation such as Spartak and Dinamo, thanks to the special support of President Kirsan Ilumzhinov, stressing that its budget is some US$2.25 million a year, twice the republic¡¯s education budget.
Hwang says that Koreans in his country get along with Kalmykians, who are of the Mongol race, and Kalmykian culture is very similar to that of Korean, having its roots in Buddhism and generous hospitality.
(Jung Byung-sun, bschung@chosun.com )
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