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Night Wolves

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Night Wolves
Ночные Волки
Nochnye Volki
Formation1989
TypeMotorcycle club
Location
Membership
over 5,000[1]
LeaderAlexander Zaldostanov (nicknamed ‘The Surgeon’)[1]
Websitewww.nightwolves.info
Night Wolves

The Night Wolves (Russian: Ночные Волки, romanized: Nochnye Volki) are a Russian motorcycle club.[2]

The club slowly took shape out of a mixture of rock music fans and motorcycle enthusiasts who held then-illegal rock concerts in Moscow (see Censorship in the Soviet Union) as far back as 1983.[3]. By 1989 the club was consolidated as an informal motorcycle group bearing the name "Night Wolves", during the Perestroika era of the Soviet Union. It became the first official bike club in the USSR.

Today the club has several chapters in Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Macedonia.[2] The leader of the club since 1989 has been Alexander Zaldostanov (also known as The Surgeon).

The club runs multiple rock clubs and arranges many rock concerts in Russia. It also runs several tattoo parlors and is one of the founders of the annual International Moscow Tattoo Convention.

In 1995 the "Wolf Wear" clothing line was launched and the "Wolf Engineering" custom shop subsidiary was established. It has gathered mechanics and general motorcycle enthusiasts from all across Russia, runs several motorcycle repair and custom shops and also developed the Wolf-Ural (Волк-Урал) motorcycle together with the manufacturer IMZ-Ural.[4] Another subsidiary is the racing team "Wolf Racing" which was created in 2001 and participates in and organizes various events in Russia.

The club has long taken an interest in the political and social life of Russia, engaging in youth social issues[5] and becoming involved with the Russian Orthodox Church.[6] The club has lately developed close ties to Vladimir Putin and has a generally pro-Russian sentiment.[1]

A member of The Nightwolves, Valery Bely, was shot and killed in a dispute with a rival biker gang, Three Roads, in November 2012. [7]

References

  1. ^ a b c Alsop, Harry. Meet the Night Wolves – Putin's Hell's Angels, The Telegraph, March 2, 2014. Accessed March 4, 2014.
  2. ^ a b Romriell, Lucas (January 2003). "The Wolfmen". Cycle World: 90–91.
  3. ^ http://www.nwrussia.info/?page_id=187
  4. ^ http://750cc.ru/katalog-motocziklov-ural/volk.html
  5. ^ http://grants.oprf.ru/grants2014-1/winners/rec4606/
  6. ^ http://auto.mail.ru/moto/news/miscellaneous/2012/04/19/nochnye_volki_za_patriarha/
  7. ^ Parfitt, Tom. [1], The Telegraph, November 14, 2012. Accessed May 30, 2014.
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