‘The Match of Death”: the history of the Start Stadium in Kyiv

The Start football stadium in Kyiv is located in the Shevchenkivskyi district. The arena is famous for hosting the ‘match of death’ on 9 August 1942. The game was played between the local team Start and the German club Flakelf.

The stadium was built in the late 1930s. It was named Zenit and was part of the defence plant. After the Second World War, it was called Avangard, and in 1981 it was renamed Start.

In February 2014, a civic initiative defended the arena from destruction, as it was a historical and cultural monument, the Start Stadium Park, that was to be built on. The activists insisted on returning it to the community.

Where the “death match” took place

The match between Start and Flakelf took place at the Zenit Stadium on 9 August 1942. The game was called the ‘death match’ after the war thanks to Soviet propaganda.

Start (listed in the documents as ‘the team of the bakery No. 1’) took to the field with the following line-up: Mykola Trusevych, Ivan Kuzmenko, Oleksii Klymenko, Mykhailo Svyrydovskyi, Fedir Tyutchev, Mykola Korotkikh, Mykhailo Putystin, Volodymyr Balakin, Vasyl Sukharev, Mykhailo Melnyk, Pavlo Komarov, Makar Honcharenko, Yurii Chernega, and Petro Sotnyk. Eight of them are Dynamo players, three are from Lokomotiv Kyiv.

Flakelf lost the first game on 6 August with a score of 1-5. The German team consisted of the best German athletes – pilots, anti-aircraft gunners, and technicians. On 9 August, a rematch took place, which the Germans lost again – 3:5.

Nine days after the match, most of the Start players were arrested and accused of stealing bread. The Gestapo held the entire team, where they were tortured and interrogated. Four of them were shot much later because of sabotage at the bakery where the players worked.

In 2025, the Hamburg City Prosecutor’s Office closed the case, which had been ongoing since 1974. No connection between the shootings was found.