The year 2001 is over, the one that changed my life a lot. Until 2001 i had worked quietly in my home company telephone.ru and was the amateur publisher of unreal.ru. There I got some experience, took part in organization of several Unreal Tournament tourneys. Also I managed to unite all the Russian Unreal-community around one site. It was rather a long time ago...

At the beginning of 2001 bull3t and I had an idea of making the best cybersport website together with a good Q3-team. And after having discussed details, on 12 February we started our work on Cyberfight project. 4z wasn't going already quite well that time, and we made some undercover negotiations with Pow3r and Dev1l. These were they who became the base of the future Team c58. From the February we located in our own office and the Legus studio (design and programming) started working on the portal development. I'd like to mention personally who made what. programming - Aloner (he was working for Legus at the moment), and the design was made by Bazooka BoB (also a member of the studio - head designer). The works on the site creation lasted till 20 April - this was the day we launched the site online. Before that were the scandal with the 4z breaking, trips to the first RCL tourney and PK CUP (we went there by car and almost got killed in the road... that's when we invited PELE to join the team), and to the CPL Holland qualifier. Of course, we worked a lot during that period of time, made a lot of mistakes, learned on our own errors, because there were no similar projects in Russia before us.

And here's the launch. It was a really important event for me personally - almost 3 months of hard work. Three days before us e-sportgames.ru, leaded by Polosatiy, opened. I have to say that our realtionships with Roman were far from perfect then, and a real concurrence persisted. It ended on 31 April with Roman's visit to our office for peaceful negotiations. The result is known by everybody. His site stopped its existence, and Polosatiy joined our team with the big wish to work and a practical change of life goals.

The first trip to Holland... We went there with a big load of tasks  (a good gameplay at the tourney , make some acquaintances, have a look around in Europe). With the first one we failed - but the rest were overaccomplished by 150 %. Then LA6 in Paris - we also took there Asmodey to play SC:BW. And if all was rather clear with the site (I mean, we knew what to do), the team was subject to constant experiences. The 4th player was changing, and often.  BraT, PELE, then Polosatiy and Mikes... We had a second team in June - in fact it was the last Team Formoza befor its full broke-up. A CS team also was formed which was ment to become the best in Russia. Each change in the team was inevitably accompanied with lively discussions on cyberfight.ru - it was clear that many people cared about the team's life...

In the meanwhile Aloner joined the site developers' team - from now on he worked only for cyberfight. We started to build a new site version taking into account all the mistakes we made creating the first version.

After the successful qualifier for the CPL London, the team was sent to the Eurocup 3 to Holland - and after their return from the champ a crisis started. An old conflict Polosatiy vs Pow3r&Dev1l came back to life. Its traces are lost in the relationship between these people during previous years - and it was impossible to solve it peacefully. Also after the failure at the EC3 it was more and more difficult to persuade the project sponsors - telephone.ru - that the team deserves to travel abroad and to exist in general. However, we went to London to play at the year's last teamplay tourney. Concerning the results, one could say that they could have been a little better if the team was more lucky - but it happened as it happened. In August the team practically died (in existing members list) - and I regret having understood it too late.

In July the Сybernews project was launched, headed by Hamillion. I watched with interest the evolution of the new site, seeing them making the same mistakes we made at the start. In the meanwhile bull3t started to retire from the business step by step due to his personal problems... In September events were developing very quickly - in fact, all the month we were preparing for the WCG Russian Preliminary, successfully passed the qualifiers, and nothing seemed to predict what happened on 1 October. We lost 2 teams, and by the end of WCG RP - one more. At the same time I lost my project partner - bull3t. As a result a strange situation formed - the worse the team was doing, the better was doing the site. The scandal with the teams departure was the culmination of this paradox and was undoubdtedly useful for the portal. In addition to all we got a powerful advertising support from Samsung as the WCG RP official site. After the tourney we totally concentrated on the work on the site, having temporarily left aside the team part of the project. The end of the year was very productive for the cyberfight progress - we launched the new site version, changed the design, got rid of all we didn't need anymore, changed the project's philosophy itself. The year ended with out trip to Korea. We managed to do a good job there - and the gaming world was fed a lot with the information and, especially, demos from cyberfight...

Making the year's summary, I can say that the tasks we had in the field of the portal development are accomplished for about 90 %. In 8 months we became the most popular cybersport site in Russia, rising at the level of the biggest international resources of the same theme, made a lot of experiments and got an inestimable experience, made goals for our work in 2002. Thousands of news are written, dozens of articles, lots of interviews taken, hundreds of demos with the games of the world's best players are put online, lots of photo galleries... The portal team took active part in all the biggest events in 2001 from the point of reports as well from the sports one.

The failures that followed the project with an enviable regularity have only made us stronger and more moblie. At least it's a life experience that is the best teacher of all.

2001 showed that e-sport is evolving very quickly and its evolution will definitely continue in 2002. The games on which tourneys a re based, may change, but the competitions themselves are becoming more and more popular among the Earth inhabitants =). As in the big sport, cybersport gathered all the features of a regular tournament - there are professionals and amateurs (CPL & WCG), the competitions are organized for both, teams are forming, nations rivaling, online tourneys and big LAN-parties are being held, tourneys are sponsored by big companies - Samsung, Nike, Microsoft etc. A large circle of spectatos has formed. The WCG finals in Seoul were watched by approximately 3 mln. people. 2002 promises to be rich in interesting events - we only have to get ready for them...

We have two goals for 2002 (speaking globally): to make the project rentable and to get the leading position in the gaming Runet. I think we're going to make it.

What we didn't manage to do? Well, to create a stable Team c58, and also the site development from the technological point of view wasn't going as quickly as we'd like it to - as an instrument of achievment of our goals. That's what we're going to do in 2002.

I'd like to thank everyone who supported our project in 2001 participating in it in every way. Dozens of people came through cyberfight - and I think, they have mostly good memories left =).

My great appreciation and GRATITUDE I want to express to our readers whom we respect a lot. Your active position and constant feedback gives us the feeling that our work isn't vain and YOU, THE READERS are the most important part of the business we do.

Also I'd like to thank all the business partners of the Cyberfight project:

- first, our constant sponsor telephone.ru for the support, understanding and wisdom...
- the Legus studio - for the constant creative support...
- oper.ru - for the help and right ideas...
- Samsung Russia HQ (and Mila Masina personally) - for the professionalism in work)...
- 3dnews.ru - for the useful advices...
-  our colleagues from xaos.ru, counter-strike.ru, progamer.ru, cybernews.ru - life would be hard for us without you =)