13:36 06.03.2026
Players come from across country – creating Sakhalin’s biggest paintball club in just 3 months
© Yury Kim
The Far East Hectare program has been enjoying positive momentum in Russia’s Far East for ten years now with over 154,000 people receiving their land plots since its launch in 2016.
Its participants included photographer and member of Sakhalin’s indigenous community, Yury Kim. He applied for a land plot several years ago and used it to create the region’s biggest paintball club. Read this article from the Developing the Arctic and Far East portal to learn about turning a hobby into a profitable business and who inspired Yury to take part in the program.
Yury Kim decided to apply for the Far East Hectare program five years ago, inspired by his friend, Alexei Tkachenko, who used the hectare to open a draft dog farm. Yury had a clear vision for the hectare he was to receive based on his personal experience. After all, he spent the past 25 years playing paintball and has been crowned champion of the Sakhalin Region in this sport many times, while also winning and receiving medals at the Paintball Sports Cup of the Far Eastern Federal District. Therefore, it did not take long for him to focus on creating a paintball club.
Medals of the Oldskullz club
© Юрий Ким
Yury Kim said that the paperwork was quite easy since the program runs like a well-oiled mechanism. The application process and all the following formalities went smoothly.
“Anyone can handle it,” the paintball club’s founder pointed out.
The project launched just three months after the application date. The approval for receiving the land plot arrived in mid-summer 2021, and the first paintball match was held in late September. The club adopted what could seem as a mysterious name, Oldskullz, and marks its anniversary on the last Saturday of September.
The location of the land plot was a piece of luck for the club considering its strategic location, Yury told us with a smile on his face.
A club member playing the paintball sport
© Yury Kim
“There are no residential buildings nearby, so we are free to make some noise, launch firecrackers and use smoke flares,” he said.
Success is about the vibe, not financial performance
The project required about 400,000 rubles upfront in investment. Yury did not have to contract any loans or apply for grants. He opted to invest his own money. About three fourths of the budget went toward purchasing professional paintball gear, while the rest was used to buy construction materials for building amenities.
“The pace of construction was very quick, even if there were some minor hiccups due to changing weather,” he recalled.
The club has currently reached a break-even point and reinvests all the profits in its development by upgrading equipment, buying materials and expanding the play area.
Members of the paintball club
© Юрий Ким
That said, financial performance is not what matters the most for Yury. He believes that the atmosphere of friendship and unity during the games is even more important. This is why the club has been attracting players from nearby communities as well as from across Russia.
“The geography of our players is a source of pride for us. People from across the country are ready to fly here to play the game, and those who train here compete for the club,” he noted.
Over the past five years, Oldskullz not only established itself as a sports club, but also built a community of like-minded people. Moving forward, Yury and his team intend to stick to this vision by expanding the friendly community of paintball athletes.
