Rubin KazanIn October 2009 at the Camp Nou, Rubin Kazan did what nobody outside Tatarstan expected: they beat FC Barcelona, the defending European champions, 2–1. The goals came from Aleksandr Ryazantsev and Gökdeniz Karadeniz, and the defence kept Lionel Messi and Andrés Iniesta quiet enough for the side from the Volga to record the club's first win in Europe's top competition. Rubin thereby became the easternmost club ever to play in the Champions League group stage, and the Russian press called Barcelona "the nuclear weapon of modern football", beaten by a modest provincial team.
The greatest success was preceded by a long road. The club was founded on 20 April 1958 as Iskra, a name it carried until 1964, and in 1992–93 it played as Rubin-TAN. It never played in the Soviet top league. In 1992 it joined the Russian First Division, in 1994 it dropped to the Second Division, and in 1997 it won that division and came back up. It reached the Premier League after winning the First Division in 2002, and in its debut in 2003 it finished third, which earned a place in the UEFA Cup. Since then it has not left the top flight for years.
The golden era of the club is linked with manager Kurban Berdyev. Under him Rubin became champions of Russia for the first time in 2008 and defended the title in 2009. The position was an exceptional one in a country where clubs from Moscow and St Petersburg had long dominated: Rubin became the main challenger to the capitals' monopoly. Among the team's leaders were Argentine Alejandro Domínguez, top scorer of the 2009 season, and Roman Sharonov, who played in defence against Barcelona.
In the 2009–10 Champions League the team was drawn in a group with Barcelona, Inter Milan and Dynamo Kyiv. The debut in the competition brought a 1–1 draw in Kazan with Inter, the Italian champions, followed by the away win at the Camp Nou. The team finished the group stage third and advanced to the Europa League round of 32. Domestic success was completed by cups: in 2012 Rubin won the Russian Cup, and in 2010 and 2012 they won the Russian Super Cup.
The historic home of the club was the Central Stadium, opened in 1960. Iskra played the first match there on 21 August 1960, winning 2–1 against Metallurg of Kamensk-Uralsky. Today Rubin play at the Kazan Arena, a modern ground of about 45,000 seats built at a cost of 292 million euros, which draws on local culture and also hosted matches of the 2018 World Cup. A strong regional identity has grown around the club: the team is nicknamed the Volzhane (people from the Volga), the Kamni (the Stones) and the Krasno-Zelyonye (Red-Greens) after its red and green colours, while the name itself means ruby.
Since its debut in 2003, Rubin Kazan have remained a regular in the Russian Premier League and one of the best-known clubs in the country outside Moscow and St Petersburg. Its history is the story of a small second-division side that within a few years became national champions and played against the best in Europe. The win at the Camp Nou remains the most important event in the club's history.