To fully appreciate why Kirill Gotovtsev is becoming a cult hero in Gloucester, you have to go back to his rural beginnings in the Russian village of Boguchany.
Life was tough. There was no running water, alcoholism was rife and jobs were scarce after the fall of the Soviet Union.
‘I lived in a village in the north, 600km [373 miles] from Krasnoyarsk,’ says the prop, occasionally checking the translation app on his phone to help find his words.
Kirill Gotovtsev has had a wild journey from his Siberian upbringing to the Gloucester team
‘It was a really wild village. Sometimes people go into the forest to collect nuts and berries and don’t come back! “Hello! Hello! I am lost!” It is a big forest. Bears, wolves, dangerous animals. The lucky ones find their way back to the village after a few days!
‘Once, when I was young, I saw a small bear while I was collecting berries with my family. A baby bear. It was maybe 100 metres away in the trees. I said, “Oh Mummy, look at this, wow, it’s a small bear!” A big bear is dangerous, but I did not know that a small bear is even more dangerous.
'The wind was blowing towards us at the time. If the wind was blowing away from us they would smell us and its mother will kill you! 100 per cent. My mother said, “Run! Out of the forest!”
‘Collecting berries was the culture. It was our life. You grow vegetables, potatoes. If you have a car, you can go further and collect some nuts. We didn’t have a car. It was a basic life but it was not easy. Physical work every day. We had to go to collect water every day from a big tank because we didn’t have water at home. Only buckets. From 11 years old, I started to live with my father.
Gotovtsev is becoming a cult hero at the Kingsholm stadium and has featured for Russia
'We could not transport the water up the street in the winter because the road was steep and icy. Instead, my father warmed snow to melt it for water. Have you ever drank water from snow? Absolutely disgusting! You must never taste it! Bitter. I can still taste it. You could put jam in your tea and you could still taste the bitterness.
‘There was no water but we had electricity and we had a wood stove. Every winter me, my grandma and my mother would cut wood with an axe. We used that to keep the house warm. All villages were the same. It was normal.
'When I was young, the country was broken. Some of my friends’ fathers would drink vodka like an animal. My father was an example for everybody. An incredible father. All economic systems were broken.
'My mother got her salary two times a year. Six months without salary and the salary was small… just enough to survive. As children, you just want to joke and play, but we had to work.’
Brought up the hard way, Gotovtsev does not shy away from a battle. Until now, he has avoided interviews because he has not been confident in his English. Yet here is a raconteur with a wicked sense of humour, worthy of a place in the quirky front-row union.
He is, however, a latecomer to the club. Growing up in Siberia, his dream was to become a professional wrestler. He loved it so much that, as a child, he walked to training in life-threateningly cold temperatures.
‘I love wrestling,’ he says. ‘I loved wrestling. It was my life from the age of 10. I did not want to do volleyball or theatre like my school mates… standing on the stage pretending to be different animals, speaking like a bear! I wanted to wrestle. I lost to my school mate in my first session and from then I just wanted to win, win, win.
‘My gym was 3km from my house. One winter we had a temperature of -58. I saw it through my eyes on the thermometer! I walked to training wearing three trousers, three jackets and a hat. I got there and my coach was there alone. Nobody else had gone to training.
Gotovtsev is passionate about wrestling and was Russian No 3 but never made the Olympics
'My coach said, “What the hell are you doing! Go home!” We could only go to training if it was -40! Wrestling is a tough sport. When I was 15 years old, we had a regional championship in Krasnoyarsk. Boys from the village normally lose to boys from the big cities, but I won.
‘A coach from the city invited me to live with him so I finished school and moved down. I grew up fast. Just me and my opponent. Wrestling is like a small war. Only you and your opponent in a small circle. Who wants to win? You can have a big, strong, beautiful technique but if you don’t want to win then you won’t win. I always wanted to win.’
So why stop? ‘Difficult question. I had good results but not the highest for Russia. You needed to be first in Russia to go to the Olympic Games and I was No3. My team-mates were Olympic champions. I was 25 and I felt powerful, but I wanted to be a big sportsman and I knew I wouldn’t be in wrestling.
