Dinamo St Petersburg

The glorious past

The club was founded in 1922 as part of the All-Union Sport Society "Dinamo" that had clubs in a variety of sports throughout the Soviet Union. The society was the main sponsor of the club. Dinamo debuted in the Soviet Top League in 1936 among the original seven teams in the first edition of the Soviet Top League. The club reentered the Soviet Top League following the end of World War II as the member of the interrupted edition of 1941. The club then participated in the Top League between 1936 and 1954, finishing in the top five, three times. In 1954, its record was cause to replace Dynamo with TRL after the team's tenth-place finish in the League. From 1955 to 1961, they had only Jewish striker, Israel "Zolik" Olshanetsky.

A resurrection

The club was resurrected in 1960 in the place of TRL and spent the next two seasons in "the second tier (Class B) of the Soviet league, before making it back to the Top Division.

Loss of professional status

Dynamo lost its professional status in 2000 with the lack of financing; a local building society stepped in. Professional status was lost in 2004.

FC Petrotrest Saint Petersburg

FC Petrotrest Saint Petersburg (Russian: ФК "Петротрест" Санкт-Петербург) was a former association football club from Saint Petersburg, Russia, founded in 2001. In 2002 the team played in Amateur Football League (North-West zone), in 2003, 2004, 2006 and since 2011 - in Second Division (West zone), in 2005 - in First Division (was relegated).

From 2007 to 2010 the team played under the name of FC Dynamo Saint Petersburg. After the team was relegated to the Russian Second Division after the 2010 season, the team returned to their previous name FC Petrotrest and another independent team called FC Dynamo was organized to play in the Amateur Football League. In 2012 the club was finished in the 1st place and was promoted to the First division. In 2013 it was merged back into Dynamo Saint Petersburg.

The United FC Dynamo Saint Petersburg

In preparations to 2013–14 season, FC Petrotrest and Dynamo signed on an agreement of merging FC Petrotrest into Dynamo in order to play in the Russian First Division, now called the National Football League.

At the end of the 2014–15 season, the club was relegated to the third level league, the Russian Professional Football League. Following the season, the club was purchased by the billionaire Boris Rotenberg (technically, a new club called FC Dynamo-Saint Petersburg was formed, with SMP Racing becoming the new sponsor) and at the end of June 2015 "Dynamo" has with the new founders and sponsors were allowed to participate in the Second Division.

The first season of the renewed team was not easy - meeting in full strength only a few days before the start of the Championship, Dynamo failed to show good performances in the first round, once in the basement of the standings at the end of the first part of the season. But in spring 2016, thanks to high-quality training in the winter and breeding spot, Dynamo straighten their figures, nearly becoming the best team in the "West" zone on the results of matches of the second stage of the Championship. in November 2016 The team finish in the 1st place in the table standing of Western Zone in the 2nd Division. They secured the top spot in their PFL zone and promotion back to the Russian National Football League on 21 May 2017.

The move to Sochi

Since 2019

Dynamo Saint Petersburg was re-established on the base of another Saint Petersburg club, this time it was FC LAZ Luga in 2019, and they won the Champions Cup of North-West Championship.

In May 2020, it was reported that the club will be reorganize as a private football club to compete in the Russian Professional Football League during 2020–21 season. Former Zenit's goalkeeper, Vyacheslav Malafeev, was attached to manage the club.

Dynamo reentered PFL (which was renamed to FNL 2) for the 2021–22 season. In August 2021, a Chinese company SAIC Iveco Hongyan has become the main sponsor.