Rugby union in the Soviet Union
Encyclopedia
Rugby union
in the Soviet Union
was a moderately popular sport. It was most popular in the Georgian SSR; parts of the Russian SFSR
such as Moscow
and certain regions in Siberia
like Krasnoyarsk
; and Almaty
, the capital of Kazakh SSR. Rugby enjoyed a more limited popularity in the Ukrainian SSR, Minsk
in the Byelorussian SSR and parts of the RSFSR
such as Leningrad
and areas in Southern Russia
, including Krasnodar
. Rugby gained a significant following due to the vast size of the Soviet Union, but was never a major sport; despite many attempts to develop the sport, which Soviet citizens came to nickname the "leather melon" due to the shape of the ball. Still, an early championship in 1960 gives an idea of the sheer scale of Soviet rugby: one hundred teams from over thirty cities took part.
Although the name "Russia" or "Soviet Russia" was used as a synonym for the USSR, this was far from true, at least in rugby terms: there were regularly six or seven Georgians
in the USSR side
. Russians made up only about half of the Soviet population, the other half, nearly a hundred million Soviet citizens, were not Russian.
Sports clubs were invariably not autonomous bodies, but were part of Palaces of Culture
, or Universities, or Military Bodies, such as air force academies and the Red Army
itself. These were the so called Voluntary Sports Societies of the Soviet Union. As David Lane writes in the Politics and Society in the USSR:
These Palaces of Culture were run by trade unions, who both financed them, and also took any revenue raised from them in matches etc. Each sports club had its own rules and membership cards, and was subsidised by trade union dues. To join a club, a person paid the small sum of thirty kopecks a year.
Clubs were named for their trade union. For example, RC Lokomotiv Moscow
(now a rugby league
club) was part of the Lokomotiv
Society, which was in turn connected to the All-Union Voluntary Sports Society of rail transport
workers' Trade Unions
. (The "RC" stands for "Rugby Club") Ironically, this naming system has proven surprisingly resilient and even today is to be found in the names of various Eastern European sports clubs, long after the fall of the Iron Curtain
. The main name elements in sports clubs, with their trade union affiliations were as follows (an example of a rugby club with the element is also listed):
As well as the trade unions, there were two non-T.U. prefixes:
In the 1938 Soviet Championship for example, the first, second and third places were all won by Moscow teams - Dynamo, Spartak and Burevestnik respectively.
The well-known expatriate Romanian rugby writer, Chris Thau wrote in the late 1980s about Soviet rugby's failure to break into the international mainstream:
Climate was a particular problem for rugby in the Soviet Union. In 1978, a game in the RSFSR set the record for one of the coldest matches ever to be played. Krasnoyarsk
played Polyechika Alma at -23' C. Because Krasnoyarsk had travelled over 2,000 km to be there, the game was not called off. Instead, players resorted to wearing balaclavas, gloves, and several pairs of tracksuits to combat the cold. The extreme climate of the former USSR remains a problem in many regions, with winter sometimes being a split season, or the game of snow rugby
being played.
Many parts of the region spend a large part of the year under a blanket of snow. In northern parts of the USSR, most open ground was permafrost
, leading to further problems with pitches, especially with the placement of goalposts. Other regions such as Soviet Central Asia
often had desert climates, leading to temperature extremes, and water shortages for the pitch.
In reality, Soviet rugby operated under two or three different systems, which more or less ran in parallel, and only one of which was directly related to rugby:
Lastly, there was the CSKA
(Central Army Sports Club), which administered rugby in garrisons throughout the Soviet Union and was centrally rather than nationally controlled. For children, there were the Sports school
s (ДЮСШ), but these tended to concentrate more on Olympic sports, and neglected rugby.
Equipment and amenities came from the state's Glavsportprom, and the state sports publishing agency was Sovetsky Sport. Dinamo was the biggest sports manufacturer, and had many retail sports shops; its profits were ploughed back into the organisation.
The RFUSSR was founded in 1936, and re-established in 1968, the Rugby Federation of the USSR was founded. Over the years, the various rugby unions of each of the SSRs were set up - most of the national governing bodies of the Soviet successor states can trace themselves back to these.
In the latter years of the USSR, Soviet rugby also affiliated to two international bodies. In 1975, the RFUSSR became a member of FIRA-AER, which was then the largest rugby governing body in the world. This was followed, just over a decade later by membership of the International Rugby Football Board
.
In the first half of the twentieth century, Soviet citizens endured the brunt of two world wars, two revolutions (1905 & 1917), a devastating Civil War
, and a number of famines. In addition, there was some severe political repression, notably the Great Purge
in the 1930s, which led to many people being sent to the Gulag
. It is understandable that under such circumstances, a team sport such as rugby could not flourish and was low on the list of people's priorities. Only with the less repressive regime of the post-Stalin period did Soviet rugby begin to establish a firm base.
(Georgia), aimtskachara (Abkhazia
), shvalyga (Russia and the Ukraine), kila (Russia and the Ukraine)
Various forms of buzkashi
also existed in Soviet Central Asia
.
in the Russian Empire
pre-dated the Russian Revolution by a number of years, but it was only played sporadically. It appears to have been the first (non-indigenous) football code to be played in Russia, around a decade before the introduction of association football. Mr Hopper, a Scotsman, who worked in Moscow arranged a match in the 1880s; the first soccer match was in 1892. In 1886, however, the Russian police clamped down on rugby because they considered it "brutal, and liable to incite demonstrations and riots" Condemnation by the tsar's police probably deterred many people from playing, and records of rugby over the next thirty years are sparse. Some rugby union
was still being played in 1908.
The first official match, played in Moscow
, did not take place until 1923 several years after the Revolution, and in the same year, the first formal rugby teams in the USSR were organised by M.S. Koslov (М. С. Козлов), A.A. Markushevich (А. А. Маркушевич), A.V. Pravdin (А. В. Правдин), N.Ia. Kolli (Н. Я. Колли) and others.
Given the vast area of the USSR, and its complex and turbulent history, it seems more likely that rugby had multiple introductions and reintroductions to various regions completely independent of one another.
For example, it seems that rugby was introduced to Georgia
independently of its introduction to Russia, and moreover, the game bears a distinct resemblance to a pre-existing Georgian folk sport known as lelo
. There were several unsuccessful attempts to introduce rugby into Georgia, the earliest known being in 1928.
The Hygienists thought sport implied competition (which communism
was supposed to oppose) and was injurious to health. They favoured:
The Hygienists did not like team sports, but preferred athletics, swimming and rowing - as long as they were solo events against the clock, or one's previous best. The Hygienists had control over the Supreme Council of Physical Culture (the government sports body), most of the sporting press, the Ministry of Health, and physical education colleges. Moreover, they excluded PE from schools, and by extension team sports, arguing that "the existence of physical education teachers is a sign of pedagogical illiteracy."
The Proletkul'tists considered sport bourgeois, and preferred mass displays and folk sports, and their influence persisted around a decade after the Revolution. As a result Soviet sport during the 1920s tended to be fairly isolationist, with the exception of the Spartakiad
.
The promotion of sport gained support from other quarters. For example, in 1926, the Ukrainian Party Central Committee passed a resolution in which they expressed the hope that:
Although nominally a proletkul'tist, the first Soviet People's Commissar of Enlightenment responsible for culture and education, Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (Анатолий Васильевич Луначарский - 1875-1933) had other ideas. He was one of the early Russian rugby enthusiasts, and "called for a careful study of foreign sporting experience and the inclusion of everything worthwhile into Soviet sport, particularly boxing
and rugby." Lunacharsky was one of the most genuinely cosmopolitan and intellectual of the early Bolsheviks, and a prolific writer on all kinds of cultural and leisure activity from the "high" arts to sports, and was a significant contributor to физикультура и спорт (Fizkul'tura i sport), the leading Soviet sports magazine of the time. However, Lunacharsky received some opposition from some others within the Proletkult
movement, as James Riordan points out:
In his book, Thoughts on Sport, Lunacharsky hardly allayed this charge, saying:
Although Lunacharsky would later die in France (coincidentally at Menton
, where William Webb Ellis
was buried), and had the honour of being buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis
, he was lucky to die when he did. In the 1930s, his works were banned, and would not appear again until the late 1950s, when he was rehabilitated and seen as one of the most open-minded and forward thinking of the Russian Revolutionaries.
Soviet rugby might have had a much higher profile in the pre-war period if Lunarcharsky had lived a few years longer. But judging by what happened to his writings, it is unlikely that Lunarcharsky could have avoided Stalin's purges - and would have ended up dead or in a prison camp.
After the end of the Civil War
, rugby began to take root. Rugby was introduced into several secondary schools and colleges in 1926, and again in 1932.
In 1934, two teams played an exhibition match in Moscow initiating the Moscow Championship, and matches were being played in a number of other Soviet cities. According to Victor and Jennifer Louis,
In October, 1935, Moscow played Minsk
, and won 6-0.
The first Soviet Championship took place in 1936, and there was another in 1939. In 1937, there was an unofficial All-Union competition in which two Moscow based teams played ones from Minsk and Gorky
.
In 1938, the USSR Cup was held, and Dynamo Moscow won.
In the 1930s, a team championship was established, and there was even a European tournament held in Moscow, whose final was played between the Welsh side Llanelli
, and a Romanian team. [possibly occurred in 1950s - check]
The Moscow Civil Guard were called out as a result of the brawl between Llanelli
and Bucharest.
An ongoing problem in the 1930s was a lack of proper facilities and equipment. The games also did not receive sufficient publicity to generate a public interest, so that the Soviet authorities large gave up in their effort until after the Stalinist period.
. Most of the dead and wounded were young men, leading to a massive gender imbalance in Soviet society, which lasted for many years, and deprived the sport of a massive pool of potential players. As well as the human cost, there was a great deal of material damage to infrastructure, minefields and unexploded munitions, and many of the towns and cities of the Western USSR were flattened. Naturally, the horrors of WWII retarded rugby, but also further militarised it:
Play continued at a low level during the 1940s, but the games were one-offs, and were non-championship.
Attempts to establish rugby in Georgia took place in 1940 and in 1948.
In 1949, rugby union was forbidden throughout the USSR during the "fight against cosmopolitanism
". [possibly untrue, but would have suffered persecution]
Competition was resumed in 1957-58, after a "complete absence of 10 years".
Llanelli toured Czechoslovakia
and the USSR in the 1950s. In 1957, led by Rhys Williams, Llanelli played in the final of the World Youth Games in Moscow. Llanelli lost to the Romanian side Grivita Rosie. It was a game marred by such "hideous and appalling violence" that it hindered the development of the game in Russia for a number of years.
Rugby was reintroduced to Georgia by Jacques Haspekian, an Armenian
man from Marseilles in France
who taught the game to students in the late 1950s through to the mid 1960s, although he then subsequently returned in France. He is still alive and living in Marseilles, he was interviewed on French radio on the occasion of Georgia playing France in the 2007 Rugby World Cup
.
The very first rugby session was held on October 15, 1959 in Tbilisi
, at the racecourse, where 20 people attended the meeting. The first Georgian club formed was the GPI (Georgian Polytechnical Institute), now known as "Qochebi".
Serious efforts to organise the sport took place in the early 1960s, when championships were held between clubs, and the Soviet Championship recommenced in 1966. The decade was a golden age for, with a large number of new teams being set up in many parts of the Soviet Union, including areas such as Tajikstan and Uzbekistan. A school for coaches was opened during this period, and physical training colleges throughout the USSR introduced lectures on rugby union as part of their courses. The students of the MHTS in Moscow were also a major force in the promotion of the game.
In 1967, rugby was introduced to the Moldavian SSR.
In the 1960s too, Soviet rugby started to reach out, often without hope of immediate success, to international competition in order to acquire experience. The Soviet international team
played their first match against a foreign side in 1960, when they played a Polish side.
In 1968, the Rugby Federation of the USSR was founded.
. In the same year, twenty teams took part in the national championships. Notable Soviet players of this period included B.P. Gavrilov
(Б. П. Гаврилов), A.G. Grigor'iants (А. Г. Григорьянц) and I.I. Kiziriia (И. И. Кизирия), all of whom were Masters of Sport.
In 1973, Moscow Slava RFC toured Wales. After a game in which Slava played Rhymney RFC
, and lost 10-8, there was some banter in the bar -
In 1975, the Soviet national team played their first ever match.
In 1977, James Riordan was able to predict,
At the time, this was not bad prognostication; however, political and economic factors within the Eastern Bloc
in the 1980s ensured this was not to be.
The former All Black scrum half Chris Laidlaw
, writing at the end of the 1970s, saw rugby as a positive force in east-west relations at the time:
Chris Laidlaw writing of the open secret of shamateurism in Soviet sport said:
Crawley RFC was due to tour Russia in the early 1980s, and had both raised funds, and gained approval from the Soviet Embassy. However, they received a stern letter from the Rugby Football Union
telling them that "you're not big enough or good enough."
several times during the period.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia
states that "all Socialist countries" in Europe played rugby.
There are signs that Soviet Rugby was beginning to emerge on the world stage at this time. Soviet delegates were amongst those who went to the centenary congress of the International Rugby Football Board
in 1986. Women did not make much headway into sport, especially rugby, until the advent of perestroika
.
The USSR supposedly turned down its invitation to the 1987 Rugby World Cup
, because of its distaste for the apartheid regime of South Africa
. However, South Africa was not invited in the end. While the Great Soviet Encyclopedia states that rugby is popular in Great Britain, New Zealand, France, Romania and Australia, it tellingly makes no mention of South Africa. Chris Thau says that France approached the USSR before 1987 on the issue, and that the Soviets said that they would be happy to participate if South Africa was not invited. In the end, South Africa was not invited, but the USSR did not attend either. It has been said that:
The Soviets leaned on other nations heavily:
In 1988, Eduard Tatulian, the Soviet director of rugby coaching, said in an outspoken interview that the USSR required ten times as many coaches and referees as it had. He admitted that a more holistic approach was needed:
A running joke in French rugby circles ran that FIRA
's nightmare was to have " playing refereed by a Soviet."
Some members of the were also veterans at this point - for example, Igor Mironov, Roman Khairulin and Alexander Tikonov had all been playing at international level for over a decade. Igor Frantsusov, the scrum-half had been playing for slightly less time, but was still a veteran in rugby terms.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was a severe blow to rugby in the region, resulting in the removal of state subsidies, and most of the smaller successor states had to start afresh. In the case of Russia, the two main centres, Moscow and Siberia were thousands of miles apart. Georgia was one of the few places with a large number of clubs remaining, partly because it had become popular there, and its league was based in a relatively compact area.
In 1990, the Soviet rugby team visited Ireland
and the United States
for the first time.
In this period, the Soviet Union women's national rugby union team
played for the first time, and enjoyed a brief existence.
The Soviet Union did not take part in the qualification rounds for the 1991 Rugby World Cup - European qualification
. The 1991 Rugby World Cup
coincided with the final stages of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The RWC itself took place in October and November 1991, around two months after the unsuccessful coup d'état attempt against Gorbachev, which is often seen as being the end of the Soviet Union. In November 1991, Boris Yeltsin
issued a decree banning the CPSU throughout the Russian republic.
Initially, the former USSR competed under the Commonwealth of Independent States
banner, but this itself terminated in 1992. It had played four matches.
The most successful "successor" rugby team has been Georgia
, which competed in the 2003 Rugby World Cup
and in the 2007
. They had a respectable performance against Ireland
and defeated Namibia
30-0. No other ex-Soviet nation other than Georgia has ever qualified for the Rugby World Cup
.
Russia
is the next most successful team after Georgia, however, the rest of the former USSR has not fared so well. A notable exception was the Latvian sevens
team which succeeded in reaching the Rugby World Cup Sevens
in 1993. This was a surprise, since at the time there were only two rugby pitches in the entire country.
Resources have also been scattered, however, there are some other notable exceptions, e.g. the Ukraine
who were able to call on the services of Igor Bokov who was the former Soviet coach.
The era also brought a new challenge in the form of rugby league
. Although rugby league in England
had traditionally played on its working class credentials, in the Soviet Union it had been seen as a bourgeois pursuit due to its links with business through professionalism. However, when the Soviet Union collapse, rugby league tried to buy out Russian rugby union. A notable defector was RC Lokomotiv
, the former train workers club in Moscow.
In the mid-1990s, Russia had 222 clubs, and 6,000 players spread out across the entire country; Georgia had 40 clubs; the Ukraine had 20 clubs and 750 players; Latvia had only 8 clubs; and Lithuania had 14 clubs;
The Soviet legacy in sport has been a mixed one:
and the Soviet Championship existed, rugby never reached its full potential in the USSR
. Rugby union
was the bigger of the two rugby codes though - rugby league
only really took off in the former Soviet Union after the collapse of Communism
.
Victor and Jennifer Louis wrote in 1980 that:
This statement clearly ignores the popularity of rugby in Georgia, but was certainly true of Russia and most of the rest of the Soviet Union.
Chris Thau identified two major problems with rugby in the late Soviet Union:
After the Second World War, there was competition with the west and not just in sport. From the late 1950s-early 1970s, there was a reduction in in Soviet people's work time, which caused an increase in their leisure time. Sport was seen as:
With this in mind, participation in sport was strongly encouraged from the grass roots level upwards.
In 1926, 18% of the Soviet population lived in towns, but by 1978, this had risen to 63% (164 million) Each new planned town included a sports centre.
The 1930s saw the
The Soviet government spent 12,600 million rubles on sport and health each year in the 1970s and 80s, which was approximately 0.03% of the state budget.
Rather like their Olympic counterparts, Soviet rugby players had a fair degree of shamateurism. For example, the Dinamo clubs were sponsored and financed by the KGB
, but no one could say that openly that some athletes were full-time shamateurs, and received bonuses for winning including dollars. Masters of Sport were full time, and paid by their sports society. They received 180 rubles each year, plus 30-40 rubles if they were capped for the USSR team paid for by the USSR sports committee. There were frequently unofficial bonuses, and some people could be Masters of Sport for life, meaning that they would receive pay long after their retirement.
National champions included teams from the sports clubs of the Moscow Higher Technical School (МВТУ), the Iu. A. Gagarin Air Force Academy (ВВА им. Ю. А. Гагарина; the future VVA-Podmoskovye Monino
), and Fili
("Фили").
The two largest and most successful sports clubs were the Central House of the Red Army (the Central Sports Club of the Army, TSSK), and Динамо (Dinamo/Dynamo - the security services).
Between 1961 and 1974, the Soviet team took part in more than 100 international matches.
They played their first game against a Polish team in 1960.
There was also a women's team
, but they only played several games.
http://www.fira-aer-rugby.com/forum2007/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3186&hilit=
http://www.rugby.by/
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
was a moderately popular sport. It was most popular in the Georgian SSR; parts of the Russian SFSR
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
such as Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
and certain regions in Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
like Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia, with the population of 973,891. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of...
; and Almaty
Almaty
Almaty , also known by its former names Verny and Alma-Ata , is the former capital of Kazakhstan and the nation's largest city, with a population of 1,348,500...
, the capital of Kazakh SSR. Rugby enjoyed a more limited popularity in the Ukrainian SSR, Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
in the Byelorussian SSR and parts of the RSFSR
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic , commonly referred to as Soviet Russia, Bolshevik Russia, or simply Russia, was the largest, most populous and economically developed republic in the former Soviet Union....
such as Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
and areas in Southern Russia
North Caucasus
The North Caucasus is the northern part of the Caucasus region between the Black and Caspian Seas and within European Russia. The term is also used as a synonym for the North Caucasus economic region of Russia....
, including Krasnodar
Krasnodar Krai
-External links:* **...
. Rugby gained a significant following due to the vast size of the Soviet Union, but was never a major sport; despite many attempts to develop the sport, which Soviet citizens came to nickname the "leather melon" due to the shape of the ball. Still, an early championship in 1960 gives an idea of the sheer scale of Soviet rugby: one hundred teams from over thirty cities took part.
Although the name "Russia" or "Soviet Russia" was used as a synonym for the USSR, this was far from true, at least in rugby terms: there were regularly six or seven Georgians
Georgian people
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
in the USSR side
Soviet Union national rugby union team
The USSR national rugby union team was a sporting side that represented the Soviet Union in rugby union until the early 1990s.-History:Although such tournaments as the Soviet Cup and the Soviet Championship existed, rugby never became a major sport in the USSR...
. Russians made up only about half of the Soviet population, the other half, nearly a hundred million Soviet citizens, were not Russian.
Sports clubs were invariably not autonomous bodies, but were part of Palaces of Culture
Palace of Culture
Palace of Culture or House of Culture was the name for major club-houses in the former Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern bloc. It was an establishment for all kinds of recreational activities and hobbies: sports, collecting, arts, etc., and the Palace of Culture was designed to have room...
, or Universities, or Military Bodies, such as air force academies and the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
itself. These were the so called Voluntary Sports Societies of the Soviet Union. As David Lane writes in the Politics and Society in the USSR:
- "Palaces of Culture" are the equivalent of the English workingmen's club... Sports clubs and stadia... often form part of the Palace of Culture complex... The sports clubs embrace a wide variety of sports; in 1972, there were 25 million participants in union sports societies."
These Palaces of Culture were run by trade unions, who both financed them, and also took any revenue raised from them in matches etc. Each sports club had its own rules and membership cards, and was subsidised by trade union dues. To join a club, a person paid the small sum of thirty kopecks a year.
Clubs were named for their trade union. For example, RC Lokomotiv Moscow
RC Lokomotiv Moscow
RC Lokomotiv Moscow is a professional Russian rugby football club based in Moscow, which from 2010 will field teams in both rugby league and rugby union. The club is one of the oldest in Russia. Originally a club for those who worked on the railways, they participated in the first USSR rugby union...
(now a rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
club) was part of the Lokomotiv
Lokomotiv (sports society)
Lokomotiv is the Russian sports club and a member of the International Railway Sports Association.Lokomotive traces its history to the All-Union Voluntary Sports Society of rail transport workers' Trade Unions, one of the first sports societies of workers of the USSR. Established in 1936, it...
Society, which was in turn connected to the All-Union Voluntary Sports Society of rail transport
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
workers' Trade Unions
Trade unions in the Soviet Union
Trade unions in the Soviet Union trace their history back to Russian Revolution of 1905. Many trade unions were shut down or restricted on the eve of World War I and during the War, but they revived after the February Revolution and their leaders were democratically elected during 1917.Anarchists...
. (The "RC" stands for "Rugby Club") Ironically, this naming system has proven surprisingly resilient and even today is to be found in the names of various Eastern European sports clubs, long after the fall of the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
. The main name elements in sports clubs, with their trade union affiliations were as follows (an example of a rugby club with the element is also listed):
- Буреве́стник- Burevestnik - Students., e.g. Burevestnik Moscow
- Локомотив - LokomotivLokomotiv (sports society)Lokomotiv is the Russian sports club and a member of the International Railway Sports Association.Lokomotive traces its history to the All-Union Voluntary Sports Society of rail transport workers' Trade Unions, one of the first sports societies of workers of the USSR. Established in 1936, it...
- Railway workers., e.g. Lokomotiv Tbilisi - Спартак - SpartakSpartak (sports society)Spartak is the International Fitness and Sports Society of Nikolai Starostin.-Overview:Spartak was the first and the largest All-Union Voluntary Sports Society of workers of state trade, producers' cooperation, light industry, civil aviation, education, culture, health service etc...
- "White Collar" workers. - Водник - VodnikVodnik (sports society)Vodnik was the All-Union Voluntary Sports Society of Trade Unions of the sea and river transport. Established in 1938, when two VSS, Moryak and Vympel , were combined...
- River transport. - Зенит - ZenitZenit (sports society)Zenit was the All-Union Voluntary Sports Society for workers of arms industry, established in 1936. Due to reorganization of sports societies, between 1957 and 1966 physical culture collectives of Zenit were a part of VSS Trud from the Russian SFSR, and other republican sports societies. In 1966...
- the arms industry.
As well as the trade unions, there were two non-T.U. prefixes:
- Динамо - Dinamo/DynamoDynamo Sports ClubDinamo, also Dynamo, is the oldest sports and physical training society that was created in 1923.-Name:The name given to the society was supposed to mean "Power in Motion" from Greek: δύναμις; dynamis -power, and Latin: motio, -motion...
- The MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs - The Soviet Militia & the KGBKGBThe KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, along with its predecessor organisations). - Трудовые резервы - Trudovye Rezervy/Labour reservesTrudovye RezervyTrudovye Rezervy — voluntary sport society of students of professional-technical schools in the USSR and later in post-Soviet countries.Founded on June 19th, 1943 as an all-union voluntary sport society and operated by the trade unions. In 1975 5,538 physical culture collectives by the educational...
- Students at technical colleges.
In the 1938 Soviet Championship for example, the first, second and third places were all won by Moscow teams - Dynamo, Spartak and Burevestnik respectively.
The well-known expatriate Romanian rugby writer, Chris Thau wrote in the late 1980s about Soviet rugby's failure to break into the international mainstream:
- "Opinions on Soviet rugby vary widely. One school of thought maintains that, in spite of the superior athletic potential of the average Soviet player, the mechanistic nature of their tuition system does not allow for the creativity normally associated with the game of rugby."
Climate
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia, with the population of 973,891. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of...
played Polyechika Alma at -23' C. Because Krasnoyarsk had travelled over 2,000 km to be there, the game was not called off. Instead, players resorted to wearing balaclavas, gloves, and several pairs of tracksuits to combat the cold. The extreme climate of the former USSR remains a problem in many regions, with winter sometimes being a split season, or the game of snow rugby
Snow rugby
Snow rugby refers to forms of rugby union, which are especially adapted to be played in winter conditions, particularly deep snow. It is played in the Argentinian Ski Resort of Las Leñas, Canada, the Kashmir region in India, Latvia and northern USA, amongst other places.-History:Rugby union is...
being played.
Many parts of the region spend a large part of the year under a blanket of snow. In northern parts of the USSR, most open ground was permafrost
Permafrost
In geology, permafrost, cryotic soil or permafrost soil is soil at or below the freezing point of water for two or more years. Ice is not always present, as may be in the case of nonporous bedrock, but it frequently occurs and it may be in amounts exceeding the potential hydraulic saturation of...
, leading to further problems with pitches, especially with the placement of goalposts. Other regions such as Soviet Central Asia
Soviet Central Asia
Soviet Central Asia refers to the section of Central Asia formerly controlled by the Soviet Union, as well as the time period of Soviet administration . In terms of area, it is nearly synonymous with Russian Turkestan, the name for the region during the Russian Empire...
often had desert climates, leading to temperature extremes, and water shortages for the pitch.
- "In the north of the Soviet Union, snow covers most areas by November, hindering many forms of outdoor recreation, but stimulating winter sports and ice recreation."
Governing bodies and administration
Like almost everything else in the USSR, rugby was ultimately answerable to the Soviet government, albeit through a number of different channels. Officially, the Rugby Federation of the USSR (RFUSSR; sometimes translated as the "Rugby Union of the Soviet Union") was the top governing body of Soviet rugby and centrally controlled. However, as a Soviet organisation, it was in fact part of a complex web of administrations, bureaucracies and so on, and linked to the Soviet government rather than being an independent body on the lines of the major rugby nations. The RFUSSR was answerable to, and funded by the USSR Committee on Physical Culture and Sport which was the umbrella organisation for all Soviet sport, and this in turn was attached to the USSR Council of Ministers.In reality, Soviet rugby operated under two or three different systems, which more or less ran in parallel, and only one of which was directly related to rugby:
- Central rugby administration: The RFUSSR operated throughout the USSR. This in turn was made up of fifteen national rugby unions for each of the republics (SSRs).
- SSR sports administration: Each of the fifteen national rugby unions was not only part of the RFUSSR, but were also part of the Sports Committee of its respective SSR, which dealt with various sports at a local level. Each national republic was also further subdivided into an urban and a rural sports society.
- Institutional affiliations: The majority of Soviet rugby clubs were part of non-rugby bodies, in addition to the RFUSSR. These included certain trade unions, multi-sport clubs, colleges/universities or military bodies, which also operated throughout the state. There were some thirty six sports societies in the Soviet Union, and all but two were run by trade unions. Each of these "vertical" general sports bodies were run by the USSR Committee on Physical Culture and Sport, which was above the RFUSSR.
Lastly, there was the CSKA
CSKA
CSKA refers to military sports teams in several east European countries:Bulgaria* CSKA Sofia ** PBC CSKA Sofia, a basketball club...
(Central Army Sports Club), which administered rugby in garrisons throughout the Soviet Union and was centrally rather than nationally controlled. For children, there were the Sports school
Sports School
Sports School may refer to:* Sports school* Singapore Sports School, a specialized independent school in Singapore* National Sport School , a public high school in Calgary, Alberta...
s (ДЮСШ), but these tended to concentrate more on Olympic sports, and neglected rugby.
Equipment and amenities came from the state's Glavsportprom, and the state sports publishing agency was Sovetsky Sport. Dinamo was the biggest sports manufacturer, and had many retail sports shops; its profits were ploughed back into the organisation.
The RFUSSR was founded in 1936, and re-established in 1968, the Rugby Federation of the USSR was founded. Over the years, the various rugby unions of each of the SSRs were set up - most of the national governing bodies of the Soviet successor states can trace themselves back to these.
In the latter years of the USSR, Soviet rugby also affiliated to two international bodies. In 1975, the RFUSSR became a member of FIRA-AER, which was then the largest rugby governing body in the world. This was followed, just over a decade later by membership of the International Rugby Football Board
International Rugby Board
The International Rugby Board is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. It was founded in 1886 as the International Rugby Football Board by the unions of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. England refused to join until 1890. The International Rugby Football Board changed its name to the...
.
History
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, and a number of famines. In addition, there was some severe political repression, notably the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
in the 1930s, which led to many people being sent to the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
. It is understandable that under such circumstances, a team sport such as rugby could not flourish and was low on the list of people's priorities. Only with the less repressive regime of the post-Stalin period did Soviet rugby begin to establish a firm base.
Indigenous football codes
The Soviet Union had a number of different indigenous football codes, some of which bore a resemblance to rugby. Amongst these were lelo burtiLelo burti
Lelo or lelo burti is a Georgian folk sport, which is a full contact ball game, and very similar to rugby...
(Georgia), aimtskachara (Abkhazia
Abkhazia
Abkhazia is a disputed political entity on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny...
), shvalyga (Russia and the Ukraine), kila (Russia and the Ukraine)
Various forms of buzkashi
Buzkashi
Buzkashi or Kok-boru or Oglak Tartis or Ulak Tartysh is a traditional Central Asian...
also existed in Soviet Central Asia
Soviet Central Asia
Soviet Central Asia refers to the section of Central Asia formerly controlled by the Soviet Union, as well as the time period of Soviet administration . In terms of area, it is nearly synonymous with Russian Turkestan, the name for the region during the Russian Empire...
.
- "The game took place over a wide area sometimes stretching for several kilometres on very rough ground. The contestants would have to contend with spurs, hills, valleys, woods. cascading streams and marshes. Their task was to get a ball into a certain place, say, over the settlement boundary or to the foot of the mountain. Any means necessary could be employed to drive the ball forward — feet or hands. Sometimes they would play the game on horseback."
Introduction of rugby
Rugby footballRugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
in the Russian Empire
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
pre-dated the Russian Revolution by a number of years, but it was only played sporadically. It appears to have been the first (non-indigenous) football code to be played in Russia, around a decade before the introduction of association football. Mr Hopper, a Scotsman, who worked in Moscow arranged a match in the 1880s; the first soccer match was in 1892. In 1886, however, the Russian police clamped down on rugby because they considered it "brutal, and liable to incite demonstrations and riots" Condemnation by the tsar's police probably deterred many people from playing, and records of rugby over the next thirty years are sparse. Some rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
was still being played in 1908.
The first official match, played in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, did not take place until 1923 several years after the Revolution, and in the same year, the first formal rugby teams in the USSR were organised by M.S. Koslov (М. С. Козлов), A.A. Markushevich (А. А. Маркушевич), A.V. Pravdin (А. В. Правдин), N.Ia. Kolli (Н. Я. Колли) and others.
Given the vast area of the USSR, and its complex and turbulent history, it seems more likely that rugby had multiple introductions and reintroductions to various regions completely independent of one another.
For example, it seems that rugby was introduced to Georgia
Rugby union in Georgia
Rugby union is a popular team sport played in Georgia. Rugby union is considered the most popular sport in Georgia, after football.- Governing body :The governing body for rugby union in Georgia is the Georgia Rugby Union...
independently of its introduction to Russia, and moreover, the game bears a distinct resemblance to a pre-existing Georgian folk sport known as lelo
Lelo burti
Lelo or lelo burti is a Georgian folk sport, which is a full contact ball game, and very similar to rugby...
. There were several unsuccessful attempts to introduce rugby into Georgia, the earliest known being in 1928.
Early history and Proletkult
Amongst Bolsheviks, there were two main schools of thought when it came to sports planning and debate - the Proletkul'tists and the Hygienists:- "The crucial question was being debated was not what form sport should take, but whether competitive sport should exist at all in the new workers' state. After all, some revolutionaries argued, sports such as athletics, soccer, rowingRowing (sport)Rowing is a sport in which athletes race against each other on rivers, on lakes or on the ocean, depending upon the type of race and the discipline. The boats are propelled by the reaction forces on the oar blades as they are pushed against the water...
, tennisTennisTennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
and gymnasticsGymnasticsGymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...
were invented by the industrial bourgeoisie for their own diversion and character training for future careers as captains of industry and empire. It was thought perfectly natural by some after the Russian Revolution that a new pattern of recreation would emerge, reflecting the dominant values and needs in the new Socialist state... the two major groups that regarded sport as debasing workers' physical culture and inculcating non-socialist habits were known as the Hygienists and the Proletkul'tists (from 'proletarian culture')."
The Hygienists thought sport implied competition (which communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
was supposed to oppose) and was injurious to health. They favoured:
- "non-commercialised forms of recreation that dispensed with grandstands and spectators. Sport, they said, diverted attention from providing recreation for all."
The Hygienists did not like team sports, but preferred athletics, swimming and rowing - as long as they were solo events against the clock, or one's previous best. The Hygienists had control over the Supreme Council of Physical Culture (the government sports body), most of the sporting press, the Ministry of Health, and physical education colleges. Moreover, they excluded PE from schools, and by extension team sports, arguing that "the existence of physical education teachers is a sign of pedagogical illiteracy."
The Proletkul'tists considered sport bourgeois, and preferred mass displays and folk sports, and their influence persisted around a decade after the Revolution. As a result Soviet sport during the 1920s tended to be fairly isolationist, with the exception of the Spartakiad
Spartakiad
Spartakiad initially was the name of an international sports event that the Soviet Union attempted to use to both oppose and supplement the Olympics...
.
The promotion of sport gained support from other quarters. For example, in 1926, the Ukrainian Party Central Committee passed a resolution in which they expressed the hope that:
- "physical culture would become the vehicle of the new life... a means of isolating young people from the evil effects of prostitutionProstitutionProstitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
, home-made alcohol and the street."
Although nominally a proletkul'tist, the first Soviet People's Commissar of Enlightenment responsible for culture and education, Anatoly Vasilyevich Lunacharsky (Анатолий Васильевич Луначарский - 1875-1933) had other ideas. He was one of the early Russian rugby enthusiasts, and "called for a careful study of foreign sporting experience and the inclusion of everything worthwhile into Soviet sport, particularly boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
and rugby." Lunacharsky was one of the most genuinely cosmopolitan and intellectual of the early Bolsheviks, and a prolific writer on all kinds of cultural and leisure activity from the "high" arts to sports, and was a significant contributor to физикультура и спорт (Fizkul'tura i sport), the leading Soviet sports magazine of the time. However, Lunacharsky received some opposition from some others within the Proletkult
Proletkult
Proletkult was movement which arose in the Russian revolution and was active from 1917 to 1925 which aspired to provide the foundations for what was intended to be a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence.The name is a portmanteau of "proletarskaya kultura" , which are better-known as...
movement, as James Riordan points out:
- "To many 'Proletkul'tists', the recourse to 'bourgeois' institutions such as sport seemed a compromise, a withdrawal from already conquered positions. They might have exerted more influence over the movement, however, if they had had a better-defined programme of proletarian physical culture to take the place of organised sports... Subsequently, several 'Proletkul'tist' notions were taken up and incorporated in Soviet sport, while their originators were rejected (and mostly liquidated after 1934)."
In his book, Thoughts on Sport, Lunacharsky hardly allayed this charge, saying:
- "[Rugby is] a джентльменский бой [dzhentel'mensky boi - gentlemanly combat] that encourages courageous qualities; it is a sport that should be widely practised."
Although Lunacharsky would later die in France (coincidentally at Menton
Menton
Menton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ....
, where William Webb Ellis
William Webb Ellis
Rev. William Webb Ellis was an Anglican clergyman who is famous for allegedly being the inventor of Rugby football whilst a pupil at Rugby School....
was buried), and had the honour of being buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Kremlin Wall Necropolis
Burials in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis in Moscow began in November 1917, when 240 pro-Bolshevik victims of the October Revolution were buried in mass graves on Red Square. It is centered on both sides of Lenin's Mausoleum, initially built in wood in 1924 and rebuilt in granite in 1929–1930...
, he was lucky to die when he did. In the 1930s, his works were banned, and would not appear again until the late 1950s, when he was rehabilitated and seen as one of the most open-minded and forward thinking of the Russian Revolutionaries.
Soviet rugby might have had a much higher profile in the pre-war period if Lunarcharsky had lived a few years longer. But judging by what happened to his writings, it is unlikely that Lunarcharsky could have avoided Stalin's purges - and would have ended up dead or in a prison camp.
1930s
There was a close link-up between Soviet sport and the military, as the USSR felt itself to be hemmed in by unfriendly states. GTO ("Gotov k trudu i oborone) - Ready for defence and labour - was the name of the national fitness programme, which was established in 1931.After the end of the Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
, rugby began to take root. Rugby was introduced into several secondary schools and colleges in 1926, and again in 1932.
In 1934, two teams played an exhibition match in Moscow initiating the Moscow Championship, and matches were being played in a number of other Soviet cities. According to Victor and Jennifer Louis,
- "When the first Rugby Championship was held in the Soviet union in 1934, critics compared it to a battle of gladiators."
In October, 1935, Moscow played Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
, and won 6-0.
The first Soviet Championship took place in 1936, and there was another in 1939. In 1937, there was an unofficial All-Union competition in which two Moscow based teams played ones from Minsk and Gorky
Nizhny Novgorod
Nizhny Novgorod , colloquially shortened to Nizhny, is, with the population of 1,250,615, the fifth largest city in Russia, ranking after Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg...
.
In 1938, the USSR Cup was held, and Dynamo Moscow won.
In the 1930s, a team championship was established, and there was even a European tournament held in Moscow, whose final was played between the Welsh side Llanelli
Llanelli
Llanelli , the largest town in both the county of Carmarthenshire and the preserved county of Dyfed , Wales, sits on the Loughor estuary on the West Wales coast, approximately west-north-west of Swansea and south-east of the county town, Carmarthen. The town is famous for its proud rugby...
, and a Romanian team. [possibly occurred in 1950s - check]
The Moscow Civil Guard were called out as a result of the brawl between Llanelli
Llanelli RFC
Llanelli Rugby Football Club is a Welsh rugby union club founded in 1875 and its senior team is one of the leading club sides in Wales. The club began the 2008-09 season at their historic home ground of Stradey Park in Llanelli, but moved in November 2008 to the new Parc y Scarlets in adjacent...
and Bucharest.
An ongoing problem in the 1930s was a lack of proper facilities and equipment. The games also did not receive sufficient publicity to generate a public interest, so that the Soviet authorities large gave up in their effort until after the Stalinist period.
1940s
The Soviet death toll in the Second World War was horrific, with the highest casualties of any side being amongst Soviet citizens on the Eastern FrontEastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
. Most of the dead and wounded were young men, leading to a massive gender imbalance in Soviet society, which lasted for many years, and deprived the sport of a massive pool of potential players. As well as the human cost, there was a great deal of material damage to infrastructure, minefields and unexploded munitions, and many of the towns and cities of the Western USSR were flattened. Naturally, the horrors of WWII retarded rugby, but also further militarised it:
- "The war convinced the authorities that they had been correct in 'functionalizing' sport... it also re-enforced a military bias in physical training and sport. The post-war role of organizations such as the army sports clubs, Dinamo, and the Civil Defence Establishment DOSAAF (Dobrovol'noe obshchestvo sodeystviya Armii, Aviatsii i Flotu - "Voluntary Society for Aid to the Army, Air Force and Navy") was to be enhanced and these institutions were to be made the pillars of the entire sports movement."
Play continued at a low level during the 1940s, but the games were one-offs, and were non-championship.
Attempts to establish rugby in Georgia took place in 1940 and in 1948.
In 1949, rugby union was forbidden throughout the USSR during the "fight against cosmopolitanism
Rootless cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan was a Soviet euphemism widely used during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1948–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot...
". [possibly untrue, but would have suffered persecution]
1950: Post-Stalin era
Soviet teams once more began to be formed in the late 1950s, and the game underwent a renaissance, thanks to the efforts of B.M. Egupov (Б. М. Егупов), G.G. Mrelashvili (Г. Г. Мрелашвили) and A.A. Sorokin (А. А. Сорокин). Interestingly, this is the same period in which the rugby advocate Lunacharsky was rehabilitated, and his writings were released from censorship.Competition was resumed in 1957-58, after a "complete absence of 10 years".
Llanelli toured Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
and the USSR in the 1950s. In 1957, led by Rhys Williams, Llanelli played in the final of the World Youth Games in Moscow. Llanelli lost to the Romanian side Grivita Rosie. It was a game marred by such "hideous and appalling violence" that it hindered the development of the game in Russia for a number of years.
Rugby was reintroduced to Georgia by Jacques Haspekian, an Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
man from Marseilles in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
who taught the game to students in the late 1950s through to the mid 1960s, although he then subsequently returned in France. He is still alive and living in Marseilles, he was interviewed on French radio on the occasion of Georgia playing France in the 2007 Rugby World Cup
2007 Rugby World Cup
The 2007 Rugby World Cup was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by France from 7 September to 20 October. France won the hosting rights in 2003,...
.
The very first rugby session was held on October 15, 1959 in Tbilisi
Tbilisi
Tbilisi is the capital and the largest city of Georgia, lying on the banks of the Mt'k'vari River. The name is derived from an early Georgian form T'pilisi and it was officially known as Tiflis until 1936...
, at the racecourse, where 20 people attended the meeting. The first Georgian club formed was the GPI (Georgian Polytechnical Institute), now known as "Qochebi".
1960s
Along with the revival in the late 1950s, rugby received another boost in the 1960s, when Soviet industry started to manufacture its own equipment. The 1960s saw massive Soviet investment in sport - for example, while between 1953 and 1964, the government spent an average of 16 million rubles per year, in 1965, it spent no less than 40 million. In August 1966, the Soviet government drew up a spending plan, which resulted in some republics increasing their sports spending by as much as 6 or 7 times. In the Russian RFSR, in 1967, the expenditure was more than double the amount spent in all the post-war years put together.Serious efforts to organise the sport took place in the early 1960s, when championships were held between clubs, and the Soviet Championship recommenced in 1966. The decade was a golden age for, with a large number of new teams being set up in many parts of the Soviet Union, including areas such as Tajikstan and Uzbekistan. A school for coaches was opened during this period, and physical training colleges throughout the USSR introduced lectures on rugby union as part of their courses. The students of the MHTS in Moscow were also a major force in the promotion of the game.
In 1967, rugby was introduced to the Moldavian SSR.
In the 1960s too, Soviet rugby started to reach out, often without hope of immediate success, to international competition in order to acquire experience. The Soviet international team
Soviet Union national rugby union team
The USSR national rugby union team was a sporting side that represented the Soviet Union in rugby union until the early 1990s.-History:Although such tournaments as the Soviet Cup and the Soviet Championship existed, rugby never became a major sport in the USSR...
played their first match against a foreign side in 1960, when they played a Polish side.
National organisations
In the 1960s, a number of the national bodies were set up, such as Lithuania's in 1961, Latvia's in 1963, Georgia's 1964, and Russia's in 1966.In 1968, the Rugby Federation of the USSR was founded.
1970s
In 1974, there were 10,000 registered Soviet rugby players, including more than 200 Soviet Masters of SportUnified Sports Classification System of the USSR
Unified Sports Classification System of the USSR is a document which provided general Soviet physical education system requirements for athletes. The classification was established in 1935 and was based on separate classifications, which existed for several sports disciplines before...
. In the same year, twenty teams took part in the national championships. Notable Soviet players of this period included B.P. Gavrilov
B.P. Gavrilov
B.P. Gavrilov was a Soviet rugby union player, who played for the national team. He was a Soviet Master of Sport.He played for Fili rugby club, and was active in the 1970s.-References:* Sorokin, A.A. B.P. Gavrilov was a Soviet rugby union player, who played for the national team. He was a Soviet...
(Б. П. Гаврилов), A.G. Grigor'iants (А. Г. Григорьянц) and I.I. Kiziriia (И. И. Кизирия), all of whom were Masters of Sport.
In 1973, Moscow Slava RFC toured Wales. After a game in which Slava played Rhymney RFC
Rhymney RFC
Rhymney Rugby Football Club is a Welsh rugby union club based in Rhymney in Wales. The Senior team presently play in the Welsh Rugby Union Division Three East league. Rhymney is a member of the Welsh Rugby Union and is a feeder club for the Newport Gwent Dragons.Rugby union was first played in...
, and lost 10-8, there was some banter in the bar -
- "Well Boyo, now it's time to defect."
- "No, thank you, I don't like your weather."
In 1975, the Soviet national team played their first ever match.
In 1977, James Riordan was able to predict,
- "In the not-so-distant future, it is not unrealistic to forecast, the USSR is likely to be a world power in world badmintonBadmintonBadminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
, rugby, grass hockeyField hockeyField Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
and motor racing, at all of which its sportsmen are practising hard."
At the time, this was not bad prognostication; however, political and economic factors within the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
in the 1980s ensured this was not to be.
The former All Black scrum half Chris Laidlaw
Chris Laidlaw
Christopher Robert Laidlaw , Rhodes Scholar, All Black, diplomat, MP, talk radio host, author, is a 20th century New Zealand figure.-Academic and Rugby Union:...
, writing at the end of the 1970s, saw rugby as a positive force in east-west relations at the time:
- "Rugby has become the ping-pong of outdoor sports in its capacity to spread goodwill between East and West. Over the last 30 or 40 years it has spread through Eastern Europe, establishing itself strongly in RumaniaRugby union in RomaniaRugby union is a fairly popular team sport played in Romania with a tradition of more than 90 years. Romania's men's national team was 18th in the IRB World Rankings as of July 2011. -Governing body:...
and YugoslaviaRugby union in YugoslaviaPlease note, this article refers to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . For rugby in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, post-1992, please see rugby union in SerbiaRugby union in Yugoslavia was a moderately popular sport...
, HungaryRugby union in HungaryRugby union in Hungary is a minor but growing sport.-Governing body:The Hungarian union was founded in 1990, and affiliated to the IRB in 1991.-History:...
and into the USSR. The fact that a Russian team [sic] has finally played a full-scale, if unofficial Test match against speaks for itself.
- "Rugby tours between countries on either side of the Iron CurtainIron CurtainThe concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
have generated considerable political interest among the governments concerned, and the results can be quite astonishing. The recent n tour of New Zealand, for instance, germinated other contacts between the two countries and was partly instrumental in the establishment of new trade agreements which otherwise might not have begun."
Chris Laidlaw writing of the open secret of shamateurism in Soviet sport said:
- "So far as the East Europeans and the RussiansRugby union in RussiaRugby union in Russia is a growing sport. Russia is ranked 19th worldwide by the International Rugby Board , having over one hundred clubs and close to 20,000 players nationally. Russia has a professional domestic competition.-Governing body:...
are concerned, who knows where the incentives lie? In such societies rugby, like many other sports before it, is becoming an expression of national achievement and therefore the subject of careful nurturing. Yet, is the risk of the double standard, so evident in the athletic arena, permeating the East Europeans' approach to rugby so great as to justify the exclusion of the Communist world indefinitely from regular rugby competition?"
Crawley RFC was due to tour Russia in the early 1980s, and had both raised funds, and gained approval from the Soviet Embassy. However, they received a stern letter from the Rugby Football Union
Rugby Football Union
The Rugby Football Union was founded in 1871 as the governing body for the sport of rugby union, and performed as the international governing body prior to the formation of the International Rugby Board in 1886...
telling them that "you're not big enough or good enough."
1980s
A notable Russian player of the 1980s was Dimitri Mironov who played for the BarbariansBarbarian F.C.
The Barbarian Football Club, usually referred to as the Barbarians and nicknamed the "Baa-Baas", is an invitational rugby union team based in Britain...
several times during the period.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia is one of the largest and most comprehensive encyclopedias in Russian and in the world, issued by the Soviet state from 1926 to 1990, and again since 2002 .-Editions:There were three editions...
states that "all Socialist countries" in Europe played rugby.
There are signs that Soviet Rugby was beginning to emerge on the world stage at this time. Soviet delegates were amongst those who went to the centenary congress of the International Rugby Football Board
International Rugby Board
The International Rugby Board is the governing body for the sport of rugby union. It was founded in 1886 as the International Rugby Football Board by the unions of Scotland, Wales and Ireland. England refused to join until 1890. The International Rugby Football Board changed its name to the...
in 1986. Women did not make much headway into sport, especially rugby, until the advent of perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
.
The USSR supposedly turned down its invitation to the 1987 Rugby World Cup
1987 Rugby World Cup
The 1987 Rugby World Cup was the first Rugby World Cup. New Zealand and Australia agreed to co-host the first ever tournament with New Zealand hosting seventeen pool stage matches, two quarter-finals and the final with Australia being the junior partner hosting seven pool matches, two...
, because of its distaste for the apartheid regime of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
. However, South Africa was not invited in the end. While the Great Soviet Encyclopedia states that rugby is popular in Great Britain, New Zealand, France, Romania and Australia, it tellingly makes no mention of South Africa. Chris Thau says that France approached the USSR before 1987 on the issue, and that the Soviets said that they would be happy to participate if South Africa was not invited. In the end, South Africa was not invited, but the USSR did not attend either. It has been said that:
- "No nation outside the Third World did more than the USSR to oppose apartheid in sport and have South Africa banned from world sports forums and arenas."
The Soviets leaned on other nations heavily:
- "Over the years, Ferasse has resisted Eastern Bloc pressure to break with South Africa. At one point Moscow threatened to set up a rival Federation, but the Rumanians, with whom the French have long had good relationships, stood by France. Moscow tried again later by threatening to call off the v. match in ToulouseToulouseToulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...
in November 1978. Once again Ferasse held firm and the Russians went to France, where they were beaten 29-7"
In 1988, Eduard Tatulian, the Soviet director of rugby coaching, said in an outspoken interview that the USSR required ten times as many coaches and referees as it had. He admitted that a more holistic approach was needed:
- "We need to improve the standard of refereeing too. The development of the game in the Soviet Union has to be based on a chain: coach-referee-team-supporter. All four parameters are equally important."
A running joke in French rugby circles ran that FIRA
FIRA - Association of European Rugby
The FIRA - Association Européenne de Rugby is the administrative body for rugby union in Europe. It was formed in 1999 to promote, develop, organise and administer the game of rugby in Europe under the authority of the International Rugby Board .The predecessor to FIRA–AER was the Fédération...
's nightmare was to have " playing refereed by a Soviet."
Some members of the were also veterans at this point - for example, Igor Mironov, Roman Khairulin and Alexander Tikonov had all been playing at international level for over a decade. Igor Frantsusov, the scrum-half had been playing for slightly less time, but was still a veteran in rugby terms.
Break up of Soviet Union
In 1990, the Soviet rugby team visited Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
for the first time.
In this period, the Soviet Union women's national rugby union team
Soviet Union women's national rugby union team
The Soviet Union women's national rugby union team played six matches between 1990 and 1991. The team suffered from severe underfunding, surviving the 1991 World Cup only by bartering and selling items of kit and other trinkets...
played for the first time, and enjoyed a brief existence.
The Soviet Union did not take part in the qualification rounds for the 1991 Rugby World Cup - European qualification
1991 Rugby World Cup - European qualification
In 1989-1990, 14 European teams competed for the two available positions in the 1991 Rugby World Cup.- Pool 1 :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...
. The 1991 Rugby World Cup
1991 Rugby World Cup
The 1991 Rugby World Cup was the second edition of the Rugby World Cup, and was jointly hosted by England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France; at that time, the five European countries that participated in the Five Nations Championship making it the first Rugby World Cup to be staged in the...
coincided with the final stages of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The RWC itself took place in October and November 1991, around two months after the unsuccessful coup d'état attempt against Gorbachev, which is often seen as being the end of the Soviet Union. In November 1991, Boris Yeltsin
Boris Yeltsin
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin was the first President of the Russian Federation, serving from 1991 to 1999.Originally a supporter of Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin emerged under the perestroika reforms as one of Gorbachev's most powerful political opponents. On 29 May 1990 he was elected the chairman of...
issued a decree banning the CPSU throughout the Russian republic.
Initially, the former USSR competed under the Commonwealth of Independent States
CIS (rugby)
CIS was a rugby union side that played matches during 1991 and 1992. The side consisted of members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The team played four matches, losing all four fixtures...
banner, but this itself terminated in 1992. It had played four matches.
The most successful "successor" rugby team has been Georgia
Georgia national rugby union team
The Georgia national rugby union team represents Georgia in rugby union. The team's nickname, The Lelos, comes from lelo burti, a traditional Georgian sport with strong similarities to rugby. Lelo has been adopted as the Georgian word for "try"...
, which competed in the 2003 Rugby World Cup
2003 Rugby World Cup
The 2003 Rugby World Cup was the fifth Rugby World Cup and was won by England. Originally planned to be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand, all games were shifted to Australia following a contractual dispute over ground signage rights between the New Zealand Rugby Football Union and Rugby World...
and in the 2007
2007 Rugby World Cup
The 2007 Rugby World Cup was the sixth Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. Twenty nations competed for the Webb Ellis Cup in the tournament, which was hosted by France from 7 September to 20 October. France won the hosting rights in 2003,...
. They had a respectable performance against Ireland
Ireland national rugby union team
The Ireland national rugby union team represents the island of Ireland in rugby union. The team competes annually in the Six Nations Championship and every four years in the Rugby World Cup, where they reached the quarter-final stage in all but two competitions The Ireland national rugby union...
and defeated Namibia
Namibia national rugby union team
The Namibian rugby union team, nicknamed the Welwitschias or Biltongboere, represents Namibia at rugby union. Although they are a tier-three nation in the International Rugby Board tier system, the team have participated in all three Rugby World Cup competitions since their first appearance in 1999...
30-0. No other ex-Soviet nation other than Georgia has ever qualified for the Rugby World Cup
Rugby World Cup
The Rugby World Cup is an international rugby union competition organised by the International Rugby Board and held every four years since 1987....
.
Russia
Russia national rugby union team
The Russian National Rugby Union Team, is the national team representing Russia at the sport of rugby union.Rugby union in Russia is administered by the Rugby Union of Russia . The RUR is the official successor union of the Soviet Union and the combined CIS team which played in the early 1990s...
is the next most successful team after Georgia, however, the rest of the former USSR has not fared so well. A notable exception was the Latvian sevens
Latvia national rugby union team (sevens)
The Latvia national rugby union sevens is a minor national sevens side.Latvian rugby received a surprise boost when they qualified for the Rugby World Cup Sevens in 1993. At the time, there were only two pitches in the country, both of which spent much of their time under snow.-1993 Rugby World Cup...
team which succeeded in reaching the Rugby World Cup Sevens
Rugby World Cup Sevens
The Rugby World Cup Sevens is the premier international Rugby sevens competition. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Rugby Board , and is contested by the men's national sevens teams every four years. The inaugural tournament was held in 1993 in Scotland, the...
in 1993. This was a surprise, since at the time there were only two rugby pitches in the entire country.
Resources have also been scattered, however, there are some other notable exceptions, e.g. the Ukraine
Ukraine national rugby union team
The Ukraine national rugby union team represents Ukraine at the sport of rugby union. Ukraine have been playing international rugby union since the early 1990s. So far they have not qualified for a Rugby World Cup. They participate in the European Nations Cup....
who were able to call on the services of Igor Bokov who was the former Soviet coach.
The era also brought a new challenge in the form of rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
. Although rugby league in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
had traditionally played on its working class credentials, in the Soviet Union it had been seen as a bourgeois pursuit due to its links with business through professionalism. However, when the Soviet Union collapse, rugby league tried to buy out Russian rugby union. A notable defector was RC Lokomotiv
RC Lokomotiv Moscow
RC Lokomotiv Moscow is a professional Russian rugby football club based in Moscow, which from 2010 will field teams in both rugby league and rugby union. The club is one of the oldest in Russia. Originally a club for those who worked on the railways, they participated in the first USSR rugby union...
, the former train workers club in Moscow.
In the mid-1990s, Russia had 222 clubs, and 6,000 players spread out across the entire country; Georgia had 40 clubs; the Ukraine had 20 clubs and 750 players; Latvia had only 8 clubs; and Lithuania had 14 clubs;
The Soviet legacy in sport has been a mixed one:
- "In fact, since the end of the Second World War, the East European (and world communist) sports system was dominated by clubs of the security forces (often in Eastern Europe bearing the Soviet name Dinamo) and the armed forces. Most sports heroes, therefore, have officially been soldiers or police officers, guardians of public order and role models for a disciplined, obedient and patriotic citizenry. So to many people, élite sport was identified with paramilitary coercion."
Popularity
Although such tournaments as the Soviet CupSoviet Cup (rugby)
The Soviet Cup was a rugby union club competition between the domestic teams of the Soviet Union era. The first competition was held in 1976, and continued on an annual basis until 1990.-Results:-See also:* Soviet Championship* Professional Rugby League...
and the Soviet Championship existed, rugby never reached its full potential in the USSR
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. Rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
was the bigger of the two rugby codes though - rugby league
Rugby league
Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...
only really took off in the former Soviet Union after the collapse of Communism
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
.
Victor and Jennifer Louis wrote in 1980 that:
- "It seemed in the early 1960s that rugby was burgeoning throughout the Soviet Union, but today it is clear that the game is played above all by students and mostly in Moscow."
This statement clearly ignores the popularity of rugby in Georgia, but was certainly true of Russia and most of the rest of the Soviet Union.
Chris Thau identified two major problems with rugby in the late Soviet Union:
- "Many players start playing late in life, either after failing to establish themselves in an Olympic discipline, or after entering a University, a Polytechnic, or a Military Academy where the game is already well established."
After the Second World War, there was competition with the west and not just in sport. From the late 1950s-early 1970s, there was a reduction in in Soviet people's work time, which caused an increase in their leisure time. Sport was seen as:
- "one of the best and most comprehensive ways and means of explaining to people throughout the world the advantages of the socialist system over capitalism."
With this in mind, participation in sport was strongly encouraged from the grass roots level upwards.
In 1926, 18% of the Soviet population lived in towns, but by 1978, this had risen to 63% (164 million) Each new planned town included a sports centre.
The 1930s saw the
- "flourishing of all manner of competitive sports with spectator appeal, of leagues, of cups, championships, popularity-polls and cults of sporting heroes. All were designed to provide recreation and diversion for the fast growing urban populace."
The Soviet government spent 12,600 million rubles on sport and health each year in the 1970s and 80s, which was approximately 0.03% of the state budget.
Rather like their Olympic counterparts, Soviet rugby players had a fair degree of shamateurism. For example, the Dinamo clubs were sponsored and financed by the KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, but no one could say that openly that some athletes were full-time shamateurs, and received bonuses for winning including dollars. Masters of Sport were full time, and paid by their sports society. They received 180 rubles each year, plus 30-40 rubles if they were capped for the USSR team paid for by the USSR sports committee. There were frequently unofficial bonuses, and some people could be Masters of Sport for life, meaning that they would receive pay long after their retirement.
Domestic competition
- Soviet Championship (rugby)
- Soviet Cup (rugby)Soviet Cup (rugby)The Soviet Cup was a rugby union club competition between the domestic teams of the Soviet Union era. The first competition was held in 1976, and continued on an annual basis until 1990.-Results:-See also:* Soviet Championship* Professional Rugby League...
National champions included teams from the sports clubs of the Moscow Higher Technical School (МВТУ), the Iu. A. Gagarin Air Force Academy (ВВА им. Ю. А. Гагарина; the future VVA-Podmoskovye Monino
VVA-Podmoskovye Monino
The VVA-Podmoskovje is a Russian rugby union team currently playing in the Professional Rugby League. The team plays at Gagarin Air Force Academy stadium in Monino, a garrison town just outside Moscow. VVA-Podmoskovye have strong links to the air force and also supply the bulk of Russia, with which...
), and Fili
Fili (Moscow)
Fili is a former suburban village, now a neighborhood in the western section of Moscow, Russia, notable for the events of September 1812, following the Battle of Borodino. The village was located between the Moskva River and Poklonnaya Hill, near the present-day Fili station of Moscow Metro and...
("Фили").
The two largest and most successful sports clubs were the Central House of the Red Army (the Central Sports Club of the Army, TSSK), and Динамо (Dinamo/Dynamo - the security services).
Between 1961 and 1974, the Soviet team took part in more than 100 international matches.
National team
The USSR side was strictly speaking a multinational side, consisting as it did of representatives of all the various nations within the USSR.They played their first game against a Polish team in 1960.
The FIRA Trophy 1974-1997
| Year | Winner | Second place | Third place |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1973/1974 | |||
| 1974/1975 | |||
| 1975/1976 | |||
| 1976/1977 | |||
| 1977/1978 | |||
| 1978/1979 |  |
||
| 1979/1980 | |||
| 1980/1981 | |
||
| 1981/1982 | |||
| 1982/1983 | |
||
| 1983/1984 | |||
| 1984/1985 | |
||
| 1985/1987 | |
||
| 1987/1989 | |
||
| 1989/1990 | |
There was also a women's team
Soviet Union women's national rugby union team
The Soviet Union women's national rugby union team played six matches between 1990 and 1991. The team suffered from severe underfunding, surviving the 1991 World Cup only by bartering and selling items of kit and other trinkets...
, but they only played several games.
http://www.fira-aer-rugby.com/forum2007/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3186&hilit=
http://www.rugby.by/
See also
- Armenia national rugby union teamArmenia national rugby union teamThe Armenian national rugby union team has recently begun playing in the European Nations Cup. The team is unexpectedly strong due to the large Armenian diaspora in France . So the team has drawn many players, coaches, and trainers from this experienced pool...
- Azerbaijan national rugby union teamAzerbaijan national rugby union teamThe Azerbaijan national rugby union team is the national rugby union team of Azerbaijan. They compete in division 3D of the European Nations Cup. Azerbaijan have yet to qualify for the Rugby World Cup.-External links:* * on rugbydata.com* on IRB.com...
- Belarus national rugby union team
- Estonia national rugby union teamEstonia national rugby union teamThe Estonia national rugby union team represents Estonia at a national level in international rugby union competitions. The team is governed by the Estonian Rugby Union, which oversees all rugby union in Estonia. They have yet to play a full international match...
- Georgia teams
- Georgia national rugby union teamGeorgia national rugby union teamThe Georgia national rugby union team represents Georgia in rugby union. The team's nickname, The Lelos, comes from lelo burti, a traditional Georgian sport with strong similarities to rugby. Lelo has been adopted as the Georgian word for "try"...
- Georgia national rugby union team (sevens)Georgia national rugby union team (sevens)The Georgia national rugby union sevens is a minor national sevens side.-2007 London Sevens:-2007 Edinburgh Sevens:-External links:*...
- Georgia national rugby union team
- Kazakhstan teams
- Kazakhstan national rugby union teamKazakhstan national rugby union teamThe Kazakhstan national rugby union team represents Kazakhstan at international level of rugby union. The team are nicknamed "The Nomads" and are controlled by the Kazakhstan Rugby Union....
- Kazakhstan women's national rugby union teamKazakhstan women's national rugby union teamThe Kazakhstan national rugby union team is nicknamed the Nomads. It is controlled by the Kazakhstan Rugby Union and represents Kazakhstan in the sport of Rugby Union.-Results summary:-Results:...
- Kazakhstan national rugby union team (sevens)Kazakhstan national rugby union team (sevens)The Kazakhstan national rugby union sevens is a minor national sevens side.-Singer Sri Lankan Airlines Rugby 7's:-Rugby at the 1998 Asian Games:Group A matches -December 7December 8 - 5th place match...
- Kazakhstan national rugby union team
- Kyrgyzstan teams
- Kyrgyzstan national rugby union teamKyrgyzstan national rugby union teamThe Kyrgyzstan national rugby union team represents Kyrgyzstan in international rugby union. Although the nation is a member of the International Rugby Board it has not played in a Rugby World Cup tournament.-External links:* on IRB.com...
- Kyrgyzstan women's national rugby union teamKyrgyzstan women's national rugby union teamThe Kyrgyzstan women's national rugby union team are a national sporting side of Kyrgyzstan, representing them at rugby union. The side first played in 2008.-Results summary:-Results:...
- Kyrgyzstan national rugby union team
- Latvia national rugby union teamLatvia national rugby union teamThe Latvia national rugby union team represent Latvia at the sport of rugby union. They are governed by Latvijas Regbija Federācija and have been playing international rugby since the early 1990s. Rugby has increased in popularity in Latvia recently due to a rise in form...
- Lithuania national rugby union teamLithuania national rugby union teamThe Lithuania national rugby union team represents Lithuania at rugby union. They are governed by the Lithuanian Rugby Federation , and have yet to qualify for the Rugby World Cup.-History:...
- Moldova teams
- Moldova national rugby union teamMoldova national rugby union teamThe Moldova national rugby union team represent Moldova at rugby union. They are governed by the Moldovan Rugby Federation , and have yet to qualify for the Rugby World Cup.-History:...
- Moldova national rugby union team (sevens)Moldova national rugby union team (sevens)The Moldova national rugby union sevens is a minor national sevens side....
- Moldova national rugby union team
- Russia teams
- Russia national rugby union teamRussia national rugby union teamThe Russian National Rugby Union Team, is the national team representing Russia at the sport of rugby union.Rugby union in Russia is administered by the Rugby Union of Russia . The RUR is the official successor union of the Soviet Union and the combined CIS team which played in the early 1990s...
- Russia women's national rugby union teamRussia women's national rugby union teamThe Russia women's national rugby union team are the national women's rugby union team of Russia. The side first played as "Russia" in 1994, but its predecessor, the Soviet Union women's national rugby union team played six matches between 1990 and 1991....
- Russia national rugby union team (sevens)Russia national rugby union team (sevens)The Russia national rugby union sevens team compete in the World Sevens Series, and Rugby World Cup Sevens.-Current Squad:12-man squad for 2010–11 IRB Sevens World Series :#Vladimir Ostroushko#Nikolay Goroshilov#Yury Gostyuzhev...
- Russia national rugby union team
- Tajikistan national rugby union team
- Turkmenistan national rugby union team
- Ukraine teams
- Ukraine national rugby union teamUkraine national rugby union teamThe Ukraine national rugby union team represents Ukraine at the sport of rugby union. Ukraine have been playing international rugby union since the early 1990s. So far they have not qualified for a Rugby World Cup. They participate in the European Nations Cup....
- Ukraine national rugby union team (sevens)Ukraine national rugby union team (sevens)The Ukraine national rugby union sevens is a minor national sevens side.-2008 Hannover Sevens:Group B matches --Ukraine:Head coach: Michel BishopSource:...
- Ukraine national rugby union team
- Uzbekistan teams
- Uzbekistan national rugby union teamUzbekistan national rugby union teamThe Uzbekistan national rugby union team represents Uzbekistan in international rugby union. Uzbekistan are a member of the International Rugby Board , and have yet to play in a Rugby World Cup tournament. The Rugby Federation in Uzbekistan was established in 2001.-External links:* on IRB.com...
- Uzbekistan women's national rugby union teamUzbekistan women's national rugby union teamThe Uzbekistan women's national rugby union team are a national sporting side of Uzbekistan, representing them at rugby union. The side first played in 2008.-Results summary:-Results:...
- Uzbekistan national rugby union team
- SV DynamoSV DynamoThe Sports Club Dynamo was the sport organization of the security agencies of former East Germany. The sports club was founded on 27 March 1953 and was headquartered in Hohenschönhausen in East Berlin...
, a multi-sports club of the German Democratic Republic.
Sources
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- ed. Brown, Archie; Kaser, Michael & Smith, Gerald S. (ed.s) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the former Soviet Union, (2nd Ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England 1994; ISBN 0 521 355931)
- Cotton, FranFran CottonFrancis Edward Cotton is a former English rugby union prop forward who played for England and the British Lions. His clubs included Coventry R.F.C. and Sale. After retiring, he remained in rugby administration and founded a clothing company...
(Ed.) The Book of Rugby Disasters & Bizarre Records. (Compiled by Chris Rhys, Century Publishing, LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, 1984). ISBN 0-7126-0911-3 - Everyman's Encyclopedia, Vol. 5 (6th Ed., JM Dent & Sons Ltd, London, Melbourne, Toronto, 1978; ISBN 0 460 04017 0)
- Hopkins, John (ed) Rugby (1979 ISBN 0 304 30299 6)
- Laidlaw, ChrisChris LaidlawChristopher Robert Laidlaw , Rhodes Scholar, All Black, diplomat, MP, talk radio host, author, is a 20th century New Zealand figure.-Academic and Rugby Union:...
From Twickers with Love: Rugby's Universal Message in Hopkins, John (ed) Rugby (1979 ISBN 0 304 30299 6)
- Laidlaw, Chris
- Louis, VictorVictor Louis (journalist)Victor Louis was a Soviet journalist who worked for Western media outlets in Moscow and had close work connections with the senior levels of the USSR KGB. He was used by the Soviet government as an informal channel of communication and for subtle disinformation operations in the Cold War...
& Jennifer Sport in the Soviet Union (Oxford Pergamon, 1980, ISBN 0080245064) - Lukashin, Yuri (ed) National Folk Sports in the USSR (Progress Publishing, Moscow 1980; translated by James Riordan)
- Lukashin, Yuri Folk Games (in National Folk Sports in the USSR)
- Луначарский, Анатолий Васильевич мысль о спорт (Mysli o Sporte)
- Richards, Huw A Game for Hooligans: The History of Rugby Union (Mainstream PublishingMainstream PublishingMainstream Publishing is a publishing company in Edinburgh, Scotland, founded in 1978. It is associated with the Random House Group, who bought Mainstream in 2005....
, EdinburghEdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, 2007, ISBN 9781845962555) - Riordan, James Sport in Soviet Society — development of sport and physical education in Russia and the USSR (Cambridge University PressCambridge University PressCambridge University Press is the publishing business of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by Henry VIII in 1534, it is the world's oldest publishing house, and the second largest university press in the world...
, CambridgeCambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, England, 1977) - Solomatin, E. I. "Lokomotiv" (Локомотив) in English translation of Great Soviet EncyclopediaGreat Soviet EncyclopediaThe Great Soviet Encyclopedia is one of the largest and most comprehensive encyclopedias in Russian and in the world, issued by the Soviet state from 1926 to 1990, and again since 2002 .-Editions:There were three editions...
(Progress Publishers, MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, 1978) - Sorokin, A.A. (А. А. Сорокин) "Rugby" (Регби) in English translation of Great Soviet EncyclopediaGreat Soviet EncyclopediaThe Great Soviet Encyclopedia is one of the largest and most comprehensive encyclopedias in Russian and in the world, issued by the Soviet state from 1926 to 1990, and again since 2002 .-Editions:There were three editions...
(Progress Publishers, MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
, 1978) - Starmer-Smith, NigelNigel Starmer-SmithNigel Starmer-Smith is a former international rugby union player, who is now a respected British rugby journalist and commentator.-Playing career:...
(ed) Rugby - A Way of Life, An Illustrated History of Rugby (Lennard Books, 1986 ISBN 0 7126 2662 X) - Thau, Chris Soviet Rugby in Starmer-Smith, Nigel & Robertson, Ian (eds) The Whitbread Rugby World '89 (Lennard Books, 1988 ISBN 1-85291-038)
- Thau, Chris Soviet Students in Starmer-Smith, Nigel & Robertson, Ian (eds) The Whitbread Rugby World '90 (Lennard Books, 1989 ISBN )
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