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 Alma-Ata, the capital of the 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.Louis, p39 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 often used as a synonym for the USSR, this did not give a true reflection in rugby terms: there were regularly six or seven Georgians in the USSR side.Bath, p67 Russians made up only about half of the Soviet population, the other half, nearly a hundred million Soviet citizens, were not Russians.Cambridge, p.493
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:
"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."Lane, David Politics and Society in the USSR (2nd ed. 1978), 311
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.Cambridge, p495 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.Solomatin in Great Soviet Encyclopedia (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):
Буреве́стник- Burevestnik - Students., e.g. Burevestnik Moscow Локомотив - Lokomotiv - Railway workers., e.g. Lokomotiv Tbilisi Спартак - Spartak - "White Collar" workers. Водник - Vodnik - River transport. Зенит - Zenit - the arms industry.
As well as the trade unions, there were two non-T.U. prefixes: Динамо - Dinamo/Dynamo - The MVD (Ministry of Internal Affairs - The Soviet Militia & the KGB, along with its predecessor organisations). e.g. Dynamo Penza, Dinamo Tbilisi, RC Dinamo-Center Трудовые резервы - Trudovye Rezervy/Labour reserves - Students at technical colleges. e.g. Trud Krasnoyarsk
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."Thau, Soviet Rugby, p46
Climate
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.Cain, Nick & Growden, Greg "Chapter 21: Ten Peculiar Facts about Rugby" in Rugby Union for Dummies (2nd Edition), p295 (pub: John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, England) 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.Bath, pp 70, 71 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 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."Speak, Michael Arthur & Ambler, V.H. Physical Education, Recreation and Sport in the USSR (1976, Centre for Physical Education, University of Leicester, England)
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.Cambridge, p494
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 (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 schools (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.Cambridge, p497 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.Sorokin, pxi 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.Everyman's, p221 This was followed, just over a decade later by membership of the International Rugby Football Board.
History
In the first half of the 20th 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.
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 burti (Georgia), shvalyga (Russia and Ukraine), and kila. (Russia and Ukraine), aimtskachara (Abkhazia), and various forms of buzkashi also existed in Soviet Central Asia.
"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."Lukashin, p24
Introduction of rugby Rugby football 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.Riordan (1977), p22 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.Sorokin, px
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.
Early history Amongst Bolsheviks, there were two main schools of thought when it came to sports planning and debate - the Proletkul'tists and the Hygienists: