Rugby Union in The Soviet Union

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 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:

"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 (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):

• 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."