Skip to main content

The Russian Heart: Days of Crisis and Hope

Image
By
I came across this 1992 book about a year ago, thanks to a link on Facebook; I can't remember whose.  I was lucky enough to be able to buy a copy on Amazon (it is now long out of print).  In the middle of sorting out my sports books, I remembered that I wanted to share this treasure with you.

A spread from the lavish hardback book : Yulia Kut, Tatiana Toropova and Svetlana Boguinskaia at Lake Krugloye, prior to the Barcelona Olympics.

The author and photographer, David Turnley, made a journey through Russia shortly after the break up of the Soviet Union, and this photo journal documents his experience.  It is a story of a society in transition, an art book and not a sports book, but it is still one of the best books in my collection.

David speaks of the gymnasts' daily lives, and talks to Soviet team captain, 1989 World Champion, Svetlana Boguinskaia.

He comments that the training is professional, but the facilities 'rudimentary', the living conditions 'sparse'.  The food is basic by Western standards.

An American girls' team was training there during his visit; a money-making enterprise for the cash strapped Soviet State Sports Committee.  'What the Soviet team is doing in the first hour of training is what we try to work up to by the end of the day' comments one American coach (how things have changed).

David explains that the idea of the Soviet sports star as privileged was misplaced: Boguinskaia was earning 250 Roubles a month - the equivalent of less than $10 at that time.  After winning multiple Olympic medals she had qualified to buy a 20 square meter apartment and a Volga car, without having to endure the years-long wait most ordinary Soviets would experience.

Even so, Svetlana emphasises, the conveniences accorded by her top sporting status -  while meagre by international standards - were significant enough to encourage her continued commitment to sport. 'I realized this concretely two years ago when I dropped out of gymnastics, and went back to Minsk to live.  One day I was standing in line waiting to buy chocolate, and the line was so long I was going to have to wait all day.  I realized what the life of normal Soviet citizens is like.  I came back to Moscow to resume gymnastics.'



Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous4 August 2014 at 02:00

    That's definitely Roza Galieva on the left.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maria Filatova: Russian Sparrow Made in the USSR

By
Maria Filatova – the first ever picture taken of her doing gymnastics! By kind permission of Maria Filatova Kourbatova My first memory of Maria Filatova is a little girl with huge, white ribbons in her hair, so tiny she seemed to have to stand on tiptoe to be able to see over the balance beam.  At 4’ 6” tall, she was the smallest competitor at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, yet she was already part of the Soviet senior team, competing alongside such established stars as Ludmilla Tourischeva, Nelli Kim, Elvira Saadi and Olga Korbut.  The ‘Siberian Sparrow’, trained in Leninsk-Kuznetsk by Innokenty Mametyev since a very early age, celebrated her 15 th birthday on the 19 th July 1976, the day of the team final.  That night, she slept with her first – not her last - Olympic gold medal beneath her pillow. For all her cuteness, Maria Filatova was a fearsome gymnast and competitor.  If the crowd were awed by the pyrotechnics of Romanian technician Nadia Comaneci, they we...
5 comments
Read more

‘My daughter likes gymnastics. For us, this is the big success’. Aliya Mustafina talks to Match TV

By
Via VK.com.  Google translate A big interview with Aliya Mustafina was published on MATCH!. We provide a small excerpt below, and the full version is available on the website at the link below  ❓ Aliya, you are now the head coach of the junior artistic gymnastics team. What does your typical day look like? 💜 My current life is similar to what it was when I was competing. In the morning, I have breakfast and go to work by 9:00, we train for four hours, have lunch, rest and train for another three hours. During the training camp, the athletes live at the base. They live and train on the same territory. ❓ Do you manage the gymnasts' personal trainers or do you evenly distribute the responsibilities? 💜 We work in contact with the personal trainers, I listen to their opinions. For example, if the trainer believes that their athlete needs to be given a little rest or do fewer repetitions of a particular exercise, we do so. ❓ Describe the current generation of children. Do they nee...
3 comments
Read more

Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics

By
Svetlana Boginskaya, 15 years old, with her medals from the Seoul Olympics Nico translates the latest interview with gymnastics legend Svetlana Boginskaya, during a recent visit to her home country of Belarus. Svetlana Boginskaya: I was always a bitch* in gymnastics, so now I ask for forgiveness from everyone who came in contact with me. The National Olympic Committee of Belarus held a press conference with three-time Olympic Champion in artistic gymnastics, Svetlana Boginskaya. The meeting was devoted to the 25th anniversary of the Olympic Games in Seoul. In South Korea the Belarussian won two gold medals in the team competition and vault. As a gift to the Olympic Hall of fame, the famous gymnast, now living in the United States, donated one of her trophies that she won at the 1990 European Championships and a pennant for Best Female Athlete of the USSR in 1989. How happy we were when we could share with such stars as Boginskaya, Scherbo, and Ivankov,...
14 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more