Skip to main content

The Russian Heart: Days of Crisis and Hope

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

UPDATE 23/9 - Russian WAG team for Nanning confirmed

By
Daria Spiridonova will compete at her first World Championships this autumn.  Picture : RGF Natalia Kalugina has confirmed the Russian team for Nanning : Aliya Mustafina, Maria Kharenkova, Tatiana Nabieva,Ekaterina Kramarenko, Alla Sosnitskaya, Daria Spiridonova.  Reserve : Polina Fyodorova Here is a paraphrased translation of a comment by Natalia Kalugina on her Facebook page : 'Aliya has confidence in competition and she is, kind of, a coach to this team.  In Europe she succeeded in this role and she has told the coaches that she even liked it. The main fighting force will be Kharenkova, Sosnitskaya and Spiridonova.  Accordingly, the strongest apparatus will be beam (Marina Bulashenko With God!).  The Chinese women, of course, have been known to win that apparatus, but if one falls, they all fall.   Alla Sosnitskaya could compete in the vault final, and - in theory - on the floor. On bars, of course, Russia will probably lose to the Chinese women, but the...
57 comments
Read more

Angelina Melnikova and Arseny Dukhno - Results from Serie A competitions in Italy

By
  Russia's neutral gymnasts have been performing very well in competition recently, not least at the Cottbus Cup last week where a fairly inexperienced group of young women took medals on every piece - and their men did well, too. The team is still in the position where its veterans, or at least its established performers, are the leaders.  For the women, this means that Melnikova is assumed to be the top, while for the men, Marinov is the one whose name is most likely to be spoken.  But he is still recovering from multiple injuries and not expecting to be ready for competition until later in the year.  In fact the leadership of the men's team has skipped a couple of generations: first year senior, Arseny Dukhno, is taking the lead for the team. So while the youngsters head off to the World Cup competitions to make a name for themselves there, the leaders are competing in the Serie A league in Italy - and they aren't doing too shabbily there.  Both Melnikova and...
Post a Comment
Read more

The sad demise of artistic gymnastics

By
This picture, of 1985 Soviet World Championships team member Irina Baraksanova, is a symbol of what is now lost to gymnastics as a whole, and Russia in particular.  Black and white, the picture was taken at another time when imagery came at a premium, technology was simple and memory and emotion played an important part in documenting sports history.  A similar picture taken today might be more colourful and have a sharper focus, but lack the nostalgic significance, the scope to challenge the imagination.  For all its lack of precision and technical sophistication, this box brownie snap captures the feeling of a unique moment.  Baraksanova, in common with many of her team mates, used floor exercise to tell an enigmatic and gentle story built on line, air and just a little bit of acrobatic magic.  The position of the head, the asymmetry of the position, the downcast eyes, all speak to me.  She combined grace and power, innovation and tradition to make the ...
32 comments
Read more

RRG Archive - scroll by date, from 2024 to 2010

Show more