This is the first of a long series of pieces about Russia in general, that I'll be trying to improve and complete over the coming year. Please bear with me and leave me comments; I will need feedback and encouragement! I want to try to put gymnastics in Russia into context with its past, and especially with everything that has happened in the past ten years. It seems to me that things are changing fast.
Russia - some basic facts
Russia is the largest landmass of any single country in the world, spanning from Europe to the Far East, from way up north towards the Arctic and the Barents Sea, down to the border with Georgia in the south. The country shares land borders with seventeen other nations from Norway to Japan, China and Korea; it shares maritime borders with countries including the USA and Alaska. Maps below.
Russia's declining population is a matter of major concern to the Government. Despite the size of the country, its population is only ninth in the world, with a fertility rate of 1.37 children per woman. The only other top nation in the world with a declining population is Japan. Figures vary by source; Russia has lost many of its citizens in its war with Ukraine, and many people have migrated away from Russia for reasons to do with the economy, or to avoid conscription. It's likely that the number of people who have fled Russia in the last four years is far greater than we know. The Russian state doesn't like to talk about its countries' casualties in the war with Ukraine.
Russia's population is very diverse - see the table below. Over 80% of the population have Russian as their first language, but it's likely that many will have a second language that they speak at home. The vast size of the country, and its history as the Soviet Union makes the country very rich in ethnic cultures. I'll be talking about the different geographical influences and heritage later on in this series. For example, the country of Armenia still has a very strong presence in gymnastics despite its country's relative lack of investment in sport; this is a legacy of its time as part of the Soviet Union. Gymnastics is part of the legacy of the Soviet Union, and the various countries still competing today - for example Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia, are a continuing legacy of the Soviet Union's investment, cultural, social and financial into gymnastics.
Russia has almost always been a very poor country, with a very rich ruling class, including at one time a royal family, and a very poor working class (sometimes called serfs) with few people in between. Today, President Vladimir Putin is the country's autocratic leader, and he has a whole big family of oligarchs around him. These oligarchs own banks, oil fields, and all sorts of wealth and infrastructure that came from the selling off of the Soviet state engines. Since 1991 sport has emerged as an important part of the Russian economy, alongside tourism and culture; Putin enjoys the relative strength of Russia in sport and has invested considerable sums into the development of sporting, events and hospitality infrastructure in his country. While some private gymnasiums exist in Russia, these are mostly fitness gyms and spas; the state still supports Olympic sports. Gymnastics exists in Russia mainly as a competitive, elite sport based on participant selection rather than recreation. Corporate sponsorship exists, and there are all sorts of entertainment based activities to make money for individual gymnasts and the local regions, but essentially gymnastics still has roughly the same structure as it had during Soviet years.
While gymnasts at the top of the sport in Russia may earn quite well or even be fairly wealthy, none of them begin their lives in rich families. However, once they reach a certain level of training and competition, they do receive payment from their local and eventually the Federal Government, which can help their families to pay for their cost of living (and this help may really be needed). This can give Russian gymnasts a different perspective on their involvement in sport to those from countries where sport has to be paid for by parents or sponsors.
Russians fear the disorder and violence that took over their country in the 1990s, directly after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, when the leadership was very weak. Putin is a strong leader, and that's why Russians tolerate and even like him as their President. It's likely that most people believe that there is some merit in the war with Ukraine, even if they are now thoroughly fed up with the horror of war. Russia and the Soviet Union has a long history of war, of combat and suffering going back many years, and there are state supported events every year to venerate the World War II (the 'Great War') veterans. Children are encouraged to attend and are expected to treat the veterans with great respect and kindness.
Russians generally accept the direction that their leaders set for them and there is relatively little protest or determination to change things. Russia, as we have seen, is a very big country with an incredibly diverse population. There is little subtlety involved in the process of engaging individual people in law and order; there aren't the same freedoms as we enjoy in the west, but we should avoid thinking that we possess universal truth, or that our freedom is somehow 'superior' to others. It's as difficult for us to understand Russia as it is for Russia to understand us.
From the beginning of the 20th century until the end of 1990, Russia was the largest nation of the Soviet Union, which included 15 other countries. When the Soviet Union broke up, and all 16 countries of the Soviet Union became individual states, citizens' nationality was decided on the basis of where they were at the time of the changeover. So if you were an Armenian executive visiting Moscow at the time of the break up, you would receive a Russian passport. It was the easiest way to do the enormous job of assigning identity controls to the people of the former Soviet Union. In the main, the arrangements around nationality are flexible though, so if you are, for example, an ethnic Azerbaijani you can live in Moscow and in Baku, and visit your families as often as you wish.
The establishment of gymnastics in Russia
So now, onto gymnastics. The break up of the Soviet Union was very sudden, and the individual republics hadn't qualified to compete at the 1992 Olympics. So a decision was taken to allow the countries of the former Soviet Union to compete as the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) - with the exception of Latvia (which unfortunately ruled Laschenova and Sazonenkova out of contention for gymnastics). So 1992 was the Soviet Union's last Olympic participation. The teams had (WAG) Alexander Alexandrov and (MAG) Leonid Arkayev as their head coaches, both from Russia. There were other coaches from around the Soviet Union, including Ukraine's Oleg Ostapenko, and the gymnasts came from Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. The gymnasts would also have with them their individual personal coaches. They were very close, like family, and showed a lot of emotion at the changes.
When people speak of the Soviet Union today, they often refer to the 'Cold War'. This expression implies a lack of friendship between people from their country, and ours. Yet gymnastics - most sports - has, in my opinion, always been a collective forum where everyone comes together in friendship. I attended many international competitions, including World Championships, during the 1980s and 1990s, and gymnasts and spectators from all countries always mixed quite comfortably. Gymnastics in the Soviet Union and Russia may have been founded by its country's leaders as a way of demonstrating the superiority of the state, but in reality, everyone just wanted to get on with each other. Politics is a poor bedfellow for sport, and sport is a great diplomatic tool. We come closer to other nations by meeting and talking to their people; sport is very democratic and encourages people to come together face to face rather than simply relying on governments to set the agenda.
The future of sports in Russia was undecided at the time of the break up. For fear of losing their livelihoods, many coaches moved overseas to work; their skills and knowledge were very attractive to countries like the USA, UK and Canada, who wanted to improve their national performance at gymnastics. However, for all those who went abroad, many more remained in Russia and continued with their jobs for the sake of enjoying their work. Their gymnasts continued to train. Many of the coaches left behind in Russia were women; this enabled the talent of women coaches to emerge and take centre stage in Russia.
Life in Russia was very difficult during the 1990s; there was a great deal of crime and corruption. The famous ice hockey player, Slava Fetisov, once said that the reason he left Russia was that the cost of security was too high. I spoke with Vladimir Zaglada about this; he moved to the UK in the late 1990s, and said that people moved to a new country in order to have a better life and be able to give their children what they needed.
Russia's climate is in general Continental - ie long, cold winters, short hot summers. This is ideal for indoor sports - so provides a good rationale for the construction of gymnasia, and investing in the population to stay healthy via indoor activity.
In 1999 Vladimir Putin took over as President of Russia, and he has continued either as President or as Prime Minister ever since. Putin's appointment was initially considered to be a positive thing by the Western nations; he seemed reasonably professional, and welcomed world leaders to Moscow for talks. He visited overseas nations, and let his face be seen. Everyone felt that we occupied a much safer world, outside what were perceived as the constraints and quiet threats of the Soviet Union.
President Putin has always maintained that Russia was a better country when it was part of the Soviet Union; in fact there are many citizens who feel the same way. Even if now they have the glamourous Western shops to peruse, and can visit overseas countries easily, during the Soviet era at least they had their jobs, their apartments were warm, and society was reasonably safe.
Russia still competes its national championships in teams formed by the Federal District areas; see at the bottom of this page the maps that show the extent of Russia, and its breakdown into Federal Districts. You will hear these names next week as the country competes in the Russia Cup. There are 19 regions competing in MAG, and 20 in WAG.
Table 1: Major Ethnic Groups of the Russian Federation
Ethnic Group | Primary Region(s) | Language | Language Family | Approx. Population Share (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Russians | European Russia, Siberia | Russian | Indo‐European (Slavic) | ~80.9 |
Tatars | Volga region (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan) | Tatar | Turkic | ~3.9 |
Ukrainians | Southwest, major cities | Ukrainian | Indo‐European (Slavic) | ~1.4 |
Bashkirs | Bashkortostan, Ural region | Bashkir | Turkic | ~1.2 |
Chuvash | Chuvash Republic | Chuvash | Turkic | ~1.0 |
Chechens | North Caucasus (Chechnya) | Chechen | Nakh‐Daghestanian | ~1.0 |
Avars | Dagestan | Avar | Nakh‐Daghestanian | ~0.6 |
Mordvins (Erzya, Moksha) | Mordovia, Volga region | Erzya, Moksha | Finno‐Ugric | ~0.5 |
Yakuts (Sakha) | Sakha Republic (Yakutia) | Yakut (Sakha) | Turkic | ~0.5 |
Buryats | Buryatia, Siberia | Buryat | Mongolic | ~0.3 |
Komi | Komi Republic | Komi | Finno‐Ugric | ~0.3 |
Dagestani peoples (Lezgins, Dargins, Kumyks, etc.) | Dagestan | Various | Nakh‐Daghestanian / Turkic | ~3.0 combined |
Other groups (Armenians, Germans, Jews, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, etc.) | Urban centres, border regions | Various | Mixed | ~4.0 combined |
Figure 1. Ethnic composition of the Russian Federation, showing major groups, their regional concentrations, linguistic affiliations, and approximate population shares based on the 2021 census and ethnographic sources. Table compiled by the author.
Outline map of Russia showing the main cities and the Federal Districts. Maps generated using Microsoft Copilot, 2026
Russia and its bordering countries (generated with Microsoft Copilot, 2026)
Maps generated using Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft, 2026)
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