page_title: Rugby union in the Soviet Union
section_title: Break up of Soviet Union
hierarchical_section_title: Rugby union in the Soviet Union / History / Break up of Soviet Union
caption_attribution_description: Georgia versus Russia in rugby union
context_page_description: 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. 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. Russians made up only about half of the Soviet population, the other half, nearly a hundred million Soviet citizens, were not Russians.
context_section_description: The collapse of the Soviet Union was a severe blow to rugby in the region, which resulted in the removal of state subsidies, and forced many of the smaller clubs to dissolve or start afresh. In the case of Russia, the two main centres, Moscow and Siberia were thousands of miles apart. Georgia was one of the few places with a large number of clubs remaining, partly because it had become popular there, and its league was based in a relatively compact area.
  While the USSR's dissolution was ongoing, in 1990 the Soviet rugby team visited Ireland and the United States for the first time. In this period, the Soviet Union women's national rugby union team played for the first time, and enjoyed a brief existence.
  The Soviet Union did not take part in the qualification rounds for the 1991 Rugby World Cup - European qualification. The 1991 Rugby World Cup coincided with the final stages of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The RWC itself took place in October and November 1991, around two months after the unsuccessful coup d'état attempt against Gorbachev, which is often seen as being the end of the Soviet Union. In November 1991, Boris Yeltsin issued a decree banning the CPSU throughout the Russian republic.
  As a stopgap measure, the former USSR competed under the Commonwealth of Independent States banner, this arrangement terminating in 1992. The side played four matches before its dissolution.
  The most successful "successor" rugby team has been that of Georgia, which competed in the 2003 Rugby World Cup, the 2007 Rugby World Cup, and the 2011 Rugby World Cup. In 2007, they nearly upset Ireland, missing out on a potential winning try late in the match, and defeated Namibia 30-0. In 2011, they had a respectable performance against Scotland, losing 15–6, defeated Romania 25–9. No other ex-Soviet nation other than Georgia and Russia has ever qualified for the Rugby World Cup.
  Russia remains to date the next most successful team after Georgia, participating in the 2011 Rugby World Cup; however, the rest of the former USSR has not fared so well. A notable exception was the Latvian rugby union sevens team which succeeded in reaching the Rugby World Cup Sevens in 1993. This surprised the international rugby community, as at the time there were only two rugby pitches in the entire country. There are some other notable exceptions, e.g. the Ukraine who were able to call on the services of Igor Bokov the former Soviet coach.
  The era also brought a new challenge in the form of rugby league. Although rugby league in England had traditionally played on its working class credentials, in the Soviet Union it had been seen as a bourgeois pursuit, due to its links with business through professionalism. When the Soviet Union collapsed, rugby league tried to buy out Russian rugby union. A notable defector was RC Lokomotiv, the former train workers club in Moscow.
  In the mid-1990s, Russia had 222 clubs, and 6,000 players spread out across the entire country [rather speculative and untrue figure]; Georgia had 40 clubs; the Ukraine had 20 clubs and 750 players; Latvia had only 8 clubs; and Lithuania had 14 clubs;
caption: The two strongest post-Soviet teams: Georgia playing Russia.
exif: {}