August there is a cluster of three Spas holidays that celebrate honey and the sowing of the apple and nut crops, respectively.
Russia also has several official holidays, including the Russian Orthodox Christmas (January 7), Victory Day in the Second World War (May 9), Independence Day (June 12), and Constitution Day (December 12). Women's Day (March 8), formerly known as International Women's Day and celebrated elsewhere in the world by its original name, was established by the Soviet authorities to highlight the advances women made under communist rule. During the holiday women usually receive gifts such as flowers and chocolates.
Sport
Sport played a major role in the Soviet state in the post-the Second World War period. The achievements of Soviet athletes in the international arena, particularly in the Olympic Games (the Soviets first participated in the 1952 Summer and the 1956 Winter Olympics), were a source of great national pride. Although Soviet athletes were declared amateurs, they were well supported by the State Committee for Sport. Soviet national teams were especially successful in ice hockey - winning numerous world championships and Olympic gold medals - volleyball, and, later, basketball. Soviet gymnasts and track-and-field athletes (male and female), weight lifters, wrestlers, and boxers were consistently among the best in the world. Even since the collapse of the Soviet empire, Russian athletes have continued to dominate international competition in these areas.
As in most of the world, football (soccer) enjoys wide popularity in Russia. At the centre of the country's proud tradition is
LEV YASHIN (i929-90) Russian footballer
Lev Yashin was considered by many to be the greatest goalkeeper in the history of soccer. He played his first football game for Moscow Dynamo in 1953 and remained with the club until his retirement in 1971. During that time Dynamo won five league titles and three cups. He also enjoyed considerable success with the Soviet national team, helping the team win the gold medal at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, and claim the first-ever European Championship in I960. At the World Cup Yashin was the keeper for Soviet runs to the quarterfinals in 1958 and 1962, as well as for the team's fourth-place finish in 1966,
Throughout his career Yashin collected nicknames such as "black panther", "black spider", and "black octopus" because of his black uniform and his innovative style of play. He was one of the first keepers to dominate the entire penalty area, and on the goal line he was capable of acrobatic saves. In his career he recorded 207 shutouts and 150 penalty saves. In 1963 he was named European Footballer of the Year, the only time a keeper has won the award.
legendary goalkeeper Lev Yashin, whose spectacular play in the 1956 Olympics helped Russia capture the gold medal. Today there are three professional divisions for men, and the sport is also growing in popularity among women.
Ice hockey was introduced to Russia only during the Soviet era, yet the national team soon dominated international competitions. The Soviet squad claimed more than twenty
world championships between 1954 and 1991. The success of the national team can be attributed to both the Soviet player-development system and the leadership of coach Ana- toly Tarasov, who created the innovative team passing style characteristic of Soviet hockey. Goalkeeper Vladislav Tretyak (the first Soviet player inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto) and defender Vyacheslav Fetisov - who was among the first players allowed by the Soviet authorities to play in the North American National Hockey League (NHL) - were two of the finest players in those great Soviet teams. Although Russia's top professional league is quite popular, many of the best Russian players now ply their trade in the NHL.
The first Russian world chess champion was Alexander Alekhine, who left Russia after the 1917 Revolution. Undaunted by Alekhine's departure, the Soviet Union was able to produce top-ranked players by funding chess schools to find and train talented children. The best of these students were then supported by the state - they were the first chess professionals - at a time when no one in the West could make a living wage from chess alone. From 1948 Soviet and Russian grand masters, including Mikhail Botvjnnik, Vasily Smyslov, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, and Vladimir Kramnik, held the title of world champion almost continuously. During the same period, three Russian women reigned as women's world champion: Lyudmila Rudenko, Olga Rubt- sova, and Elizaveta Bykova.
On the amateur level, the lack of facilities and equipment has prevented many average Russian citizens from participating in sporting activities, but jogging, football, and fishing are popular pastimes, and no doubt the sporting scene will change as the twenty-first century progresses.
GARRY KASPAROV (b. 1963)
Russian chess master and politician
Kasparov was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, and began playing chess at the age of six. He became an international grandmaster following his victory in the 1980 World Junior (under 20) Championship. In 1984-5 Kasparov met world champion Anatoly Karpov in a match that was aborted after five months of play; in late 1985 Kasparov won a 24-game return match 13-1 I. The International Chess Federation (FIDE) stripped him of his title in 1993 in a conflict over the venue for a championship match, but the rest of the chess world still accepted him as champion. In 1996 Kasparov defeated IBM's custom-built chess computer Deep Blue in a match that attracted worldwide attention. In a 1997 rematch an upgraded Deep Blue prevailed. In 2000 Kasparov lost a 16-game championship match to Vladimir Kramnik of Russia.
Kasparov retired from competitive chess in 2005, though not from involvement in chess. In particular, he produced an acclaimed series of books, Kasparov on My Great Predecessors (2003-6), covering many of the game's great players. He also kept in the public eye with his decision in 2005 to start a political organization, the United Civil Front, to oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2006 Kasparov was one of the prime movers behind a broad coalition of political parties that formed the Other Russia, a group held together by only one goaclass="underline" ousting Putin from power. In 2007, following several protest marches organized by the coalition in
which Kasparov and other participants were arrested, the Other Russia chose Kasparov as its candidate for the 2008 presidential election but was unable to nominate him by the deadline.
Religion
The rebirth of religion is another dimension of the change in lifestyles of the new Russia. Religious institutions have filled the vacuum created by the downfall of communist ideology, and religious festivities are now once again a regular feature of popular culture. Moreover, for believers and non-believers alike, the Russian Orthodox Church - for nearly a thousand years the country's dominant religious institution - has been a major influence throughout the country's history, not only in relation to religious belief and practice, but in creating and maintaining cultural and national identity. Today Russian Orthodoxy is still the country's largest religious denomination, constituting about half of all total congregations, and is also the largest independent Eastern Orthodox Church in the world; its membership is estimated at more than 85 million people. Yet despite the revival of religious practices since the late 1980s, the non-religious still constitute an overwhelming majority of the population.