Spartakiad

Sporting games held every four years in the former Soviet Union, until 1979 for nationals only. They were named after the ancient Greek city of Sparta, which placed great emphasis on physical fitness.

Spartakiad initially was the name of an international sports event that the Soviet Union attempted to oppose the Olympics.

Eventually the Soviet Union decided to join the Olympic movement, and international Spartakiads ceased. However the term persisted for internal sports events in the Soviet Union of different levels, from local up to the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR (Спартакиада народов СССР). The latter event was held twice in four years: Winter Spartakiad and Summer Spartakiad, with international participation. The number of participants, for example, in the 6th Summer Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, was 90 million people (twice the number of athletes in the USSR in that time), including 8,300 Masters of Sports of the USSR. And in the 3rd Winter Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR took part 20 million people, including some 1,000 Masters of Sports of the USSR. An importance of Winter and Summer Spartakiads of the Peoples of the USSR may also be seen from the fact, that each of them was commemorated on a series of postage stamps, released in millions of copies (an example of such a stamp is pictured). Still another Soviet sports event with this name, Spartakiad of Trade Unions (Спартакиада профсоюзов), survived in a number of post Soviet republics, such as Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.