Year of Sport and Healthy Lifestyle in the CIS

By Vestnik Kavkaza

2012 has been the Year of Sport and Healthy Lifestyle in the CIS. Sport and physical culture are enduring human values, they are the foundation of our prosperity, both for each family and in the framework of the Commonwealth. The Council of CIS Heads of State at the informal summit of 8 May 2010 decided to declare 2012 the Year of Sport and Healthy Lifestyle in the CIS. Therefore, throughout the whole year active steps to develop and popularize the sport lifestyle have been taken in the Commonwealth. Two weeks before New Year prizes were awarded to Larisa Latynina, Nikolai Alekhin, Kurban Berdyev, Nikolai Makarov, Ludmila Shubina, Irina Viner-Usmanova, Anatoly Karpov, Boris Mikhailov, Alexander Gusev, and Alexander Yakushev.

“Culture, education, science, sport are fields that offer great potential and human contacts and strengthen bilateral relations,” Sergei Naryshkin, head of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, stated. “Public diplomacy in these areas between two states of the Commonwealth is in demand, because between us there are thousands and thousands of historic ties, thousands, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of common destinies and family ties. Therefore, public diplomacy in the CIS is expanding, and this is actively used by both the Council and the Foundation for Humanitarian Cooperation, which in recent years carried out a huge amount of projects, activities, involving nearly a quarter of a million people.

In the CIS in recent years, including in the past year, there are active development and integration processes in the economic, cultural and educational policies. And I am sure that such areas as science, culture and education are also our additional innovative capacity, which can be used - do not be surprised - in the economy. I proposed to the Council and to the Foundation for Humanitarian Cooperation to think and try to form special projects in these areas, which also could develop the dynamic integration in Eurasia. And in 2012, as it has already been said, in the CIS there was the Year of Sports and Healthy Lifestyle, and today we honour our outstanding and famous athletes – their victories, their achievements have glorified our former big country, the Soviet Union, and these victories and achievements today are benchmarks for all of us, and most importantly - for the young people of the Commonwealth, and for the youth of the world.”

“This year of sport does not mean that we had time to do everything. Perhaps this is only the first step,” Irina Rodnina, 3-time Olympic champion, 10-time World Champion, deputy of the State Duma, said. “This year will give us even more impetus to not only remember what we reached and be proud of the fact that we already have our champions in each country, but contribute to our future. Not surprisingly, "Oh Sport, You Are the World!" is the most famous ode to  the Olympics, and it will be a hymn, probably, for all the sporting events of our time. We are very pleased that we are holding competitions among the smallest children, adults, and athletes in major international and professional competitions. But the fact that we are starting to revive what was once a single entity in one country is now extended to many countries.”

“When I was a kid, we knew all the Olympic champions, our favourite football and hockey players by their names,” Mikhail Shvydkoi, Minister of Culture (2000-2004), art director of the Musical Theatre in Moscow, remembered. “We knew all the athletes. They were our idols, our heroes, people whose example we followed. I think what is happening today is an opportunity to thank them for what they have done for us, for the fact that we have become a bit better when looking at them, trying to imitate them. The day is important for the establishment and preservation of humanitarian space in the CIS.”