Not only karate: what sports were banned in the Soviet Union

The USSR is mostly perceived as a country of restrictions and prohibitions. And some of these prohibitions look absurd today.

For example, Soviet citizens were not allowed to engage in certain sports. Such restrictions were most often imposed during the Brezhnev era. People caught training could even be arrested. This sounds paradoxical because the authorities tried to present the population of the Union as an extremely athletic nation. Maxim Mirovich, a blogger and researcher of Soviet-era life, explains which sports were banned in the USSR.

Karate

This and other martial arts were officially banned in the 1970s and 1980s. At the same time, boxing and various types of wrestling were freely developed in the Soviet Union. Karate was subject to official state restrictions first in 1973, and then, after a short period of "thaw," from 1981 until the collapse of the USSR.

Officially, the reason for the ban was that karate, as a new and interesting sport, allegedly attracted athletes from football, volleyball, hockey, judo, and boxing. However, researchers believe that such an event was one of the steps to combat street gangs typical of the late Soviet Union. The old "leaders" were afraid of the unknown martial art and simply did not allow anyone to practice it just in case.

Bodybuilding

The popularity of bodybuilding in the West began to grow in the 1960s. It was then that Arnold Schwarzenegger began his rise to fame. Gradually, the sport turned into a whole philosophy with a special approach to nutrition, bad habits, and other areas of life.

In the USSR, bodybuilding, like karate, terrified the party elites. That's why it was completely banned in 1973. Even the word itself was not used, replacing it with euphemisms such as "athletic gymnastics". However, despite the ban, underground gyms with homemade equipment flourished in the Soviet Union.

Yoga

Unlike the first two sports, yoga fosters inner peace and balance in people. However, it was still feared in the Soviet Union. Probably because it's not just a form of physical activity, but a full-fledged lifestyle and even a philosophical and religious system. And everyone can choose the level of immersion for themselves. Unprecedented freedom of thought for a Soviet person!

Therefore, many strange rumors were spread about yoga. For example, in 1970, the Kyivnaukfilm studio showed Soviet audiences a film about yogis with the mystical title 'Indian Yogis. Who Are They?'. The film told people that yogis could eat fire, sleep on broken glass, and bear enormous weight. Such miracles not only did not scare people away from yoga, but even increased their interest in it. That's why in the eighties, the first yoga groups started to appear, where yoga was reduced to physical exercises only.

Billiards

You probably didn't know it, but billiards was also under an official ban in the USSR. And it was banned several times. The first ban was imposed in the 1920s, condemning it as "a pastime of the rich and a relic of the past." About 10 years later, the game was allowed again and even championships began to be held. But in 1947, billiards was again declared a bourgeois relic and equated with gambling. It was only in 1989 that it was completely freed from any restrictions.

Breakdance

Breakdance can be classified as a sport dance. In 2024, it was even included in the Summer Olympics program. After breakdancing appeared in the late eighties, the party leadership tried to prevent it from entering the USSR. The press published slanderous articles against it, especially in various youth publications. However, in the second half of the eighties, breakdancing began to penetrate mass culture. The dance can be seen in such Soviet films as Dancing on the Roof (1985), Courier (1986), Higher Than Rainbow (1986), and Dear Yelena Sergeyevna (1988). And the manner of dressing in comfortable wide banana pants with turn-ups, as well as stylish dark glasses and Velcro sneakers - typical break dancer's clothes - became a part of youth fashion.

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