dacha
The word "dacha" in Russian generally refers to a modest summer cottage in the countryside. Most Russian city dwellers dream of having a small plot of land outside the city where they can get away on summer weekends. In the Soviet system, trade unions were allotted plots of land to distribute to their workers. Today, many people no longer use their dachas for rest and relaxation: they haven't been paid in months by their bankrupt employers, and the food they grow in the summer, and can for the winter, may mean the difference between survival and starvation. Soviet cosmonauts and star athletes were often awarded a particularly nice dacha with all the amenities as a token of appreciation. When one speaks of Brezhnev's or Khrushchev's "dacha", however, this refers to a huge barricaded resort compound with numerous large buildings and a full-time staff to cater to the leaders' every need. Because dachas were given out by the unions, many dacha communities developed their own special character, for example the legendary Writers' Union dachas at Peredelkino, outside Moscow, where almost every great writer and poet of the Soviet period spent his summers in the company of equally illustrious colleagues.

Dynamo
The oldest sports organization in Russia, founded in 1923 at the initiative of Cheka founder Felix Dzerzhinsky as a training gym for secret policemen. It is still associated with law enforcement organizations, and, like Spartak and other similar large sports clubs, runs thousands of gyms, pools, and other facilities all over the country for both recreational and serious athletes. A number of cities have Dynamo soccer and hockey teams, which were strictly "amateur" during the Soviet period--their players were norminally ordinary policemen, even though they trained full-time and had no other duties.

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Komsomol
The All-Union Leninist Communist Union of Youth, or Komsomol for short, was founded in 1918 and forms the third tier in the Little Octoberists/Pioneers/Komsomol/Party hierarchy. An organization for "progressive Soviet youth aged 14 to 28", it was considered to be a proving ground for developing the leadership potential necessary to become a full Party member. Originally, the Komsomol was an elite group of young activists ready to go anywhere and do anything the Party required. Komsomol members enthusiastically participated in all of the great construction projects of the industrialization drive in the 1930s (often working alongside political prisoners and living in similarly primitive conditions). By the 1970s, however, its own youthful enthusiasm had died down and the Komsomol had become mostly just a necessary stepping stone to a career--almost everyone belonged to it, and anyone who didn't was viewed with suspicion. Making one's mark in a leadership position in the Komsomol was an excellent way to get noticed and advance one's future political or management career. In addition to providing free youthful labor, the Komsomol also served as an umbrella organization for various activities for young people, ranging from dances to debating clubs. The official newspaper of the Komsomol, "Komsomolskaya Pravda", actually managed to survive the breakup of the Soviet Union--it is perhaps even more respected as a periodical today than it was when the Komsomol still existed.

Lenin Stadium
The Central Lenin Stadium, one of the largest sports complexes in the world, was constructed in 1955-1956 on a bend in the Moscow River near the center of Moscow. It includes about 140 separate facilities, including the large outdoor stadium with room for 103,000 spectators, a smaller indoor arena with seating for 14,000, and a 13,000 seat Olympic-size swimming pool. It was the site of the 1980 Olympic Games. In addition to sporting events, the complex hosts various festivals, rock concerts, and a huge daily flea market.

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medals
One of the many fronts on which the ideological war between the USSR and the USA (and between their proxies East and West Germany) was fought was on the sports field. From 1952 onwards, when the Soviets first sent a team to the Olympic Games, people in both countries enthusiastically kept track of whose athletes had won the most medals. The final tallies for the rivalry are as follows: in the Summer Games between 1952 and 1992, the USSR won 445 gold, 356 silver, and 322 bronze medals for a total of 1123, while the USA won 410, 313, and 261, respectively, a total of 984. In the Winter Games between 1956 and 1992, the Soviets won 91, 63, and 67, totaling 221, while the Americans managed only 30, 32, and 24, a mere 86.

perestroika
Perestroika, a Russian word meaning "restructuring", was the term used by Mikhail Gorbachev for his 1985-1991 program of political and economic reforms. Gorbachev had intended to rejuvenate the Soviet system from within, but it quickly became evident to all but him that the system was rotten to the core and there was nothing left to save. The forces unleashed by Gorbachev thus led to the surprisingly rapid total collapse of the USSR and of Communism as a viable world ideology.

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Politburo
The Politburo (Political Bureau, called the Presidium in 1952-1966) of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the most powerful body in the USSR--an elite core of roughly a dozen members who set policy and in effect ran the country on a day-to-day basis in the name of the larger Central Committee which met only several times a year.

Spartak
(Russian for Spartacus) is the largest sports club in Russia. Founded in 1935 by a trade union association, it runs several thousand gyms, pools, camps, and other facilities for its 6 million members. It is also the sponsor of a popular hockey and soccer team, whose players, in the Soviet days, had fictional trade union jobs while training full time, thereby nominally qualifying as "amateurs" and being eligible for Olympic competition.

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