Children and Youth Sports School

A sports school (Russian: Детско-Юношеская Спортивная Школа, ДЮСШ) is a type of educational institution for children that originated in the Soviet Union. Sports schools were the basis of the powerful system of physical culture (fitness) and sports education of the USSR. The main features of this system remain in the system of sports education in Russia and other post-Soviet states, and also became the basis of similar systems in other countries, one of the most powerful ones at the present time being that of the People's Republic of China. Many legendary athletes, such as Nikolai Andrianov, Nellie Kim, Alexander Popov, Viktor Krovopuskov, Vladislav Tretiak, Valeri Kharlamov, Anatoly Alyabyev and Sergey Bubka, started their path to Olympic success from sports schools.

The system of sports schools was founded in the 1930s. In 1934, Young Pioneers Stadium was built in Moscow, the first specialized sports extracurricular institution in the USSR. In the same year the first children's collective was established by Dynamo sports society; this was a prototype of sports schools by sports societies.

In 1935-1936, the first sports schools were opened in Moscow, Leningrad and other cities of the USSR; they were created and functioned on the basis of regulations, approved by the Central Soviet of Sports Societies and Organizations of the USSR. By the 1940s dozens of schools functioned in the USSR by Dynamo sports society, Spartak sports society, CDKA, sports societies of Trade Unions, OSOAVIAKHIM and in the system of education. After the Great Patriotic War, sports schools were frequently reorganized, transferred from the jurisdiction of sports societies to that of the system of education and vice versa.

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