The majority of Russian TV commentators, newspaper journalists and fans often designate the belonging of athletes to one of the sports clubs according to a template introduced by an unknown person and has long become familiar. So, basketball players and football players from CSKA, where Americans, Serbs, Bulgarians, Swedes, Japanese, Africans and other foreigners have played for a long time, are often called the army men of Moscow.
Get on your skis
Before becoming exactly CSKA, this club went through a lot of not only shocks, but also renaming. And at the time of his appearance, and this happened under the last Russian tsar, he did not belong to the Armed Forces at all.
As historians of Soviet sports testify, the ancestor of the now existing Central Sports Club of the Army is the Society of Ski Lovers (OLLS), which originated in Moscow in 1911. A football team of the same name was created in it, the best achievement of which was the victory of the capital championship in 1922 and the unofficial title of the strongest in the country. And four years earlier, athletes from the Society officially became Red Army soldiers and members of the General Education.
Actually, it was then that skiers, boxers, football players and other athletes who played for OLLS were inextricably linked with the army, having received the full right to be called, for ease of reference, army men. Finally, this right for the members of the de facto military sports club was entrenched after the first of numerous reorganizations. And it survived, apparently, forever.
Sports experience area
Having defeated the whites and the interventionists, the leadership of the country of the Soviets took up big sport. In 1923, all sports societies that were created and received their names before the revolution were renamed in a new way, moving into various Soviet departments and law enforcement agencies. In particular, the OLLS officially moved under the patronage of the top military leadership, at the same time turning into the Experimental Demonstration Site of Universal Education (OPPV). It is noteworthy that in addition to performances at stadiums, rings and carpets, athletes from the "Ploschadka" were instructed to engage in physical training not only for the Red Army, but also for those who were just preparing to serve.
Home for Army Sports
The next reorganization and name change took place in 1928. Moreover, in two stages, it did not affect the membership of the society in the army ranks. Until 1951, the ex-OLLS was called the Central House of the Red Army (CDKA), and for the next six years it proudly bore the name of the Central House of the Soviet Army (CDSA). And only in 1957 the "house" became a "club". More precisely - the Central Sports Club of the Ministry of Defense (CSK MO). However, the Soviet army team did not stay in this status for very long, until 1960.
From now and forever
But under the name of the Central Sports Club of the Army (CSKA), the former CSK MO lived a record time, having long celebrated its 50th anniversary. True, he ceased to have anything to do with army sports from about the beginning of the 90s, when privates, warrant officers and lieutenants who were in the ranks of CSKA began to move to other clubs and even go abroad in droves.
And now, legally existing under the flag of the army sports club, CSKA opened its doors even for foreigners from very far abroad countries. What, for example, is just a simple listing of the names of coaches and players of a basketball team from Moscow - Messina, Shamir, Jackson, Krstic, Mitsov, Pargo, Teodosic, Weems, Hines. None of the above, of course, does not serve in the Moscow Military District, being an army soldier only nominally, according to a long-term tradition …
