Олимпиада-80
Moscow 1980
C2 · Proficient · non-fiction · 10 scenes · Premium story
An advanced documentary account of the Moscow Olympics of 1980, told as the three weeks in which a country was briefly a different country. Six years of building, a capital scrubbed and half-emptied of everyone it did not want seen, and shop counters stocked for a fortnight with the ordinary contents of an ordinary European shop — which proved not that things had improved but that shortage had always been a matter of decision. Around that sit the sport nobody in Russia remembers, the unannounced funeral on Taganka Square that a great many people remember instead, the illustrator who found the bear's smile and never owned it, and a hundred thousand adults weeping at a rubber toy on a string of balloons. The boycott of 1980 and the counter-boycott of 1984 are set out as they happened and with the reasons each side gave for them; the story argues for neither, and says so, noting only what both had in common — that neither achieved what it was declared for, and that both were paid for by athletes nobody asked.
Characters
- Moscow, summer 1980 (Москва, лето 1980) — The host city
- Viktor Chizhikov (Виктор Чижиков) — Illustrator, drew Misha
- The athletes of 1980 and 1984 (Спортсмены 1980 и 1984 годов) — Both sides
- Misha (Миша) — The mascot
Vocabulary from this story
- олимпиада — the Olympics
- сборная — national team
- спортсмен — athlete
- медаль — medal
- рекорд — record
- соревнование — event, competition
- церемония — ceremony
- стадион — stadium
- талисман — mascot
- флаг — flag
- гимн — anthem
- дистанция — distance, race