Olympic commotion: Forgotten Soviet modernization. Orlov I.B., Popov A.D.

The book is dedicated to the history of the XXII Summer Olympic Games, held in the Soviet Union from July 19 to August 3, 1980. The authors consider this megade in two projections: through the prism of the geopolitical confrontation of the Cold War and in the context of internal processes that took place in the late Soviet society, using Archival documents, published sources, materials of the Soviet and foreign press, the memories of eyewitnesses. In the first part, such aspects as the use of games as a tool of cultural diplomacy, the cooperation of the Organizing Committee of the Olympiad-80 with foreign partners, Olympic ceremonies and rituals, as well as measures to ensure the safety of the Olympiad, are considered in detail. The second part covers the influence of the Olympic factor on the development of transport and information and technical infrastructure of the USSR, the Soviet service sector, as well as the features and paradoxes of collective memory about the events of the Olympiad-80, which gave rise to a lot of jokes and rumors.