Other sports 1.Read and translate the text. 2. Write out unfamiliar words from the text 3. Ask the questions The American-invented team game of basketball was introduced into Russia at the turn of the century: in 1906, the St Peterburg sports club, Mayak, formed several basketball teams that competed with teams from the Bogatyr Society and in 1909 even defeated a touring side from the USA. Another American invention, volleyball, appears not to have penetrated pre -1917 Russia. Of the cerebral sports, chess has had a long tradition among the aristocracy and intellectuals. The historian Vasily Klyuchevsky desceribes how Ivan the Terrible enjoyed long and frequent games of chess with his favorite opponent Malyatu Skuratov, while Peter and Great ' would sit and play chess with simple sailors', It was a popular game among dissident intellectuals and revolutionaries, too men like Lenin, Gorky, Trotsky and Lunacharsky did a lot to promote it after the revolution. Even on the eve of war in 1914 the All-Russia Chess Association had participants than most other sports associations. By contrast the Russian Tourist Society had only a few hundred members and the Russian Mountaineering Society only 134 members in 1914.​