There are a large number of winter sports and outdoor activities that are popular in Russia, so it is not surprising that an all-Russian holiday – Winter Sports Day was established. For the first time, the holiday was celebrated on February 7, 2015. The date of celebration was not chosen by chance. Winter Sports Day is a holiday dedicated to the XXII Winter Olympic Games, which were held in Sochi and became an important event for the entire country. Therefore, the date of the holiday was it was decided to coincide with the anniversary the Sochi Olympics opening.

However, on February 7, the anniversary of the opening of the Sochi Olympics, the holiday was not celebrated every year, some years it was celebrated on the first weekend after the 7^th of February. In 2024, to mark the 10^th anniversary of the XXII Olympic Winter Games and XI Paralympic Winter Games in 2014, the holiday will be celebrated again on February 7.

The XXII Winter Olympics were held in Sochi from 7 to 23 February 2014. These Games were the most successful for Russia – the Russian team took first place in the team medal standings and updated the national records for gold medals and the total number of awards at the Winter Olympics. Russian athletes won 33 awards – 13 gold, 11 silver and 9 bronze medals. And at the Paralympics that followed, the Russians were also unrivalled – Paralympic athletes won 80 medals, 30 of which were top medals. In addition, the Games themselves were recognised by the international sports community as a benchmark event.

It can be said that the main purpose of the Winter Sports Day is not only to pay tribute to Russian professional athletes, whose successes at the Olympics increased interest in sports, but also, of course, to promote a healthy lifestyle among the Russian population; to attract as many people as possible, and first of all, the younger generation, to physical training and sports.

"The Winter Sports" themed album, featuring items from the museum Collection repository, is posted our Photo Gallery.

On the cover: Figure skater Sonia Henie. Paolo Troubetzkoy. 1933.

A full-length sculptural image of a young female figure skater stands on smooth rectangular plinth. The prototype of the figure skater was Sonia Henie (1912-1969) - Olympic champion in figure skating in 1928, 1932 and 1936, multiple world and European champion. Hollywood star. Starred in the film "Sun Valley Serenade" (USA, 1941).
When creating this piece, Troubetzkoy was inspired by the photo reproduced on a postcard.

The statuette was made by Paolo Troubetzkoy while he was working in France and Italy (1920-1938). The work is characterized by lyricism, psychologism, typicalness of the image combined with genre authenticity, which was always inherent to Paolo Troubetzkoy creative style*. 

*Expert evaluation of the VMDPNI. Expert: Gilodo A.A. 31.03.1998