When I began my blog I first of all saw it as a channel for my writing, secondly as a route to self-understanding: what on earth is it about gymnastics, Russian gymnastics in particular, that I find so compelling? After three and a half years of blogging (769 posts!) and 2.6 million page views ... Well, I am a little wiser, but no less hooked to my subject. In fact, if anything, I have dug myself deeper and deeper into a multi-layered world. There are not enough hours in the day, weeks in the year, years in a lifetime for me to cover this subject in sufficient depth. I want to thank all the journalists, bloggers, translators, photographers, marketers and fans who are forever contributing to my personal picture of Russia, its gymnasts and its wider context of sport, friendship and international relations. This ever-changing picture, sometimes flickering and indistinct, often clear and beautiful, occasionally sad and painful, is what gives me the stimulus to keep on writing.
I have also slowly begun to realise that it isn't just gymnastics that fascinates me. Without Russia, gymnastics would be meaningless to me. Russia is simply intoxicating. The wholly different philosophy of sport. The pretty colours in the amazingly ornate architecture. The way the language looks and sounds. The people. The woody smell - is it fennel, is it sandalwood? Gymnastics and Russia is a perfect match of mystery, culture, sport and politics ... gymnastics is a window into a world that I will never really know, but can't stop exploring.
My self-knowledge still has a long way to go. I know now, for example, that being read means far more to me than the tortuous process of writing! Comments and discussions are very often the most interesting part of this blog. I don't write as much as I would like; often I am merely reporting events, or providing summaries of what is being said in the Russian press. One thing I had not envisaged when beginning the blog is that a whole community of interested people would build up around it; 3076 followers on Facebook is far more than I ever expected. But of course, this makes for a responsibility towards the blog's followers; I try to provide an overview of all the main things, but can't do everything. Other blogs, such as the excellent Videos of Russian Gymnasts, are better at keeping track of the up and coming juniors, the Russian Gymnastics Federation site is increasingly useful for its links to news stories and brief profiles of team members. The gymnastics groups in VK.com keep us up to date with the gymnasts' lives as far as is respectful to them as people, and the various Tumblr blogs give some useful insights.
I say I don't write as much as I would like to, but it is vital to chronicle the events of Russian gymnastics and to collate the central events in its developments if I am to be able to write anything meaningful about the sport. This blog therefore tries to be a repository for the key sources. Some of the most under-used resources here are the tabs to the right of the blog's home screen, where links to articles, a bibliography and a list of video documentaries can be found. There is also an archive of all the past posts on the blog, accessible by date. You can search by label to find all the articles on a particular subject.
So I am now looking forward to another year of blogging and learning about Russia, its artistic gymnastics and its sports system. I am going to write another post imminently - in the next few days - talking about the different areas of knowledge that I could develop here. I want to try to add depth to my work more than breadth, so expect a few surprises.
If you have read this far, and have thoughts and ideas on the direction this blog is taking and could take in future, please leave your ideas in a comment or two - I love reading them and they are always useful.