The history of UWR in Russia
In the late 80s, at the Moscow’s Luzhniki pool, coaches Nazarov VN and AF Karev attempted to start underwater rugby in Russia but didn’t receive much support. Around mid-90s, Coaches Gastrenko VR, Ivanov VV, Krylov AS, AI Podgorny, Pokrovsky VR, Trofimov OV, who were at the time teaching aquathlon (underwater wrestling), tried to use underwater rugby as part of their training setups. They initially called it, "underwater mini-rugby" or "akvaregbi", and used simplified rules, which were almost completely written by them. This was mainly due to the fact that at that time there was not available up-to-date rules and many of the concepts were not entirely clear. In addition, the equipment they used was not the ideal one since none of the coaches had seen the game. At the beginning they used gymnastics and basketball balls filled with salt water, and the goals were made out of trash cans or simply by using the gaps found between the pool’s stair steps.
Nordic countries come along
Nordic countries come along
Underwater rugby came to nordic countries via Denmark and south Sweden at late of 60's. Swedish diving association took the game in their schedule in 1973. Underwater-polo went to Norway and Finland from Sweden. In Finland, the game was named directly from the swedish version and it became called by underwater polo. This wasn't quite effective, so players started to call this game by underwater rugby. In 1977 established underwater rugby commission to Finnish sportdiving association. The first meeting was held in Joensuu by Kari Viitanen. In Finland the first place, where people played the underwater rugby, was the courses of military divers and club called Hyvinkään Urheilusukeltajat. The finnish championships was held from year 1976 and among them, there is also been many tournaments. Vesikko-cup is the oldest one from those (from year 1973).
Official international games
First European championships was held in Sweden 1978 and the next one was in Denmark 1981. First world championships was played in Germany in 1980. Nordic championships are played from year 1976. Nowadays world championships and European championships are held with two years margin with each other.