Sport is a great uniting factor. Sport and common ethnical traditions unite people of different generations and views. The experience of Almaty, I think, should be transferred to the whole of Kazakhstan. The idea of creating a sports group was proposed by Inessa Chugainova. Today the Jewish community participates in the city competitions, while our veterans participate in the competitions for seniors. There are competitions on playing chess, draughts, and nards. There are meetings with interesting people, former sportsmen, for example, recently we met with a sixfold world record holder, Vladimir Dreksler.

The sports society of Israel is named after brothers Makkabi. Makkabiads have become one of the consolidating factors for Jewish communities. All our youth events have elements of sports competitions for everybody including children, parents, grandmothers and grandfathers. They are organized by children from a sports school. Twice we were visited by American students and they also took part in our Makkabiads, they liked it a lot!

There is a sports group in the community Center Rimon, which works under the guidance of Ruslan Archakov. There are 40 people training in this group. Every Sunday, about 20 members of our community come to the gym to play volleyball, basketball, and football. All our sportsmen are of different age. "Grand Masters", who are from 9 to 90 years, old play chess. Young people play team sports. Ruslan Archakov spoke about what sport gives to community members, "I would like to note that everybody plays sports with great pleasure. If a training has to be cancelled due to some reason, everybody is upset. Children have made friends with each other at the sports ground and continue socialize outside of it. They have common interests now and it is interesting for them to spend time together. Sports make an amazing unifying effect. We are a team!".

Lyudmila Starodubova