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Yoga knocks judo off Kremlin

Moscow: The ancient Indian yoga, once banished from the country by a Communist leader, is all set to make a home in the Kremlin next month when the new Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, who practises the art, takes over.

Prodded by his wife Svetlana, President-elect Medvedev had joined the thousands of Russians eager to learn the Indian art of yoga.

He now takes pride in his ability to perform ‘shirshasana’, a headstand pose.

The former President Boris Yeltsin’s tennis revolution had resulted in the birth of a whole constellation of Russian superstars like Kournikova and Sharapova.

His successor, a judo black-belt holder and mountain skier Vladimir Putin gave boost to oriental martial arts and mountain skiing and if the trend continues, Russia will soon be standing on its head, Centre TV (CTV) said in its weekend analytical programme ‘Post Scriptum’.

“And if this trend is to continue under Medvedev, Russia will soon have more yoga schools than India,” CTV observed.

In an interview to the Itogi magazine last year, Mr. Medvedev, the then First Deputy Prime Minister looking after major social and health reforms, said: “Little by little, I am mastering yoga.”

Yoga, he explained, helped him relax from the stress of work. “I can even stand on my head,” Mr. Medvedev told a glossy magazine Tainy Zvyozd (Secrets of the Stars) last month.

In the late 1960s under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev the only Indian professor of yoga at the Moscow-based Institute of Physical Culture was asked to quit and the yoga department was closed due to its connection with Hindu religious practices. However, after the Soviet Union’s collapse yoga has gained popularity in Russia.Scores of private yoga centres have sprung up not only in Moscow, but also in faraway cities and towns.According to Khatuna Kobiashvili of Yoga Journal Russia, at least 100,000 people regularly practice yoga in Russia. The journal, published by the media group along with the Moscow Times and business daily Vedomosti, sells 55,000 copies a month nationwide, she said. — PTI

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