Friendship Games - Opening Ceremony

Opening Ceremony

Although the Games began on 2 July with table tennis events held in North Korea, the official opening ceremony was held on 18 August in Moscow, soon after the first events hosted by the Soviet Union started. The two-hour ceremony held at the Central Lenin Stadium included "girls in white leotards red and white beachballs in unison, (...) dozens of children in traditional costumes of the Soviet republics", a "squadron of young performers" which created "a human weaving machine by ducking and turning to mesh their colored banners" and "red-attired teenage girls with silver hula hoops", which spelled the words 'USSR' and 'peace'. The ceremony was described as being "reminiscent of Olympic galas".

As in Olympic opening ceremonies, a torch bearer (Soviet runner and 1980 gold medalist Viktor Markin) carried the flame into the stadium and lit a giant bowl which had been built for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The torch had been lit from an eternal flame for World War II victims located in the Kremlin.

Teams marched onto the stadium behind flags, but unlike in the Olympics, they were not national teams but sporting organisations, such as Dynamo or Spartak.

Songs performed during the ceremony included a 1918 military march dedicated to the Red Army, "Stadium of My Dreams", written for the 1980 Olympics, and a specially composed song with the chorus "To a sunny peace – yes, yes, yes / To a nuclear blast – no, no, no."

General Secretary Konstantin Chernenko did not attend the ceremony as expected, but five Politburo members were present: Dimitri Ustinov, Mikhail Gorbachev, Grigory Romanov, Vitaly Vorotnikov and Viktor Grishin.