At school, in grades 7-8, we won a board game called Renju at some competition. During all breaks (and during lessons, to be honest) there were Renju fights. Where did this Japanese game get so popular in the USSR?
I think it all started with the publication of a series of articles about classical renju by comrade V. Sapronov in the magazine “Science and Life” in 1980. In particular, he proposed the central forbidden square . This type of rules was called “sapronovka”, “free renju”, or “pro-gomoku”. Our people liked the game. Someone planned to mass-produce a board version of the game. And back then there was planned production. There is a plan – it is executed. Thousands, maybe millions of sets of the game were produced. Distributed as expected throughout the country. And thus it spread. You could buy it everywhere.
A little history of renju.
1988 is a special year in the history of Renju. On August 8, representatives of Renju organizations from Japan, Sweden and the USSR gathered in Stockholm and proclaimed the creation of the “International Renju Federation” (RIF – The Renju International Federation). It was decided to hold world championships every two years starting next year .
The 5th All-Union Tournament (VT-5) was held in Moscow from April 4 to 11. 100 (one hundred!!!) participants from 40 cities, who had passed the selection in regional tournaments. During VT-5, meetings of the Preparatory Committee for the creation of the USSR Renju Federation (PKFR) were held.
In September 1988, the last 20th issue of the “Information Letters of the Presidium of the Preparatory Committee for the Creation of the USSR Renju Federation” (“IP-20”) was published – a Renju publication that had been published since 1981. In 1989, instead of “IP”, the “Bulletin of the All-Union Renju Club” began to be published, followed by the “Moscow Almanac” and other publications.
Screenshot of the game from the site renju.in
Sources:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A0%D1%8D%D0%BD%D0%B4%D0%B7%D1%8E