MEMORIAL DAY

November 1 - Memorial Day for Stanislav Zhuk

Translation of an article printed in Russian language publication “Stadion” on November 19, 2007.

On November 1, many relatives, friends, colleagues and former pupils of Stanislav Zhuk gathered together at his grave in Vagansky cemetery in Moscow.

The outstanding figure skating coach passed away in 1998 when he was 64 years old. At that time he was not actively involved in coaching and survived on his modest military pension.

In his youth, Stanislav skated in pair with Nina Bakusheva, who later became his wife. Together they were four time Champions of the (former) Soviet Union (1957, 58, 59 and 1961). They were the ones who performed for the first time a one hand lift support, which was considered to be illegal by many judges who thought that it was not safe.

In the sixties, Stanislav Zhuk started his career as a coach at the Central Sports Club of the Soviet Army and worked in all types of figure skating.

The list of his pupils include:

Tatiana Zhuk (his sister) and Alexander Gorelik;
Irina Rodnina and Alexey Ulanov/Alexander Zaitsev;
Marina Cherkasova and Alexey Shachray;
Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergey Grinkov;
Marina Pestova and Sergey Leonovich;
Veronika Pershina and Marat Akbarov;
Sergey Chetverukhin;
Elena Vodorezova;
Anna Kondrashova;
Alexander Fadeev.

In 20 years of his coaching, his pupils won 67 gold, 34 silver and 35 bronze medals at the Championships of Europe, World and at the Olympic Games. The history of figure skating does not have an analogue of such achievements.

Currently the team of the army club is coached by his student – Elena Vodorezova.