The first Moscow Rugby Championship took place in 1934. Athletes that have already achieved results in other sports played for Moscow's rugby clubs. Among them are Merited Masters of Sport: wrestler Grigory Pylnov, basketball players and coaches Stepan Spandaryan, Konstantin Travin, Alexander Zinin, famous football player and coach A. Sokolov.
In 1949, rugby union was forbidden in the USSR during the "fight against the cosmopolitanism". The competitions were resumed after the World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957, and the All-Union Rugby Championship was launched in 1968, after the USSR Rugby Federation was created in 1967. In May 1975 the USSR Rugby Federation became member of the International Amateur Rugby Federation.
Since 1979 the Soviet rugby team is a constant participant of the European Championship's major league, where it claimed bronze three times (1978, 1981, 1983), and in 1985-1987, 1989 and 1990 it earned silver.
The Russian rugby sevens team achieved the following results in the international competitions:
•    1998 –International Rugby Sevens Tournament in Benidorm (Spain) - 2nd place;
•    1999 – Air France Cup (Paris) - small cup;
•    2000 - World Cup final (Madrid);
•    2001 – World Cup in Mar de Plata (Argentina) - 9th place in world rankings; 2nd place in European rankings (after Team England);
•    2003 – International Rugby Sevems Tournament in Benidorm (Spain) - first place;
•    2003 – International Rugby Sevens Tournament in Bangkok (Thailand) – first place;
•    2004 - World Cup final in Palma de Mallorca (Spain).
The Russian Rugby Championship has been held since 1992.

Rugby mainly develops in the city of Kazan. It's here, in Kazan's Dynamo Stadium, that the first rugby training sessions were launched in 1967. Such rugby teams as Rubin, KHP, Sintez and Ellipse soon emerge in the city. It quickly becomes popular among students and develops in Kazan as a student sport. Rugby teams appear in Kazan State University, Kazan National Research Technological University, Tupolev Kazan National Research Technical University. In the 1970s Kazan rugby players are frequent guests at national championships and university championships.

The Strela rugby team was created in 1988, and since 1991 it is a constant participant of the Russian rugby league championships. Tatarstan owes the majority of its success at rugby sevens tournaments to the Strela team that won national gold five times. Its most players were members of the Russian national team. In 2001 Kazan hosted the European University Championship where Team Russia and Team Tatarstan competed as separate teams. It's worth mentioning that our home team placed second, and the national team took the fifth place.