Its Olympic team was once the pride of the nation, its sportsmen and women nurtured to bring medals back to Mother Russia and show the world that the Soviet Union was as capable of sporting triumph as its capitalist rivals.
Not any more. Russia has been left stunned by the worst performance of its Olympic team since the Soviet empire collapsed in 1991. The squad won just three gold medals and only fifteen medals overall at the Winter Games in Vancouver, despite predictions that its athletes would bring home as many as 31.
Amid fears that Russia will be humiliated when it hosts the next Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014, furious fans have called for team chiefs to be dismissed, and Vladimir Putin has led a chorus of political complaints. Russia languished in eleventh place in the medal table, far below its previous worst of fifth in Salt Lake City in 2002.
Sports administrators had told the Kremlin that Russia could win 11 golds in Vancouver and achieve its biggest medal haul since the last Soviet team competed in 1988. Instead, as the Olympic flag was passed to Sochi at last night's closing ceremony, Russians were left wondering if they would ever again be a sporting superpower. "It has become clear that today we cannot compete with the leading sports powers," mourned Izvestia newspaper.
There was particular anguish over Russia's world champion ice hockey team, the vaunted "Red Machine", that crashed out meekly to Canada 7-3 in the quarter-finals. An outraged Russian press demanded blood, with one front-page headline approvingly quoting the team coach Vyacheslav Bykov's sarcastic retort to "put out the guillotine on Red Square and stage a show execution for the whole team".
Russia's Olympic spokesman, Gennadi Svets, did little to deny complaints that the team was full of over-indulged stars who lacked the hunger to win. He told reporters: "Their slightest whim was catered for. They only lacked breakfast in bed and they could have had that if they had asked. They proved they couldn't play against real professionals."
Mr Putin, the Prime Minister, has put his personal authority and $12 billion (£8 billion) in funding behind a triumphant Sochi Games. He ordered team chiefs to make "serious analysis and organisational conclusions" from Russia's failure, warning: "We need to change the situation and create the conditions for a [successful] performance at the 2014 Olympics." Members of the Duma, Russia's parliament, demanded the removal of the Sports Minister and Olympic committee chairman.
Some attribute the Vancouver disaster to the splintering of the Soviet sporting behemoth. Others point to a darker legacy of the Soviet era, the use of performance-enhancing drugs, and the impact on Russia's prospects of the tough dope-testing regime at Vancouver. Eight Russian skiers and biathletes were disqualified last year after testing positive for banned substances.
Tony Halpin