Alexander Savin won Olympic gold in front of 10,000 screaming fans at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium in 1980. He collected six European Championship titles, two World Championships, and earned a spot in the International Volleyball Hall of Fame. Then he disappeared from public view.
Until now.
On October 26, 2025, Savin released his first-ever memoir exclusively on Amazon Kindle. The 514-page book delivers what volleyball historians have been missing for decades: a player’s unfiltered account of Soviet sports during the Cold War’s peak.
Table of Contents
Inside the Most Dominant Run in Volleyball History
The flying elephant memoirs of an olympic champion kindle edition covers 1975 to 1986, when the USSR men’s volleyball team won almost everything in sight. Savin played middle blocker during this stretch, standing 200 centimeters tall and known for one-handed blocks that seemed physically impossible.
But the book doesn’t start with victory. It starts with failure.
Montreal 1976: When Everything Fell Apart
Soviet volleyball entered the Montreal Olympics as overwhelming favorites. They had just won the 1975 European Championship in Yugoslavia. Under coach Yuri Chesnokov, who would later become the first non-American inducted into the Volleyball Hall of Fame, the team swept through pool play without dropping a game.
Savin played all five matches. The semifinals against Cuba went three sets, all straight wins. The final against Poland should have been routine.
Poland won 3-2.
Savin’s memoir reveals how that loss changed everything. The Soviet sports establishment doesn’t handle defeat well. Athletes who fail at the Olympics face consequences. The team rebuilt immediately, bringing in Vyacheslav Platonov as the new head coach in 1977.
The Platonov Era Begins
Platonov inherited a team that felt humiliated. His response? Win everything for the next seven years.
Championship Results 1977-1983:
- World Cup: 1977, 1981
- World Championship: 1978, 1982
- European Championship: 1977, 1979, 1981, 1983
- Olympics: 1980
Every single tournament. Zero losses when medals were on the line.
Savin’s memoir goes deep on Platonov’s training methods, team psychology, and tactical decisions. While Platonov wrote his own coaching manual called “My Profession: The Game,” he focused on theory and philosophy. Savin writes about what actually happened on the court and in the locker room.
Moscow 1980: Redemption Under Pressure
Hosting the Olympics should have been the Soviet Union’s moment of glory. Instead, 66 countries boycotted after the USSR invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. President Jimmy Carter led the charge, pulling the United States and convincing allies to stay home.
The volleyball tournament still featured quality teams. Bulgaria, Romania, Cuba, and Brazil all competed. The Soviets needed to prove something, not just to the world but to themselves after Montreal.
Savin played all six matches. The team dropped only two sets during the entire tournament. The final against Bulgaria ended 3-1. Four years of preparation, millions of rubles invested in training, and one very public loss to avenge.
Gold medal. At home. In front of the Soviet leadership.
What Makes This Memoir Different
Most volleyball books from this period come from coaches or Western players. Doug Beal wrote about the American program. Julio Velasco documented his Italian success. But Soviet players? They stayed quiet.
Savin breaks that silence with 240 photographs pulled from private family collections and Soviet sports archives. Many of these images have never been published. The book shows CSKA Moscow training sessions, national team preparations, and behind-the-scenes moments from Olympic competitions.
The CSKA Moscow Chapter
Savin spent his club career with CSKA Moscow, the Red Army team that dominated Soviet volleyball. The club won 33 USSR championships between 1949 and 1991. During Savin’s prime years in the 1970s and 1980s, CSKA collected 13 European Champions League titles.
The memoir details how CSKA operated: military discipline, year-round training camps, and a feeder system that identified talented players as teenagers. Savin started at Obninsk Youth Sports School under coach Vladimir Pitanov. By age 19, he was on the Olympic team.
Forgotten Legends Get Their Stories Told
American volleyball fans know Karch Kiraly. They remember the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics when the USA won gold. But ask about Vyacheslav Zaytsev, Savin’s teammate and setter for the Soviet squad? Most draw a blank.
Savin dedicates entire chapters to teammates who shaped volleyball but never got recognition outside the USSR. Zaytsev competed in three Olympics (1976, 1980, 1988), won MVP at the 1981 World Cup, and made the Hall of Fame in 2013. He died in 2023, largely unknown to modern fans.
The book preserves these stories before they disappear completely.
Why “The Flying Elephant”?
The title references Savin’s playing style. At 97 kilograms and over two meters tall, he shouldn’t have moved with the agility he displayed. American coaches who scouted him in the late 1970s described watching him jump with the first tempo, realize he was out of position, and block the ball one-handed while fully extended.
One US national team analysis video refers to him by name constantly while other players get numbers. The narrator notes: “When he gets a hole in the block, he doesn’t hit for that hole. He dinks for it.”
That combination of power and finesse earned him legendary status among volleyball insiders, even if casual fans never learned his name.
Getting Your Hands on the Memoir
Format: Kindle Edition only
Price: 9.99$ (or free with Kindle Unlimited)
Length: 514 pages
File Size: 68.8 MB (expect longer downloads)
Publication Date: October 26, 2025
Language: English
Translators: Andrei Savine, Julia Savine
Introduction by: Peter Murphy
The large file size comes from the extensive photo archive. Amazon lists it under Soviet sports history, volleyball memoirs, and Olympic biographies.
Why This Matters in 2026
Volleyball continues growing globally. The sport has professional leagues across Europe, Asia, and South America. Olympic volleyball draws massive television audiences. Yet the history remains poorly documented, especially from the Soviet side.
When Platonov died in 2005, he left behind coaching manuals but few personal stories. When other Soviet volleyball legends passed away, their experiences died with them. Savin, now 68 years old, decided the stories needed preserving.
The memoir arrives as one of the first comprehensive player accounts from volleyball’s golden era in the USSR. It documents training methods that produced champions, reveals the pressure athletes faced representing a superpower, and explains how Cold War politics shaped sports at the highest level.
For readers who want to understand how modern volleyball evolved, where certain tactics originated, and what made championship teams function during an era with limited video analysis and primitive equipment, this book fills gaps that have existed for 40 years.
The flying elephant finally landed, and it brought receipts.
