Already in the first half of 19th century sports schools, clubs, societies (sailing and rowing, fencing, swimming, ice skating, cycling, and others) appeared in Saint-Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev and other cities of the Russian Empire. The yacht clubs of Moscow and Saint-Petersburg figured among the first such societies. Along with the development of the sport societies, official sports competitions started. The "Great Soviet Encyclopedia" states that usually those sports clubs and unions were chartered and financed by representatives of the bourgeoisie and of the nobility, and that access to them for students and working youth "was extremely limited". At the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries there appeared workers' sports organizations across the cities of the Russian Empire. Prominent roles in the development of the Russian sport were played by the "Petersburg's Circle of Sports Fans" (established in 1889), the "Russian Gymnastics Society" (1882, Moscow), the "Petersburg Society of Skating Fans" (1877), the "Circle of Athletic Fans" (1885, Petersburg), and others.