VSS united sporting people, offering hiking, mountaineering, boating, and various other sports. Their goals were to develop mass physical culture and sports and to provide facilities and conditions for sports training and improvement in athletes' skills. Most of the VSS were governed by trade Unions and often were closely associated with a certain ministry (aircraft industry, food workers, tractor industry, KGB, Red Army, Soviet Air Force), with industries being state-funded. Twenty five million athletes were members of such societies in 1970.