Soyuz

"Soyuz" is a transliteration of the Cyrillic text "Союз", and is the Russian word for "Union". It was often used as an internal abbreviation for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ("Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик": "Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik") during the period of that country's existence. The term was used officially by both the Soviet State (for example in various projects it commissioned during the Space Race) and the citizenry as a whole. As terminological shorthand it was often used interchangeably with each of the slightly longer term "Сове́тский Сою́з" ("Sovetskiy Soyuz"; "Soviet Union"), and the initialism "ссср" ("SSSR" in the latin alphabet, "USSR" in English).

As a Russian language term, its use was primarily confined to the Soviet Union itself, since in other countries (for example in the Anglosphere) the name of the Soviet Union was typically translated into the relevant native language, and abbreviated accordingly.