Interestingly, a quick google also reveals their sports club has been home to numerous elite ice skaters and gymnasts as well.

What happened is that Gazprom bought Sibneft (thus adding the oil business they had been looking for sometime, allowing Abramovich to cash out, and further centralising control over Russia’s energy resources) and changed its name to Gazprom Neft. Gazprom (the parent) then bought Zenit. Gazprom also sponsors Schalke 04, of course.

It’s also worth pointing out that CSKA was probably best known for its ice hockey team (generally known as the “Red Army team in North America), which was essentially the club manifestation of the Soviet national team during the 70s and 80s (in the same way Honved was the football equivalent in Hungary in the early 50s). CSKA won all but two of the Soviet hockey championships contested between 1969 and 1990, and was arguably the best club side anywhere in the world during that period (they drew with the Montreal Canadiens, the best NHL team of that era, in a 1975 match in Montreal that some observers consider the greatest hockey game ever played).

CSKA were similarly dominant in Soviet era basketball, and while the hockey team has not been able to repeat its success in the post-Soviet era, the basketball team has arguably gotten better. They won the Euroleague in 2006 and lost the final (to Panathinaikos on the latter’s home court) in 2007.