Russian Fist Fighting

Traditional Russian fist fighting has existed since the 1st millennium AD. Metropolite Kiril, in 1274, created another one of many personally-instituted rules, declaring expulsion from Christianity for any of those who fist-fight and do not sing a prayer or hymn at the burial of someone who died during a fist fight. In 1751, a mass fist fight took place on a street in Saint Petersburg. It was outlawed in the Russian Empire in 1832. However, it has seen a resurgence after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

The Russian Orthodox Church was always against fist fighting because of its pagan origins. The state officially condemned such fights, but it turned a blind eye because fist fighting was an important way to prepare the male population for military combat.

Fist fights happen in wide open spaces in winter, such as on a frozen lake or pond, and during the warmer months in a meadow. The most popular and spectacular mass brawls, also called “wall-on-wall” fights, happen between two large teams: the left side of the village street versus the right side, or one village against another.

Police stay by as mass fist fights rage, and also because it’s simply impossible to stop and apprehend dozens of men who are fighting each other.

The most famous portrayal of a Russian fist fight is in Mikhail Lermontov's poem, "The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov". There, the fist fight tales place as a form of honor duel between an oprichnik (government police agent) and a merchant. Though it may be an example of poetic license, the poem states that the first connected blow by Merchant Kalashnikov bent a large bronze cross hanging from the government police agent his opponent's neck, and the second fractured the opponent's temple, killing him.

Oleg Klimov, Freelance photographer. Donate to the work of freelancers