Fist Fighting - this is one more Maslenitsa game. This is the remainder of the ancient Russian martial tradition that dates back to the times when our ancestors fought their enemies with fists. According to the chronicle of the 18th century, during the war of Prince of Kiev Mstislav the Third against Prince Yuri the Great, the former encouraged his soldiers being the citizens of Smolensk and Novgorod in their fight against the enemy by letting them choose whether to fight astride or on foot. The soldiers from Novgorod said, "We prefer to use our fists as our ancestors did rather than to fight astride". There was a time when our boyars having gathered together to have fun, brought their fist fighters for a spectacular show. The fist fighters from Kazan, Tula and Kaluga were considered to be the best ones as they could survive the most severe fights with Tatars who came to Moscow bringing caviar and fish. These fighters used to win the biggest bids and quite often paid for their valour with lives. There were three types of fist fighting in the ancient times and the most spectacular one was a fighting hand-to-hand. The "wall on wall" fight when each "wall" tried to persuade spare fighters to support them, and they were let in only when the enemy punched "the wall" was also popular. The hope-fighter ran down with his fir-cap in the teeth, beat both piles, not touching the laying ones, and, having punched the wall and with throng of flatterers came back to the tavern. The most rear was the fight called a "linkage- scuffle" that usually began when the old men started teasing the young ones with the stories and promises to fight. Young came with messages from one home to another, children who began to fight were the harbingers of the "linkage".
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