Russian boxing

[dubious – discuss][2] 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.

[9][10] There are documents saying Peter the Great liked to organize fist fights "in order to show the ability of the Russian people".

[11] In 1751, a mass fist fight took place on a street in Saint Petersburg, which came to the attention of Empress Elizabeth of Russia.

In that book, he offered a new exercise, called "group boxing", and he mentioned it was an ancient Russian sport (what he was talking about, was the "Stenka na Stenku" version).

Basic tactics were used, such as breaching using heavy fighters (who were usually held in reserve), encircling, false retreat and others; but as a rule, tight wall formation never broke.

For example, notable ethnographer V. Gilyarovsky recalled that during his voluntary service in an infantry regiment soldiers often staged wall-on-wall fistfights with factory workers.

There, the fistfight tales place as a form of honor duel between an oprichnik (government police agent) and a merchant.

In the 19th century Sergei Aksakov watched famous fist fights in the Kaban frozen lake in Kazan, and later wrote about them in his "Story about student life".

He wrote: "He jumped to beat me, and even though I was afraid of the police, learning fist fighting at the frozen lakes of Kazan helped me, and he humiliatingly lost".

[22] The Russian poet Sergei Yesenin in his autobiography notes "About myself" told that his grandfather taught him fist fighting.

[23] One of the heroes in the book "Thief" by the Soviet novelist Leonid Leonov said: "In childhood, it happened, only in fist fights I found real friends... And was never wrong!