Wall to wall

All adult males can take part in the wall.

In the battles "Wall to Wall" the following rules have been adopted:

• Do not attack from the back
• Beat only with hands (kicks and steps are allowed with feet)
• Take care of comrades
• Blows to the face are prohibited, as well as any blows to the area above the Adam's apple or below the solar plexus.
• If you break through the enemy’s line, you run around both “walls” and get into your
• If someone fell, they immediately stop beating him.

The victory of the “wall” is awarded if: one of the “walls” has driven the enemy from its territory to a certain line.

Number of concessions: up to 3 victories on one side.

There are fights between meetings, one-on-one fist fighting, tug of war, horse-drawn fighting, two-on-two, three-on-three, and any other competition that the fighters agree on before the fight.

Of particular love in Russia was the so-called wall - to -hand hand -to -hand combat that has survived to this day. The popularity of the wall-mounted form of fist fighting, the so-called wall-to-wall battles, is also evidenced by the recollections of eyewitnesses - Pushkin and Lermontov , Bazhov and Gilyarovsky , as well as the search for the first Russian ethnographers, descriptors of folk life - Zabelin and Sakharov , a line of police reports and government decrees. The archives contain the decree issued by Catherine I of 1726 on fisticuffs, which determined the rules of hand-to-hand combat. There was also a decree "On the non-existence of fistfights without the permission of the police chancellery." The decree said that those wishing to participate in fisticuffs were required to select representatives who should inform the police about the place and time of the battle and be responsible for its order. An excerpt from the memoirs of M. Nazimov about fisticuffs in Arzamas explains how important these decrees were and how they treated fistfights in the province at the beginning of the 19th century.

Local authorities, it seems, are looking at this ... custom through the fingers, probably not having in mind the positive instructions of the authorities, or maybe themselves secretly were spectators of such massacres, especially since many significant people in the city are champions of antiquity, considered these amusements very useful for the development and maintenance of physical strength and militant tendencies of the people. Yes, and it was tricky for the Arzamas city governor, that is, the town manager, to cope with the help of 10-15 security officers and even a complete invalid team of 30-40 people with a bunch of fighters, which, in addition to amusing their numerous spectators, extended, according to eyewitnesses, up to 500 people.

The decree on the widespread and complete prohibition of fisticuffs was included in the code of laws of Nicholas I in 1832. In Volume 14, Part 4, Article 180 briefly says:

The same verbatim was repeated in subsequent editions of this code of laws. But, despite all the prohibitions, fistfights continued. They were held on holidays, sometimes every Sunday.

The name "wall" comes from the traditionally established and never changed in fisticuffs battle order, in which the sides of the fighters lined up in a dense line of several rows and went a solid wall to the "enemy". A characteristic feature of stenotic battle is linear constructions, the necessity of which is dictated by the task of the competition - to force the opposite party out of the battlefield. The retreating enemy regrouped, gathered new forces and, after a respite, entered the battle again. Thus, the battle consisted of separate fights and usually lasted for several hours, until one side finally defeated the other. Wall constructions have direct analogies with the constructions of Old Russian rati.

The scale of mass fisticuffs was very diverse. Street to street fought, village to village, etc. Sometimes fisticuffs gathered several thousand participants. Wherever fistfights took place, there were permanent, traditional places for fighting. In winter, rivers usually fought on the ice. This custom of fighting on a frozen river is explained by the fact that the smooth, snow-covered and compacted surface of the ice was a convenient and spacious platform for battle. In addition, the river served as a natural boundary dividing the city or region into two “camps”. Favorite places for fistfights in Moscow in the 19th century: on the Moskva River near the Babiyorodskaya dam , at the Simonov and Novodevichy Convent , at the Sparrow Hills and others. In St. Petersburg, fights took place on the Neva , Fontanka , at the Narva outpost .

At the "wall" was the leader. In different regions of Russia he was called by different names: “headdress”, “head”, “headman”, “fighting headman”, “leader”, “old cholovik”, “chieftain”. On the eve of the battle, the leader of each side, together with a group of his fighters, developed a plan for the upcoming battle: for example, the strongest fighters stood out and distributed in places along the entire “wall” to lead certain groups of fighters who made up the “wall” battle line, reserves were allocated for a decisive strike and camouflage in the construction of the main group of fighters, a special group of fighters stood out in order to knock out a specific fighter from the battle from the enemy, etc. During the battle, the leaders of the parties directly learning tvuya in him, encouraged his men, determined the time and direction of a decisive blow. P. P. Bazhov in the tale "Broad Shoulder" provides instruction of the head for his fighters:

Wall ( Stenka International martial art ) is an international sport. The International Martial Arts Federation of Stenka was registered in 2007 in Lausanne, Switzerland.

At the moment, the Wall sport is actively developing in 24 countries

The "Wall" sport is based on the tradition of wall-fighting.

Competitions are held in 3 sections:

1. Fight (about one handle)
2. Myself on myself
3. Wall to wall

The first World Cup was held in Moscow in 2016.

• Fist fight
• Maslenitsa

• Ponomarev V. Folk games, fun, yelling at Vyatka. - Kirov: Vyatka literary artist. publishing house of the Kirov branch of SFK, 1991. - 83 p.
• Wall to wall // Complete Encyclopedia of modern educational games for children. From birth to 12 years / N. G. Wozniuk. - M .: Ripol-classic , 2009 .-- S. 163. - 320 p. - ISBN 978-5-386-01209-0 .

• Wall to wall // Phraseological Dictionary of the Russian Literary Language
• Gladkova M. Male entertainment is not for the faint of heart // " Evening Moscow " No. 6 (25026) on 01/19/2009
• Polyakov D. Folklore festival in Tsaritsyno // TVC , 03/12/2009