Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/75

 CHAPTER VIII

N Russia everywhere and always meet: the West and the East, civilisation and primitive nomad, Church and "old gods," romanticism and crime.

For instance, in a village a branch of the "People's 'Varsity" is established, and the local authorities overreach themselves in eloquence in front of an almost empty classroom of the local school. In the meantime the peasants, for whom the gates of education are thus being thrown open, are all assembled on the ice of the frozen river engaged in the traditional "combat of the fists," an indigenous kind of boxing.

Two villages are competing with each other in vigour of fists, in endurance of skulls, jaws, and teeth. This is a kind of tradition, knightly tournament, mediæval romanticism.

I witnessed such a combat at Omsk, in Siberia.

The competitors are divided into two parties equal in number. The combat begins with the fight of little boys, who break each other's noses. When hosts of striplings advance to battle, the little boys scatter aside like sparrows. The striplings scatter similarly at the decisive moment of the combat, which is fought out by grown-ups.