Khakas kures

The national wrestling of the Khakas.

About

Kures is the national belt wrestling of the Khakas. The wrestlers tie a cloth sash, the khur, over their clothes, take hold of each other's sashes on both sides and try to throw the opponent to the ground without letting go. Kicks, leg sweeps above the knee and trips are forbidden.

The wrestler who touches the ground with any part of the body, or falls on all fours, loses. Kures is held every year at the national festivals Chyl Pazy and Tun Payram, and also at weddings.

History

As K. Torbostaev writes, kures belongs to the belt wrestling widely spread among the Turkic peoples. Among the medieval nomads three contests picked out the strongest men: horse racing, archery and wrestling. In the legends a claimant to the title of khan or prince also had to prove himself in these contests: Irenak, the famous prince of the seventeenth century, was raised on the white felt after winning them all.

After the union with Russia the skill was handed down within the community and the family, from the elder to the younger, and kures became one of the chief spectacles of the calendar and family festivals. A. P. Stepanov, the first governor of Yenisei province, wrote in 1835 that the wrestlers, stripped to the waist, tried their strength without blows, skill and force taking the place of one another.

Peoples

• Khakas

Research: Vasif Namazov, Turan Games Concept

Sources

1. Спортивные игры — Хакасский национальный краеведческий музей им. Л. Р. Кызласова
2. Хакасский национальный вид спорта «Кӱрес» — culture19.ru
3. К. Торбостаев, Ценностно-мировоззренческие аспекты хакасской национальной борьбы «курес» — Türk Halklarının Geleneksel Spor Oyunları, Bişkek, 2015, s. 123–124
4. İllüstrasiya: süni intellektlə hazırlanıb, Komitə təqdim edib