Forget soccer and ice hockey—these 4 traditional Russian sports are where it’s at. The most intriguing, to me, is pekar:
Ever wondered what a gorodki and fencing hybrid might look like? Of course you haven’t. Until now, that is.
As you’ve probably noticed, Russian sports all tend to involve very big sticks. Pekar (meaning “baker”) is no exception – in fact, a few big sticks are more or less all you need for pekar, aside from a used jar.
It works like this: the players throw their sticks at the jar. Once the jar has been hit, it’s a race between the stick-throwers, who try to gather their sticks back as quickly as possible, and the “baker,” who must put the jar back in its place and protect it from the other players’ attempts to sword fight their way back to the jar again.
Slightly off-topic: Pekar is also a common surname in the Czech Republic (Pekař for men, Pekařová for women) and Pekár in Slovakia (Pekárová for women) is a Slovak surname. You know how I love a good surname.