Gorodki (Russian for 'little towns') is a truly unique Russian street skittles game that has been played for centuries but only got a
standardised set of rules in the 1920s.The target skittles are five cylindrical wooden blocks (about 6" in length) which are set up in a series of 15 distinctive formations. These formations (the towns) are placed inside a chalked square area (the city) 13 meters away from the throwers. The said throwers wield impressive 1m long heavy wooden batons which they hurl aggressively at the skittles in a sideways throw - the aim being to knock all sticks in the town outside of their containing square. Once all skittles have been removed then the next formation is set up. The team that takes the fewest throws to destroy all 15 'towns' wins.
Gorodki is famed for being a popular game of Lenin, Tolstoy and Gorky and it also makes an appearance in Vladamir Nabakov's 1957 novel Pnin:
"The favourite recreation was Gorodki...One drew a big square on the ground, one placed there, like columns, cylindrical pieces of wood...and then from some distance one threw at them a thick stick, very hard, like a boomerang, with a wide development of the arm. I still hear the trakh! when one hit the wooden pieces and they flew into the air."
strange games no:169
"The favourite recreation was Gorodki...One drew a big square on the ground, one placed there, like columns, cylindrical pieces of wood...and then from some distance one threw at them a thick stick, very hard, like a boomerang, with a wide development of the arm. I still hear the trakh! when one hit the wooden pieces and they flew into the air."
strange games no:169
3 comments:
And I thought you just ate skittles...
and, famously, in dziga vertov's 1929 movie MAN WITH A MOVIECAMERA
and, famously, in dziga vertov's 1929 movie MAN WITH A MOVIECAMERA
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