Historic reenactment

Prapor

Active member
Historic reenactment, or, reconstruction, as it is called here, is a popular past time of Russian youth, especially history students and particularly in the Northern areas and Siberia. Not only history is best learned by experiencing it, they believe, but they use traditional armor and weaponry of the ancestors to learn and bring into modernity ancient Russian martial arts and culture.
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Usually, they are massive events, with large numbers of participants.
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They often make their own armor based on what they know of ancient designs.

Sometimes you see a few women at these events too, in peaceful roles usually
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Though at times you see a 'warrior princess' here and there
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They use very real weapons, not replicas or toys, with real, sharped blades, so people do get hurt doing this, once in awhile
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This is why there is now an age restriction (18 and above) for this, as it is considred a 'dangerous activity'.
 
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One guy I know who regularly participates in these 'battles' has cut scars all over particlularly his right arm, but the left too, where some opponent got through his shield a few times... This is not for everybody, that's for sure lol
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It is not just Slavs who do it either.

Tyvan (native South East Siberian) warrior shows off traditional armor and weapon of his people
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Buryatian 'Sons of Genghis Khan'
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I see nothing wrong with this. Youth should know their ancestral history. If this is how they best learn it, be it that way. :smile: Just don't kill yourself and others while doing it.
 
Here the US Civil War is most popular(I believe), there's also American Revolutionary War, WWII & Medevil/Viking. Sometimes war of 1812, Spanish-American War & others. Kids remember a lot more with realistic demonstrations vs dull text books.
 
Here the US Civil War is most popular(I believe), there's also American Revolutionary War, WWII & Medevil/Viking. Sometimes war of 1812, Spanish-American War & others. Kids remember a lot more with realistic demonstrations vs dull text books.

Well, we certainly have more modern reconstruction, like from WWII
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But the medieval/ancient one are by far the most popular. There is even now a Traditional Martial Arts Federation where many of those guys train
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I believe the interest in the ancestors rose when the movie Volkodav first came out back in 2006: http://video.mail.ru/mail/elena7110/29/394.html
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It is about a man nicknamed Volkodav (Wolf Killer) a warrior in ancient Russia. Recently a third, I think, sequel came out, Young Volkodav, about how he grew up.

It infatuated people. It really romanticizes the way life was back then, glamorizes the Past. But to this day you see young men with the long hair and the beard. They are trying to be him. They believe that is how men must act, be. They forget this is set 1500 years ago...

Anyway, after this, there are now communities that have switched to 'traditional Slavic way of life', including paganism...

Here is a "chief", "shaman", not sure what they call him, leader, of one such community
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This is not reenactment, they dress like this day to day :?

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You see, this is what happens when people are left with nothing else to believe in
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But, I'm going off topic here.
 
Biggest one, a reconstruction of Battle of Kulikovo Field (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kulikovo) had 50,000 participants.
Biggest one here was the 1998 Battle of Gettysburg. Event site was limited to 20,000, but some were let in unofficially, might have been up to 25-30,000 reenactors there(including women/children civilian reenactors). @ the original Pickett's Charge there were 15,000 CS & 20,000(or more) Union troops. @ this reenactment there were 15,000 CS & probaly 7-8,000 Union troops.
 
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