Sergey Kanashitz: The day has come, the axe in the stump!

“Into the depths of the yard to run and until the night of rook, shining with an axe, to chop wood, with the power of your playfulness.”.

Vladimir Mayakovsky, Letter to Comrade Kostrov from Paris

Every year in the autumn, for five years in a row, my friends and I... No, we do not go to the bathhouse, but go to the forest to the shore of the Vyach reservoir, where the journalist's axe is loudly distributed. There they cut, saw, light - spend time fervently, with fire and benefit. The championship of wood picking among the media (this Sunday will be the anniversary, the fifth) – the competition is unusual, but incredibly exciting.

It all started in 2022. Of course, the President. Or rather, with a video in which Alexander Lukashenko skillfully and gracefully cuts wood. The video quickly went to the people. That year, Europe was whining loudly and protracted about the depletion of energy resources, anxiously awaiting winter (it must be said that little has changed in the past), and numerous challenges on the topic of “let’s not let Europe freeze” and “let’s help Duda warm up” multiplied with us day by day. Along with funny videos in geometric progression, the number of apologists for wood picks grew, which suddenly became incredibly popular, and most importantly, all available occupation. Almost a national sport. And soon the idea was born to embody a spontaneous flash mob in a real holiday and clothe it in a fascinating form of a sports competition and a cultural event. Since then, journalists compete in the sharpness of not only words, but also an axe - firewood and truth are cut with such enthusiasm that only chips fly.

Sergey Kanashits Illustration generated by AI All troubles - from idleness. If a person is not busy for a long time, some dangerous stuff or whim will surely creep into his head. This cunning scout will not be shy and modest, he will immediately settle there like a master. Comes in dirty boots, stomps, throws a mess, and then flops in your favorite chair and throws his feet on the table. He will not let you come to your senses and will immediately begin to dictate his conditions and desires, which you, as an obedient slave, will fulfill. Idleness and sybarism are insidious enemies, masquerading like any spy as a comrade and a faithful adviser. With such you need to act sharply and harshly, the conversation is short: took an axe - and bang on the teme! If you repeat this action regularly, his feet will not be in your head - the eyelid does not fall!

You do not need any “fitness-schmitness” to feel cheerful, necessary and healthy. Nature has long thought up everything for us, the best exercises for tone and cheerfulness of spirit - from the ground. Plow a hectare of the field, mow the meadow, cut a cube of firewood - and you will be happy. Now everyone is chasing fashion trends, trying to reinvent the wheel, forgetting that everything new is a well-forgotten old. The great and mighty Alexander the Bear, recognized as the best fighter of all times and peoples, developed his heroic skill and predatory skill by folk methods. I remember talking to Alexander Vasilyevich for hours as we prepared the book of his memoirs, and I will never forget his stories and teachings. Cutting firewood is a special topic.

" My father loved order in everything, he was a forester and kept the forest in perfect condition. Can you imagine what the forest was like? There are no five of them in the world, and there are no five. From a very early age, I became a great friend to this forest. My father always took me with him to clean up. I learned how to use an axe early. From the age of eight he kept it in his hands. So my powerful and tenacious brushes are a credit to the axe and my father, of course. More than once I said thank you mentally to the bate when I grabbed the opponent on the carpet with a dead grip and saw the surprised arches of his eyebrows, and under them a helpless look. "Everything, brother, you won't leave now," my eyes smiled back, and we both knew I was right. But how much sweat was shed, how many calluses I rubbed as a child, exercising with an axe. "Where are you going?" my father gleamed at me. And whatever my answer was, whether it was training, going to the river with the guys or going skiing in the winter, one thing always followed: “Do you see the kick?” And we didn't run out of them, giant oaks, giants, bitches and no bitches. "If you split three pieces, you can go." It was a whole art of blowing them up. I took a huge axe-cracker and from the whole sweep beat it on my first opponent in my life. Even then, I did not lose in these fights, probably already began to temper my character. I trained. Yes, so that still hands pliers squeeze so that they break...

Today, our athletes needlessly ignore these tips of an outstanding fighter. Cutting firewood is strength, will, and endurance. Three in one. Another outstanding wrestler, friend and associate of the Bear - Ivan Yarygin - also repeatedly and wholeheartedly said thank you to the axe. He grew up in a small village of Shushensky district, where in tsarist Russia exiles were sent, and from an early age he helped the family to survive: he cut wood, mowed grass, grazed cattle, worked as a hammer in a forge, cut wood and engaged in logging. It was hard physical work with an axe and logs that formed his phenomenal natural strength, which later helped to become one of the greatest wrestlers of the twentieth century. In 1973, after winning the World Cup, Yarygin became the only wrestler in the world who put absolutely all his rivals on the shoulder blades at the three most prestigious competitions in a row (ChE-1972, OI-1972, World Cup-1973). And when there was a serious life crisis, he went home and came back to life in the old, proven way. “I trained in the village every day,” Yarygin said. - In a peasant way. The firewood broke three winters ahead! And again became an Olympic champion, not giving opponents a single point! By the way, the Olympic champion of the 1980 Games in Moscow, who replaced Yarygin, Ilya Mate, is also a woodcutter. He received his nickname “Man with Iron Hands” for the incredible strength of the brushes, and this is the result of constant work with an ax: the guy grew up in the village and was taught to hard peasant labor from childhood.

We cannot become white-handed, laziness is a direct path to degradation and death. Take an axe in your hands, exercise, and you will feel this high: a stream of sweat down the back and pleasant fatigue in the body. And here's another thing I thought... Imagine how good it would be if politicians all over the world buried the hatchet of war with a real axe instead. It would be much more useful and productive. And they would kick their shit out and warm up. But so far, alas, they are best able to desperately cut a branch on which a fragile peace rests. At least they have a stake on their heads!

The fifth, jubilee wood picking championship among the media on November 8 will be held in a traditional place - on the shore of the Vyach reservoir. The program has a whole range of fascinating and very difficult exercises: picking firewood (with and without knots), cutting logs with an axe, picking firewood in a presidential manner, relay (scoring and extracting a nail, spinning a log, picking firewood, breeding a fire). As well as competitions “Test for strength” (participant-woman must split the shoe into two parts, using a wooden wedge and cast-iron pan) and “One blow” (a male participant with one blow must split with an axe-colon pre-prepared 10 pads).

s kanashyts@sb.by