Amid Turmoil, Edirne Readies for 655th Kirkpinar

While Turkey is wrestling with a coup attempt and the vio­lent events that erupted from it result­ing in 161 dead and 1,440 wounded, there is no announce­ment to post­pone the 655^th Kırkpınar olive oil wrestling tour­na­ment.

The tra­di­tional con­test is still expected to take place between 18 – 24 July in Edirne. On the 20^th, there will be con­certs fea­tur­ing the famous Turkish singers Sertab Erener and Hüsnü Şenlendirici. In addi­tion to music, there will be a tra­di­tional cook­ing con­test, folk dances and an archery fes­ti­val com­ple­ment­ing the wrestling con­test.

The munic­i­pal­ity of Edirne will award 216,000 Turkish liras, or $71,524 in the U.S. Dollars, which has been on the rise in Turkey since the coup attempt.

Even though there has been no announce­ment to can­cel or post­pone the tour­na­ment, one can­not help but won­der if it will take place with­out com­pli­ca­tions given the cur­rent state of the coun­try.

The peo­ple of the city of Edirne, which hosts the event, were on the streets protest­ing last night, express­ing their reac­tions to the ongo­ing events.

There are more than 50 olive-oil wrestling tour­na­ments held annu­ally around the coun­try, mark­ing a dis­tinct usage of the prod­uct. Among the many Turkish wrestling tour­na­ments, Kırkpınar is the most famous with the many myths that sur­round it.

Last year, Orhan Okulu from Antalya was the last man stand­ing, tak­ing home the cov­eted gold belt and title of Başpehlivan (head wrestler).

Oil wrestling in Edirne began in the Ottomanic era. According to one leg­end, when Orhan Ghazi was plan­ning to invade Rumelia, the army stopped near Samona which lies within Greece’s bound­aries today. Forty men started wrestling as they usu­ally did in their remis­sions. After many hours passed, two men remained stand­ing, and went on to con­tinue their duel. Neither of them could beat the other one.

On another occa­sion, the same cou­ple started wrestling once again, this time on a meadow near Edirne. They wres­tled the whole day and con­tin­ued through­out the night, illu­mi­nated by can­dles and lanterns. They lit­er­ally fought to their death. Their friends ended up bury­ing them under a fig tree.

When they vis­ited the same place years later, they saw a spring where their friends had per­ished, flow­ing abun­dantly. From that day on, the area was called Kırkpınar, which means ​“forty springs” in Turkish. In the years fol­low­ing, the oil wrestling tour­na­ment turned into an offi­cial tra­di­tion declared by the sul­tan.

This year, more than 2,000 oil wrestlers are expected to par­tic­i­pate, rub­bing some 2,000 kilo­grams of olive oil pre­pared for the con­test, mak­ing their skins slip­pery to be more dif­fi­cult to over­take.

They will first sub­merge their right hands in a ves­sel full of oil and water, rub it over their left shoul­ders, chest, arm and kispet, the tra­di­tional cloth­ing for the fes­ti­val. Then they will do the same with their left hands. After the wrestling starts, they will be free to take more oil from an atten­dant who will walk around the field car­ry­ing a pitcher.