The area now. Not Kiprinos in Greece, but Svilengrad in Bulgaria the place where the first Kirkpinar was held.

One of the utmost shrines of Turkish National Pride, Kirkpinar, the birthplace of Worlds Most Macho Sport, lies just over the Greece border. According to the Ministry of Culture. For oilwrestler Murat "no problem"... even Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic, was born in Greece, but we moved and rebuild his original birthhouse in Ankara."

In 1912 a first Kirkpinar-of Oilwrestling-contest was held in the village of Virantekke. Due the Balkan War the original wrestleground of Kirkpinar near Samona had to be left. According information on the website of Turkish Ministry is Virantekke to be "located between Edirne and Mustafapasha road".
You can probably locate Virantekke ("Abandoned Cloister" in Turkish) it if you use a detailed map of the area some 75 years old. That Mustafapasha road is now commonly known as the E 80, Virantekke itself was renamed Kapitan-Andreevo in 1924. That very same year the village was added to the Khaskovo province of Bulgaria.

According to the Turkish Ministry of Culture there are "several rumors" about the beginning of Kirkpinar Wrestling.
The most famous legend starts in 1346, when Ottoman sultan Orhan Gazi´s invaded Thrace, the area of the present Greek/Turk/Bulgaria border. Its history dates from the Paleolithic era with the appearance of the first Thracian tribes. In the period of Roman domination (2nd and 3rd century B.C.) the Thracian civilization reached a peak. In this period the Bourdipta Sidewaystation was built, through which the Roman road from Philippopolis (Plovdiv) to Adrianople (Odrin) passed. Over centuries Thrace was the link between East and West.
Sultanbrother Süleyman Pasha and a 40 people frontier unit passed the Maritsa River, attacked the Byzantine Domuzhisar (‘Pigs Bastion') and captured several strongholds.
On their return the forty warriors had a break and camped at a place called Ahir Kapi Cayiri or the Ahir Köy Meadow. A place to be "near Edirne".
But how far is "near"? And is Ahirköy the same place as the village named Ahiköy, some miles north of the point where the borders of Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria meet?

According the legend the soldiers started oilwrestling. At the end two brothers, Ali and Selim Pehlivan, could not beat each other.
Süleyman Pasha decided to stop when the night came. The unfinished match had to be continued during the annual Hidrelez day, a spring festival now set on May 5 and 6. The Sultanbrother promised the winner a leather pant (kispet).
And they continue their match some time later in a place "near Samona.", to decide once and for all who would be the victor.

The contest began in the early hours of the morning, and by midnight neither had won. Both, wearing the non-leather wrestlingpant ("pirpet"), wanted the leather kispet so bad that even Süleyman Pasha could stop them. They continued to wrestling all night, lighted by torches and candles.
But even these strongest men in world strongest army had a limit. They had exerted themselves so much so that both died of exhaustion .
Their comrades buried them under a fig tree
And nailed the kispet on that tree and left.
After years the group returned in the area to visit the graves of the brothers.
Instead of their graves they found a sparkling fountain "with abundant water" on the burial site. The soldiers noticed several other springs around the site. So this place was named KIRKPINAR (Forty Springs). Forty in memory of the original number of members of their unit.

Samona the only original Kirkpinar

The Ministry of Culture: "The field within Samona village of Greece is the original Kirkpinar."

According to the official history it was in 1460 at Kirkpinar that the first of the annual oilwrestling tournaments were organized in honor of the two soldierbrothers, Quit normal, because everywhere in the Ottoman Empire were oilwrestling championships. Competitions were held outside palaces for charity, There was Wedding wrestling, Ramadan wrestling, Charity Wrestling and city-competitions. But the Grand Stand for all the champions of local competition turned out to be the match of Kirkpinar on the field near the village of Samona.

Samona Samonás?

Are there reminders of that first Kirkpinar? As Kirkpinar literally means Fourty Springs, one of the most outstanding features of the Thracian landscape are the wetlands. Wetlands formed by springs that form rivers like the Evros, Maritsa and the Nestos.
The Turkish Ministry says that Samona is just over the Greece border. That is the region of the Evros prefecture of Thrace, the most northeastern province of Greece. Virtually untouched by tourism.
Names in Thrace can be confusing. Some have been almost unchanged over centuries. Some placenames have been official changed but sometimes their old names are used or remembered by the population.
Samona in Greece, as said to be "the only original Kirkpinar.". But even on the most detailed maps no Kirkpinar nor Samona. I even checked historical maps of the area back to 1849 and 1856. No trace of Samona in Thrace, but there is a tiny village called Samonás to be found elsewhere in Greece!

An old Turkish fort is overlooking Samonas village. During a coffee at Yiannis Coffeeshop we hear the place is called after Saint Samonas. His beautiful Byzantine church perched high above the entrance of the Bay. Saint Samonas was a holy "Abibas" and killed in Syria. There are more martyrs around. Row upon row of immaculately kept headstones of young soldiers at the Allied War Cemetary.
Killed here during the Battle of Crete. Right, Samonas is on the Crete-island. Greece territory just a few miles off the Turkish coast.
Certain "just over the border".
But at 35N, 24E just to far from Thrace to be that historical place, where, according to the Guinness Book of World Records "world's oldest continuously sanctioned sporting competition started".

Samona Samothraki (Samothrace)?

Was the Samona of the Kirkpinar Samothraki (Samothrace)? Capital of the most northerly Greece island in the Aegean? Administratively included in the Evros prefecture of Thrace.
According to the famous Greek Historian Herodotus, around 700 B.C., Greeks came from Samos and that is the reason that Homer calls the island Samothraki (Thracian Samos). Place where that famous statue of the Winged Victory of Nike was robbed. (now in the Louvre, Paris).

After 3 hours the ferry from Alexandroupoli docks in the little port of Kamariotissa.
The city of Samothraki is built on a mountain, it commands a dominating position over the surrounding sea and island towns. The whole island is thickly wooded. From the port a road leads to Paleopoli (Old Town), 6 km north in an area of unbelievable beauty.
Here once rituals and wrestling-games took place that made Samothraki a well known religious center. Nothing is known about what used to be performed here. All initiated were bound with awesome oaths never to reveal a single thing about the doings. Pausanias, the 2nd century A.D. traveller, mentions that the festival here took place annually from late July to early August. But was it the place of the Kirkpinar? Was Samothraki the Samona thast so mysterious has disappeared after 1912. All here are ruins. In the Rotunda of Arsinoe certain wrestling took place. Centuries before Suleyman Pasha and his 40 man unit were born. That famous fountain of Nike was robbed just a century ago from its Winged Victory. The museum of Samothraki has a plaster replica of this most famous sportstatue. And no, never heard about some Kirkpinar.

Kirkpinar... maybe it is Kiprínos in Greece. A rural tiny village between Edirne and Zóni, called Kemer in Ottoman times. The complete population was replaced after the first Balkan War. The spot is close enough to be the historic site of that legendary first Kirkpinar. But Kiprinos lacks a "nearby Samona".
Non of the small villages in that area has ever been known so. Neither Marásia, Pláti, Rízia, Stérna ("The Cistern"), Kavilli, Néa Vissa, Néa Orestiás, Váltos, Pendálofos, Petrotá, Pteléa. nor Kavílim has ever been called Samona in its past..

Samona now Svilengrad

The only place known as Samona was near Svilengrad. Not in Greece but just like Virantekke in Bulgaria. About 9 km north-west of the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint on the Bulgarian-Turkish border and just 6 km from Mezek. One of the strongholds known to be captured by Süleyman Pasha.

Let the legends about Süleyman Pasha probably just a story, fact is that Svelingrad is a place with wrestling-traces dating back centuries before the Ottoman army arrived. Samona/Svelingrad was founded on the ruins of a Thracian settlement in the close vicinity of the late-antiquity Bourdipta Sideway Station. Through which the Roman road from Philippopolis (Plovdiv) to Adrianople (Odrin) passed.
The Bourdipta was wrestling ground when the Bulgars moved into the area in 681. And it remained so after Süleyman Pasha arrived to establish the Ottoman Empire.
Despite the Kirkpinar-legends, the spot was already for centuries in use as wrestling ground. It must have been the plave where Ali and Selim Pehlivan fought their fatal match during that Spring Festival of 1346.

The field at the Bourdipta remained for centuries the place where the Kirkpinar was held. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 the Treaty of Berlin formed the Autonomous Region of Eastern Rumelia. Svilengrad (and nearby Krikpinar) just escaped to be lost and remained within the territory of the Ottoman Empire.

During the Balkan War of 1912 Svilengrad was burned down and devastated by the Turks.
That year a first Kirkpinar-contest was held in the nearby village of Virantekke.

The Kirkpinar never returned to its original ground, as it was 23 years later removed again. Now to the Sarayiçi island near Edirne.
It was in 1924 that the contest was for the first time called "National Chapionship of Oilwrestling". By official decree the first Edirne Kirkpinar winner, Bendi Abdüllah, was not called "Baspehlivan of Kirkpinar" but "Champion of Turkey".

Once established as the Edirne Kirkpinar, the original birthplace and cradle of that glorious Most Macho Sport at Kirkpinar was just remembered by its name and several mythical stories.

There is another place called Kirkpinar. Northwest of Urfa halfway the road to Bozova. Map of Kirkpinar on the other end of Turkey, there is a place called Pehlivanköy south of Babaeski.

© by Mohamed el-Fers

.If anybody has information or additions, please mail it to kirkpinar@hotmail.com

Maps by http://www.expedia.com/
Historical Maps of The Balkans
Historical map Macedonia 1849
Balkans 1856
Khaskovska, Bulgaria Map & Placename Index

Links
Turkish Ministry of Culture
Guinness Book of World Records
Turkish legends from the Ox institute
Turkey history page
Crimean War
Historical Text Archive

Used sources:
Bulgarian Standart News in English email: komentari@standartnews.com

To some, the story of Kirkpinar was invented under Selim Sirri Tarcan (1974-1956), an officer who also invented the Sporbayram for Atatürk (page 1095 Carl Diem´s Weltgeschichte des Sport). There is also a Selim Sirri Tarcan Spor Salonu in Ankara.

Early reports of the Kirkpinar by German teacher Hermann Niebuhr (page 348 Carl Diem´s Weltgeschichte des Sport).

4650 years of oilwrestling continued...

Oilwrestlers, Babelonic bronze 2650 B.C. from Chafadji © Carl Diem Archiv, Köln, page 104 Weltgeschichte des Sports und der Leiberserziehung, Cotta Verlag 1960 Stuttgart

It is a long way from the Babelonic oilwrestlers of that 4650 year old Babelonic bronze to the nowadays Kirkpinars. Only two cities call their contest KIRKPINAR: Edirne and Amsterdam. As during the 636th annual KIRKPINAR of Edirne, the agha Hüseyin Sahin granted Mr. Veyis Güngör (chairman of Türkevi Amsterdam) and Mohamed el-Fers (MokumTV Amsterdam) to use the name Amsterdam KIRKPINAR to promote historical oilwrestling in Europe.

The late Hüseyin Sahin was agha of the Edirne Kirkpinars in 1995, ¨96, ´97 and ´98. In his speech, attended by Turkish president Süleyman Demirel, Edirne-mayor Hamdi Sedefçi, Veyis Güngör and Mohamed el-Fers, Mr Sahin said that the KIRKPINAR will exceeds the borders of Turkey and unite the world.

So the Mother of All Sports came in 1997 for the first time ever as Amsterdam Kirkpinar to Europe. In a few years the Amsterdam Kirkpinar became the most important annual KIRKPINAR after Edirne.

As said the Edirne is the National Turkish Championship. As the winners of the categories of the Amsterdam KIRKPINAR in Holland are considered to be European Champions, this creates the strange fact that according international standards the Amsterdam Kirkpinar tops Edirne, as latter being the National championship of Turkey only, repudiating non-Turkish entries. The only solution seems to be to declare the Edirne official the "World Championship" to enable non-Turkish winners of the Amsterdam Kirkpinar enter what still is the Greatest Oilwrestling Event in the World.

The introduction of traditional Turkish oilwrestling in Europe was initiated by Veyis Güngör and Mohamed el-Fers.

Due to its unique opportunities for photographers and filmers alike, that first Amsterdam KIRKPINAR was widely covered by the international media in the Netherlands and Turkey as well as CNN. Nowadays the Amsterdam KIRKPINAR is the most successful ethnic sportevent in the Netherlands as well as in Europe.

It is not hard to relish and enjoy the great moments of the Edirne and Amsterdam KIRKPINARs with the very best of oilwrestling filmed by MokumTV.

This local Amsterdam television broadcaster introduced as first in the world Turkish Oilwrestling on a weekly schedule on the 4th of September 1996. And the show "Most Macho" is still running every Monday evening on the local A1 channel. The very best oilwrestlingpictures are the MokumTV grabs you will find at

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