**SILVER AND GOLD OF CHILDHOOD**

All children love to play. A child without this passion is hardly a healthy child.
  But the situation is: a talent for the game as a talent in youth for love is given not to everybody, but everybody wants to play. Of course, children with disabilities or too shy could not participate in just any game; in this case, the people have created dozens of accessible games, in which a par with the abled children could play disabled children.
 Here is one of such simple old games. After being asked grandmother's handkerchief, one of the children, dressed up as an old woman, takes a stick and, hunched over, stomping on the road. All run for the "old lady," vying to ask: -" The old, old lady, where you are going? - To the monastery. - Take me with you. "Old lady" allows under delicate condition. All ceremoniously go to the monastery, but the pilgrims begin to make embarrassing sounds with the mouth, and "old woman" suddenly discovers extraordinary agility. everybody shrieking with laughter flee from "her" in different directions. For the sake of the happy moment another "old lady" dresses up, the game is repeated.
 Another game is "The Raven." A kid sits and digs a hole. In the pit are pebbles. Players go around him saying: "Cocoon-Kokonaevich, Raven-Ravenovich, long nose. Help you, God! "The Raven" is silent. As if not, it doesn't hear. - What, Raven, you are doing? - Shouted into his ear. - "Dig a hole" - responds at last "the Raven." - What to use for the dig? - Pebbles can be put in it. - What pebbles are for? - And your children to hit with them. With what my kids vexed you? - They ruined onions and potatoes in the garden… - How high there was the fence? Raven-Ravenovich throws up a handful of pebbles. All run away and scream: "Too high, high, we cannot jump it over!"
The ancient game of "The Duck" is also very simple, but young children are very fond of it, such as the Raven-Ravenovich game. A kid playing the Duck walks in a circle under a strange, at first glance, not a children song: "Duck Uti-Uti, you have nowhere to go, if I had a noose, I would have hanged myself, if I had a sharp knife, then cut myself, if there were a deep lake - drowned ..."
The Duck needs to break out of the circle and catch a new Duck. The game's beauty is probably connected with the psychological contrast of the sad beginning and a cheerful conclusion.
There was a game of "The sieve" when children who barely learned to walk would stand in single file, and one asks from the front a "sieve" to sift the flour and is told: "Go take it back." If the last one has time to run from the rear to the front, then you have to ask again "the sieve."
In the "Monk" game played by older children, the one who would be chased first had to guess colours - for example, "white" or "black"? If you guess right, then you are carried on the hands. You have to throw back the head and do whatever not to laugh. "Hello?" - "I cannot." - Laugh. - "I cannot." If you laugh, then you stay a monk for a second term.
Children played in the "The Haves." game in the long winter evenings. The driver was blindfolded, led up to the post, saying: - Where are you standing? - At the post. - What are you drinking? - Tea and berries. - Catch us in two years! "
The "blind" tried to catch, and if endangering him to stumble on the jamb or sharp angle, it was shouted to him: "Fire!" So the first kid who was caught became the "blind."
From a very early age, the girls loved to play the bones game at any time of year. The joint bones left from the lamb jelly were accumulated stored in individual birch boxes; on occasion, they were even painted. The game was not competitive, though very long, multi-stepped, and it helped to develop dexterity and reaction. For example, most nimble kept three or four bone ankles in the air simultaneously tossed new and had time to catch.
 In the spring, dressed warmly, but in what one can find, small children hold a game "hopscotch," usually in a sunny place.
 Two or three planks put on a rock instantly transformed into a house, thawed in the garden shards and fragments transformed into expensive dishes. Then, imitating adults, five-six-year-old girls went from a cell to a cell and made visits.
For boys of the same age, fathers or grandfathers always made "coaches" - genuine carts on four wheels. The wheels even were greased with tar, not to creak. Using the "coaches," children were taken "hay," "wood," "went to the wedding," just given rides to each other, in turn, transformed into the horses. The "coach" accompanies all the fast-passing childhood of boys, until the games and fun of teenagers.
With age, the games usually get more complex and increase physical demands.
 The game team was formed mainly from peers. So you can easily imagine how juniors looked at them. Envy, admiration, impatience has always shone in their eyes. Eventually, his mute request accepted a younger player into the game. But now, do not expect any handicap!
 There was a game called «the Fly." Each player had a bat. On a flat, reasonably extensive meadow was hammered into the ground a very flexible fir stake. If you put a wooden "the fly" on top of the stake and strike at its base, "the fly" will fly quite far. The game began with the tumbling of bats. One had to throw the bat so that it tumbled, "strode" as far as possible. Force was sometimes just a hindrance. Whose bat provided the closest was obliged to lead, run and pick up "the fly." The players have driven down small sticks along one line at a distance of four to five meters from the stake.
 Then, trying to hit the stake, they threw the bat one by one. If the "fly" flew faraway, the player was to run to get his bat and return to defend the sticks. If "the fly" flew close by or he did not hit the stake at all, then the player had to wait for the next player's turn. If the "fly" fell from the stake in a specially-defined circle, the player had to be the driver himself. Good hits kept the driver in the game by hours until exhaustion. But now everybody hit, and everybody failed. Then the last has to try. After his stroke, all run to get their bats. The chased, if "the fly" remained on the stake, could capture any stick. While the "the fly" flies, one had run to catch it and put on any "free" post. The owner of the post has a right to knock it off. From where the "fly" landed, he hits, and if he misses, he will be chased.
The game is entirely uncompromising; it does not allow handicaps because of the age, not allowing cheating, not sparing the weak or incompetent. To cry or ask permission to quit was considered the most unnatural, the most shameful. One had to stand up whatever it takes and win. Sometimes, the game shifted to the next day. What kind of night spent a boy, who lost, is difficult to imagine.
Wrestling and boxing are the oldest sports games; they held once an important place in Russian life. It is difficult to talk now about the exact rules of these games. But the fact that there were some stringent rules is beyond doubt. Fights took place on the meadow, in free time, mostly during holidays; fighters were matched on the same physical level. The game was loved by all ages, from early childhood. Young men loved to fight too, but more and more with age, it was a playful attitude to the entertainment. The fistfights apparently could initiate a massive thrill; they attracted men without regard for age or character.
During the twenties and thirties of the XX centuries, Fights still had faint signs of the ancient sport. Usually, they began with the children, for the wronged weak stood up the stronger, for them, in turn, entered even more powerful until the adults were drawn into the brawl. But when the excitement reached a dangerous point, there appeared strong and, at the same time, good-natured and fair people who separated the fighters.
Another echo of the ancient rules of fistfights was that no one had the right to use a stick or stone; it was mandatory to use only their own fists. Ignoring this rule finalized the complete degeneration of the fights. But even with the wild skirmishes with stakes, stones, weight-bells, iron sticks, even in these conditions for a long time, there was a custom to make peace. Intermediaries were elected, two relatives or named brothers of the two warring sides. The drinks were provided, and people drank to the truce, often it was new fraternization; yesterday's rivals also became friends and brothers. The ritual of fraternization consisted of a triple kiss in front of witnesses.
 Games of men, children and adolescents were drastically different for girls and women. Although the general characteristics (interest, creativity, etc.) would remain, finding a more striking example of folk tradition contrast is hard. However, the available features (curiosity, creativity, etc.) would remain. Softness, condescension, lack of excitement and harshness are typical for girls' games. Interestingly, boys, especially at an early age, wanted to play in the girls' games, such as "bones" or "cells." However, even adults, not to mention peers, regarded such a request with an ironic smile, sometimes caustically altogether.
 Tomboys have not also been respected, eager to play boyish games. This girl was called not a very honourable name "suparen" - under-boy. This does not mean that boys and girls did not play together. There were a dozen or so popular games attended by children of both sexes.
An example is the game «gal» - complicated, in several stages, the game of hide and seek, playing with a softball. Imagine a warm, windless summer evening when you did your duties, but the cattle had not yet arrived. Several key players are already hanging around on a broad street. What kind of heart did not tremble and enthusiastically freeze when you heard a call from the street? One after another, who at a gallop, who sideways, was slipping away together.
A hubbub stops after two "queens" are chosen, they immediately establish the order and start the game. The crowd is divided into pairs; they are selected not by age but by physical and psychological matching. But there are no two people, ideally identical by wit, dexterity and endurance. Therefore, each "queen» tries to guess when selecting the best. Pairs of opponents diverge away, whispering, coming up with a nickname or feature. Couples in turns approach the team leaders, first to the one, then to another, asking: "Do you take "spring" or "fall? White or black? Perch or roach? Sour or sweet"?
Even selecting nicknames begins work of imagination, fantasy, and sense of humour, if it is established by nature in a player. Splitting this way into two identical teams, children begin the game.
  "Lapta" is the best example of a popular game… The game of softball allowed the participation of all children, not excluding too shy, orphans, poor, visitors. Popular games for children of both sexes are especially characteristic of the holidays because at other times, children, like adults, could not get together because of fieldwork and school.
Returning to the girls' games, I must say about their particular lyrical property, sparing physical capabilities and promoting femininity. If a boy's game developed strength and agility, girls' games almost entirely ignored such demands. Softness and pliability were simply required. Imitation of adults, as always, played a crucial, albeit perfunctory role.
 Here's a picture of the memories from Anfisa Ivanovna. Two girls of four to five years in the tiny boots, in the sarafan with festive handkerchiefs in their hands, dance in a circle, shoulder to shoulder, on the meadow around the house. And they sing with complete seriousness about themselves: "Our little white veils burnt in the fire, Nastenka's daddy died, Manyushka's daddy went the war." What to do for an adult: cry or laugh for such a sight? You don't know. The girls arranged imaginative field works, weddings, holidays, visits. "the line" was also their favourite game, especially in early spring. A game of jumping on a flexible board placed on a log was mainly for the girls, but this game had already dominated a sports element. "Jumping" wasn't overlooked by grown-up girls, but only on holidays.
 Musical ornamentation, songs and tong-twisters for girls morphed into folk dance elements. Youth festivals, dance, all the fun of young adults, respectively, do not lose the main properties of child play. Amusements were not excluded by labour but instead were included by it. Of course, not everybody turned out well, but ideally, the national imagination always felt this way. That one who was talented in the children's game was talented in the dance and at work. Therefore, the division in the traditional aesthetics for labour, simple way of life and folklore is conditional.
"A young man stepped three times, leaned forward, put his hand on the knee briskly, with another hand-picked up the bone. He took the aim ... go away, curious people! Move away: do not interfere with the dashing Russian game." Alexander. Pushkin