Today, rugby ranks as one of the most popular sports in Georgia, second only to football. This rise in popularity is largely attributed to the national team’s successful performances on the international stage. Experts predict that it won’t be long before Georgian rugby players compete on equal footing with giants like Australia, England, and New Zealand. The secret to the success of Georgian rugby lies in the fact that a similar game has been played here for centuries, known as “lelo.”
“Lelo” is an ancient Georgian battle cry that translates to “to strike with force.” Interestingly, this term is still used in Georgian sports terminology to refer to a try in rugby. The game of lelo is still played in a village in western Georgia today.
One version of the game’s origins dates back to the summer of 1855, when Hasan-beg Tavdgiridze, leading an army of 9,000 troops—primarily comprised of converted Georgians and Turkish askers—invaded Georgia. Hasan-beg sent word: “We will fight you for as long as you can muster men.” On the Georgian side, there were two thousand Gurian fighters, known as the militia, alongside 500 Russian soldiers. The Gurian forces pushed Tavdgiridze’s army back to Lanchkhuti, and the decisive battle took place in the then village of Shukhuti, known historically as the “Battle of Shukhutperdi.”
The Gurian fighters expelled Tavdgiridze’s army, and on that very day, Hasan-beg himself met his eternal fate. Over 5,000 soldiers from his army perished, while the Gurian forces suffered losses of only about 300 men. Since those times, “lelo” has been celebrated at the site of the battle, in the village of Shukhuti, every year on Easter.
A famous song, “Khasanbegura,” recounts how the nobleman Erasti Chkonia beheaded Hasan-beg Tavdgiridze with a single stroke of his sword during the battle, and the game of lelo in Shukhuti echoes that historic conflict. Each year, lelo in Shukhuti begins on Easter at 5 PM, and it is utterly impossible to predict when it will end. The match features a ball made from the hide of livestock, weighing exactly 16 kilograms, as the teams from Upper and Lower Shukhuti clash against each other.
Lelo is a fiercely physical game, exclusively male, and it often ends in injuries. Longtime residents remember times when the field bore the weight of fatalities. The game always commences with a service at the local church. Each leather ball is specially crafted, filled with sand, wool, and sawdust soaked in wine. The local priest throws the ball from the church’s threshold, followed by the sound of a gunshot, signaling the residents of Lower and Upper Shukhuti to engage in a fierce contest.
Victory goes to the team that successfully carries the ball to their side and places it at the bridge spanning the river. Another tradition follows the game: the ball is buried at the grave of the last villager to pass away. The Shukhuti cemetery serves as a sort of “museum of sporting glory,” where numerous lelo balls rest upon both old and new graves, a testament to the game’s enduring legacy.
This, in brief, is the story of how this beloved game came to be in Georgia. It is no wonder that today’s Georgian rugby fans proudly declare, “Rugby is our game!”
