Only women can play the Lappish football! The rules are quite simple: it is played only by women in long sarafans (Russian traditional women’s dress) with a ball made of deer’s skin. Each team has five players, and the aim is to put the ball over the rival’s line, preferably by feet. There is a curious thing about the game, which makes it so amusing and fascinating: the ball can be hidden under the skirt, and what is more, women are allowed to take part irrespective of their age and constitution. So, men can do nothing but support the fair players in red and blue sarafans.

One can see the unusual Lappish female football only during the annual festival in Lovozero (the village in the Murmansk region, Russia). Nowadays the rules of this game have been simplified, and the male teams are also allowed, but indispensably in sarafans!