[ausjulius]

hello from the caucasus,,

ok.. firstly,,
about the phisical size thing...
caucascian people generaly are not very larg or muscualr,, as all people living in high altetudes there genetics tend to keep the short, and slim,
mostly the men and women are of a similar height,
as the laqnd levels out the people tend to be taller,,
the average male height would be maybe 5 foot 7 or so,,
some are much bigger and some are much shorter,
the wrestling comes not from size but from the large interest in wrestling and the large amount of locals enguaged in the sport,, hence the state even now in cash strapped times premots competitions in wrestling teakwondo , judo and other martial sports,,

the wilder folk of the caucasus,, seem to be of a quite mixed ethnicity,, but the more settled people , armenians , georgians , aziris , seem to be mostly ethnicly homogenius,
mostly the south caucascians seem to be orientials,, as people in persia and turkey , and greece and the middle east..
while the north caucascians seem to be another ethnic group, or mix of ethnic groups ,
some of the lowland people are decended from the mongols and other central asian and siberian invaders, some are natives to the area, others are decended from indoeuropean groups who invaded the area 3000 years ago,,

the afgans seem to me , form seeing many to be also a not very large folk, although the european ones,, , by european i mean they look as europeans , blond or brown hair and such, seem on par with europeans in size , although thinner,,

in afghansitan and other areas in persian ans such for along time there has been a presence of both russians and at times caucascians,, either trading things , or as mercenaries,
the making of shashkas in central asia predates the russian invasions , and no doubt originates form contact with caucascians , you must remember that dagestan is only seperated form central asia by the caspian sea,,
also before the russian invasions there was immergtration to central asia , by russians , tatars,, and also by peoples atwar with imperial russia, some of there were causcians , but many were nogai , mongol peoples living in sothern russia,, most were exsterminated buy the russians ,, the only remaining group in in north dagestan and north east chechnya,, many of the nogai immergarted central asia , many setteling in uzbekistan ,
and assimilating in with the locals, also the kalmykis , living in sothern russia came under prusser and many immergrated back to centra asia,,
although many stayed behind ,, in what is now kalmykya,
these people all used one form or another of the caucascian shashka,
to this day there is tatars in both china and afghanistan ,,
these weapons were introduced by these migrations , hence there was shashkas made in egypt,, jordan , turkey, serbia, east turkmenistan (occpied in the 50s by china)
central asia, iran,, ect ect ,
the central asian and afghan shashkas are more heaverly bladed than the caucascian ones , this is for afew reasons,,
one is the technique used in combat,, another is the change in combat in the caucasus,,
afghanistan and cantral asia amour was still common in the 19th centuary, but in the causasus due to heavy fighting wiht the russians it was discarded as being unweildly, earily shashkas have much heavier balades and are generaly longer,
the traditional caucascian shashka has the handle going into the sheath , like on a finnish pukko knife,,
only the russian made shashkas have the handle on the outside, this was for perade and dress perpouses ,a nd because it looked better when hung on the wall,
these swords are made in zlatoust or tula in siberia,,
most cossaks used the caucascian form with the handle going into the sheath , the afghan swords derived from the caucascian not russian style,
many caucascian metla workers worked in centralasia in the 19th centuary and many immergrated to live in some of the majoir cities,,