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Let’s get ready to rumble.

Unfortunately, I mean that figuratively rather than literally. In the latest example of political correctness
 run amok, it looks as though the city is going to prevent the organizers of this month’s Russian end-of-winter
 festival in Prospect Park from staging a thousand-year-old Russian tradition that calls for two teams of 50
 bare-chested men to slug it out with their bare fists.

Can you imagine the hubris! This city didn’t even EXIST when Russian men began the annual tradition of beating
 each other senseless in a test of strength called a “stenka na stenku” (wall on wall). Yet this noble Russian
 tradition -- which is described lovingly in Lermontov's immortal poem, "The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov"
 -- is apparently not proper for New York.

Organizers of the festival, which will (hopefully) be held on Feb. 23-24 at the Prospect Park bandshell and is
 co-sponsored by the Russian newspaper, Novoe Russkoye Slovo, do not have all the permits they need. And the
 sticking point seems to be the 100-man battlecade that has been the climactic event at Russian winter fests
 ever since, well, ever since there WERE Russians.

And it’s not as if festival organizers haven’t made concessions to New York’s frailties. “Of course we
 understand our responsibilities,” said organizer Vitaly Sherman. “We will have an ambulance standing by. We’re
 not barbarians, you know.”

For Sherman, the wall-on-wall brawl is as much a part of a Russian winter festival -- which is based on the
 1500-year-old pagan festival called a maslenitza -- as gypsy dancing, Petrushka the clown, balalaika
 performances, and heaping plates of blini and shish-kabob.

Organizers want to hold the festival in Prospect Park as a way of sharing Russian culture with all
 Brooklynites, most of whom never seem to make it out to Brighton Beach. 

Borough President Marty Markowitz praised the organizers' efforts to expose all of Brooklyn to Russian
 traditions.

"Anything that allows families to learn about each other's traditions, that's something I can support," said
 the colorful Markowitz. But Markowitz was speaking generally. Even the beep, who knows a thing or two about
 showmanship, stopped well short of supporting the wall-on-wall.

That didn't deter Sherman. "It is not an authentic festival without the stena na stenku," he said, "We want to
 present this to Americans so they can learn about Russia. Russians are very easy going. If we lose a tooth, we
 lose a tooth. No big deal."

Well, apparently, it IS a big deal to the city. A spokeswoman for the Parks Department got nervous and referred
 all calls to Prospect Park Alliance. Tupper Thomas, head of the Alliance, said she was unaware that the
 organizers' proposal called for a no-holds-barred fistfight and told The Gnome that she could not support
 anything that involved bloodshed, no matter how culturally relevant.

All the details, she said, would be worked out at a meeting Wednesday when, no doubt, the Alliance is going to
 tear down Sherman's "wall."

Will the Prospect Park Alliance come to its senses? Will the festival organizers have to renounce 1500 years of
 tradition? Will 100 men get to take off their shits and beat each other up?

As they say in Moscow, stay tuned.


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gersh.kuntzman@verizon.net