Lapta (russian: лапта́) is a Russian bat and ball game first known to be played in the 14th century. Mentions of lapta have been found in medieval manuscripts, and balls and bats were found in the 14th-century layers during excavations in Novgorod. It is similar to

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

, brännboll,

rounders Rounders is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams. Rounders is a striking and fielding team game that involves hitting a small, hard, leather-cased ball with a rounded end wooden, plastic, or metal bat. The players score by running arou ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

oină ''Oină'' () is a Romanian traditional sport, similar in many ways to baseball. History The name "oină" was originally "hoina", and is derived from the Cuman word ''oyn'' "game" (a cognate of Turkish ''oyun''). The oldest direct mention come ...

, tsan (Italy) and

pesäpallo Pesäpallo (; sv, boboll, both names literally meaning "nest ball", colloquially known in Finnish as pesis, also referred to as Finnish baseball) is a fast-moving bat-and-ball sport that is often referred to as the national sport of Finland a ...

Rules

The game is played outside on a field the size of half a

football pitch A football pitch (also known as soccer field) is the playing surface for the game of association football. Its dimensions and markings are defined by Law 1 of the Laws of the Game, "The Field of Play". The pitch is typically made of natural t ...

20 × 25

sazhen A native system of weights and measures was used in Imperial Russia and after the Russian Revolution, but it was abandoned after 21 July 1925, when the Soviet Union adopted the metric system, per the order of the Council of People's Commissars. ...

s (). There are five people on the field from the defending team, as well as pitcher/server. This pitcher server stands near the batter of the opposing team and hits a ball in the direction of the batter. The team that bats contains six people. Each hitter gets two chances to hit the ball over a 10m line. If they succeed at that, the runners can go to an endline at the other end of the pitch. If a player manages to run between the two endpoints, they get 2 points. A game lasts an hour, split into two equal halves. The edges of the field are marked with parallel lines, called ''salo''. The goal of the game is to hit the ball, served by a player of the opposite team, with the bat and send the ball as far as possible, then run across the field to the ''kon'' line, and if possible to run back to the ''gorod'' line. The running player tries to avoid being hit with the ball, which is thrown by the opposing team members. For successful runs, the team earns points. A team wins by either getting more points during the scheduled time or by having all its players complete runs. A description of lapta is given by

Aleksandr Kuprin Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin (russian: link=no, Александр Иванович Куприн; – 25 August 1938) was a Russian writer best known for his novels ''The Duel'' (1905)Kuprin scholar Nicholas Luker, in his biography ''A ...

This folk game is one of the most interesting and useful games. Lapta requires resourcefulness, deep breathing, faithfulness to your group, attention, dexterity, fast running, good aiming and marksmanship, strong striking hands, and firm eternal confidence that you cannot be defeated. The lazy and cowardly have no place in this game.

References

{{Team Sport Ball and bat games Team sports Russian games Russian inventions Sports originating in Russia