Members of the Kunduz Central Club and their director, Mohammad Anwar (center).

In a large, renovated warehouse in Afghanistan's Kunduz City, 24 young athletes are training like madmen. They are dressed in mostly dirty, mismatched gis and colored belts that signify their will to improvise, rather than the achievement of a certain skill level. Here they only use the equipment that is available—a giant mat and their own bodies.

They take turns carrying each other on their shoulders and successively jumping over and crawling under each other. As many as four athletes line up and bend at the waist, while one of their brothers launches himself like a flying squirrel over their backs. It’s both impressive and exhausting to watch.

It’s also encouraging to see this many young men of military age in Afghanistan not pointing guns at each other. Instead, they are cooperating in training for the one thing that all Afghans—whether they're Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, or Pashtun—can agree on: kurash. The sport is so popular in Afghanistan, even the Taliban like it.

According to the sport’s Asian Confederation, kurash originated in what is now modern Uzbekistan in about 1500 BC. Kurash could be considered a mixed martial art in the sense that it combines elements of both upright wrestling and judo. Since opponents cannot grapple below the waist or wrestle on the ground, kurash moves at a very fast pace. The goal is to put your opponent on the mat. When a competitor’s knee touches the floor, the action is stopped and they begin again from a standing position.

Kurash is so popular that even amateur matches can draw thousands of spectators (male only; women are not allowed). Often men will bet on the outcomes. In Kunduz, it was local money, not international money, that paid to transform this building into a gymnasium.

“It keeps them from doing bad things,” says Mohammad Anwar, the Director of the Kunduz Central Club, which boasts 2000 members and runs recreation centers like this across Kunduz. “They come here and they make their bodies healthy. It helps keep them away from drugs and other trouble.”

For those who do it, it’s also a chance to briefly escape from the dangers and everyday problems of living in a nation that has been at war for decades.



Akram Uddin (in blue jacket) is the pride of Kunduz and a Kurash champion in Asia.

A 29-year-old treetrunk of a man named Akram Uddin started training at this club 13 years ago when he was just 16. He got so good that by the time he was 22, he was invited to compete in a tournament in Macau. Akram Uddin lost.

“But when I saw how hard all of the other athletes trained," he says, "how good they were and what it looked like when their flags were raised up when they got their medals, I said to myself, I will do that for Afghanistan.”

And so he did. Akram Uddin came home and trained hard enough to compete in 20 different countries throughout Asia and Europe. He eventually went on to become a top champion in the Asia Confederation.