Sports training in parts of the active army in the period of the Caucasian war

The article deals with the sports training in units of the Russian army during the Caucasian war. The attention is paid to the specifics of military operations in the coastal, flatland, foothill and mountain areas. The materials included the documents from the archival department of the Sochi city administration (Sochi, Russian Federation), scientific publications, as well as orders of the military department, which reflected the studying issues. The methodology of the article is based on the traditional principles of historicism, objectivity, analytical, probabilistic and statistical, typological and comparative methods. The method of historicism made it possible to see, on the basis of dissimilar facts, obtained in the course of practical work with the documents, the important phenomena and processes related to the organization of sports training in the Russian army and in particular among the troops in the Caucasus. In conclusion, the authors stated that the system of sports exercises covered all muscle groups and developed skills of the combatant in the Caucasus to overcome any difficulties in the implementation of combat missions. The system of sports training for all units was not the same and could be different. So, for example, the teams of the Azov barges were less trained on sports equipment, and paid more attention to the exercises on the development of the arms and shoulder girdle. The reasons for this were the impossibility of using barges in other climatic zones, except for the coastal. Copyright © 2017 by Academic Publishing House Researcher s.r.o. Copyright © 2017 by Sochi State University.