Anatoly Kharlampiev at 120: The Man Who Turned Folk Wrestling Techniques into the System of SAMBO

On 29 October 2026, the SAMBO community marks 120 years since the birth of Anatoly Arkadyevich Kharlampiev, one of the founders of SAMBO. A researcher of national wrestling styles, a coach and the author of books on SAMBO, he played a key role in securing official recognition of SAMBO as a sport.

Anatoly Kharlampiev was born on 29 October 1906 in Smolensk and died on 16 April 1979 in Moscow. Viktor Spiridonov and Vasily Oshchepkov were among those who paved the way for SAMBO, and it was Kharlampiev who brought scattered experience together into a single system.

A family devoted to wrestling

Anatoly inherited his passion for martial arts from his family. His grandfather, Georgy Yakovlevich, was a gymnast and fist fighter who spent many years collecting, studying and classifying hand-to-hand combat, wrestling and self-defence techniques. His father, Arkady Georgievich (1888-1936), graduated with honors from the Academy of Arts and was sent to study in Paris at the state’s expense. Short of funds, he began competing as a professional boxer in Europe. After returning to Russia, he promoted boxing and worked as a leading instructor at the attack and defense department of the State Central Institute of Physical Culture (GTsIFK).

Anatoly’s grandfather and father trained him personally. At the age of six he was already performing as an aerial gymnast under the circus dome, and by sixteen he was a versatile athlete and a well-trained wrestler and boxer.

The road to the SAMBO system

In 1922, Kharlampiev began working as a physical education instructor at the Society of Builders of the International Red Stadium and at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East. In 1936 he graduated from GTsIFK, where he studied in the judo department under Vasily Oshchepkov. A year earlier, Oshchepkov, who was ill at the time, had entrusted his student with running the freestyle wrestling section, and later helped him secure the post of section head at the Krylya Sovetov sports palace.

Kharlampiev documented the techniques of the national wrestling styles of the USSR’s peoples, systematized training methods and took part in competitions himself. The result was the “SAMBO system,” made up of two parts: a sport component that served as its foundation, and an applied component covering self-defence and special techniques. In 1947, the sport component was given the name “SAMBO wrestling”.

1938: from a report to an official order

On 5 July 1938, at the first gathering of coaches for jacket wrestling, Kharlampiev delivered two reports: “Fundamentals of Soviet Freestyle Wrestling” and “On the Systematics of Soviet Freestyle Wrestling.” The materials he prepared, which set out terminology, techniques, rules and teaching methods, were recommended as the basis for instructional manuals.

On 16 November 1938, the All-Union Committee for Physical Culture and Sports issued Order No. 633, “On the Development of Freestyle Wrestling.” This date is regarded as the official birthday of SAMBO and is now celebrated as SAMBO Day.

The first official competitions took place in Baku on 28–29 November 1938. Kharlampiev himself took second place in the middleweight category (up to 79 kg), while his student Evgeny Chumakov won the flyweight division.

A name, a book and a school of coaches

In 1941, Kharlampiev volunteered for the Red Army and was later awarded the medal “For the Victory over Germany”. After the war, he returned to his work and continued developing SAMBO.

In 1947, the second all-Union coaches’ gathering was held on his initiative. It was there that the new sport was given the name SAMBO, short for “self-defence without weapons”, and the decision was made to establish the SAMBO Wrestling Federation. His book SAMBO Wrestling appeared in 1949 and sold out almost immediately. He later published Tactics of SAMBO Wrestling (1958) and an expanded edition of SAMBO Wrestling (1964).

From 1945 to 1952, Kharlampiev served as head SAMBO coach at the Central Council of Dynamo and the Krylya Sovetov society. From 1953, he taught at the Moscow Power Engineering Institute (MPEI), where he ran the SAMBO section. His students included four-time USSR champion Evgeny Chumakov and three-time USSR champion Alfred Karashchuk. Kharlampiev was awarded the titles of Honoured Master of Sport of the USSR (1947) and Honoured Coach of the USSR (1958).

Anatoly Kharlampiev presents medals to the winners of the 1970 USSR Youth SAMBO Championship. Vasily Shestakov, the future president of FIAS, took second place.

Remembering Kharlampiev

After his death, his students and followers carried SAMBO traditions forward. The first All-Union tournament in memory of Kharlampiev took place in Moscow on 10-11 October 1980, and from 1982 the competition became international. The event was first held as a stage of the World Cup “Kharlampiev Memorial”, then as the World Cup “Kharlampiev Memorial”, and later evolved into the “SAMBO Founders Cup”.

His name has been commemorated in other ways, too. A memorial plaque hangs on the library building of MPEI, and a bust stands on the “Alley of Sports Heroes” at the Russian University of Physical Culture (GTsOLIFK). A street named after Kharlampiev has appeared in New Moscow, in the Filimonkovskoye settlement. In 2018, the Kharlampiev Institute for the Development of SAMBO was opened at MPEI, and in December 2020, a memorial to the founders of SAMBO (Spiridonov, Oshchepkov and Kharlampiev) was unveiled at Luzhniki.

Kharlampiev on screen

The film The Invincible (1983, directed by Yuri Boretsky) is dedicated to the memory of Anatoly Kharlampiev, a founder of SAMBO wrestling. Its hero, Andrei Khromov, a former Red Army soldier, nurtures the idea of “self-defence without weapons”, travels to Central Asia to collect the techniques of the folk wrestling style kurash, and emerges with honor from the difficult situations he meets along the way. In 2023, the film The Legend of SAMBO was released, with Anton Vokhmin playing Kharlampiev.

Today SAMBO is practiced in more than 140 countries, and its system rests on the work begun by Kharlampiev’s generation.