At a circus you have surely seen someone walking skilfully along a rope tied high in the air. The sight makes everyone's heart tremble, as they fear the performer might slip at any moment. Yet to everyone's amazement, the performer walks along the rope with ease.

Such an unusual skill is very hard to master, which is why people buy tickets to watch those who can make the impossible possible.

But there is one village in the world where everyone, young and old, knows how to walk skilfully on a rope, and they can do it normally even when blindfolded.

The village is called Tsovkra-1, a small settlement in the mountains of the Russian autonomous republic of Dagestan. It is the only village in the world where all the residents walk the tightrope.

Many tourists come to see the villagers' talent, which is why it has been named the "Tightrope Village". The art has survived there for 100 years as both a passion and a profession of the villagers. No one knows how tightrope walking began there, but the elders confirm that it has gone on for 100 years.

Surprising as it is, even young children in the village can walk a rope tied high up as precisely as professionals. In fact, children learn from childhood, holding the hands of older family members, to walk on ropes tied in mid-air.

Almost everyone in the village takes part in circus shows nearby or even abroad. Around 1980 the village had a population of 3,000, which has fallen to only 400 today.

According to local lore, the men of Tsovkra-1 mastered tightrope walking as a way to reach their sweethearts quickly, because crossing from one mountain to another was very difficult. So the use of the tightrope grew as a shortcut to the villages on the surrounding mountains.

Very few people believe this romantic theory. Locals say that when there were no bridges, the tightrope was an effective way to cross rivers and canals. Others claim that people who had no land to farm and no grain or food earned money by performing to feed their families.

According to historical accounts, the traditional tightrope challenge became famous in Dagestan around the 19th century, and perhaps its popularity grew from then on. Tsovkra-1 has now become a "rope-walking school", where young children are trained to become circus performers. They have entertained the public across the vast Russian empire and even won prizes at international competitions.

Villagers now say with regret that the glorious days of tightrope walking are long gone. Today the new generation become educated and go to the cities for jobs or business, though all of them still practise their village's traditional art to some degree.

Ramazan Gaziev, a teacher in the village, said not everyone can master walking on a rope; you have to be physically fit. That is why even the older villagers can no longer practise on the tightrope as they used to.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.