Georg Lurich

Georg Lurich was an Estonian wrestler and strongman of the early twentieth century, born in 1876 in the village of Vaike-Maarja and dead in 1920 at the age of 43. He competed in Greco-Roman wrestling and became the first Estonian to set world weightlifting records. After schooling in Tallinn he moved to St. Petersburg, where he trained under the Polish coach Wladyslaw Krajewski and performed lifting displays and matches in the summer gardens. He also trained the young Georg Hackenschmidt and Aleksander Aberg. Between 1913 and 1917 he wrestled freestyle in the United States, including a loss to the champion Frank Gotch in Kansas City. He died of typhoid fever in Armavir during the Russian Civil War, and in Estonia his memory grew into a body of folk tales.