COVER STORY: Living in Japan—Home from Home

Caption: Ozeki Baruto and his okami Izumi Hamasu outside the Onoe sumo stable in Ota Ward, Tokyo. Baruto is well liked in the sumo world for his friendly personality.
Credit: MASATOSHI SAKAMOTO

Baruto Blows In from the Baltic

It is 8 a.m. in a quiet residential street in Ota Ward, Tokyo, and morning training has started at the Onoe sumo stable. Eight sumo wrestlers are doing shiko training, lifting their legs high and straight in the air, chanting as they alternate between left and right. The thud of the wrestlers’ feet coming down echoes around the training room, punctuating the sound of heavy breathing.

The sumo master, Keishi Onoe (former wrestler Hamanoshima), watches his disciples’ movements with a steady gaze.

One of the wrestlers is a blue-eyed Caucasian. Kaido Höövelson, now better known by his wrestling name, Baruto (the Japanese word for the Baltic Sea), was born in Estonia in northern Europe.

Baruto came to Japan to become a professional sumo wrestler in 2004 when he was nineteen years old, after being scouted at a sumo tournament in Estonia. In March this year, he was promoted to the rank of ozeki (champion), the second-highest rank after yokozuna (grand champion) in the sumo hierarchy.

“I think I was able to become an ozeki simply because I had a strong feeling that I was not going to lose,” says Baruto. “Of course, I couldn’t do this on my own. I received help from a lot of people, such as my coach and his wife.”

In principle, sumo wrestlers live communally in the sumo stable until they get married, and so for the wrestlers the coach of the stable is a father figure and his wife, who in sumo plays an important supporting role and is known as the okami, is a mother figure.

“I still clearly remember the first time I had a meal with Baruto after he came to Japan,” recalls Izumi Hamasu, the okami of the Onoe stable. “I offered him a knife and fork, but he did his best to try to eat with chopsticks. I think he is a mature person with a desire to get used to life in Japan.”

Hamasu made a serious effort to communicate with Baruto, asking him about Estonia’s culture and history. At the same time, she was also a strict teacher, teaching him the manners, customs and attitudes to daily life befitting of a sumo wrestler.

“I don’t just want him to be a strong wrestler, I also want him to become an excellent human being,” says Hamasu. “I would be delighted if in future he could become the kind of person his country needs.”