Hunting in Russia

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Hunting in Russia has an old tradition in terms of indigenous people, while the original features of state and princely economy were farming and cattle-breeding. There was hunting for food as well as sport. The word "hunting" ("охота", okhota) first appeared in the common Russian language at the end of the 15th century.^[1] Before that the word "catchings" ("ловы", lovy) existed to designate the hunting business in general.^[1] The hunting grounds were called in turn lovishcha ("ловища").^[1] In the 15th-16th centuries, foreign ambassadors were frequently invited to hunts; they also received some of the prey afterwards. So did Feodor I in particular, once sending out nine elks, one bear and a black-and-brown fox.

The right of using the hunting grounds in Russia was once granted to every social class. The right of the nobility was even sometimes limited by agreements with others regarding hunting grounds. The hawkers and separate persons who dealt with hounds, beavers, black grouses, hares, etc. were permitted either on the landed properties, or on territories specified by local people. Though the Russian Orthodox clergy once disapproved the hunting, these persons were authorized to eat and feed their horses, hounds and falcons on others' account or even demand participation in hunting.^[2]

The Russian imperial hunts evolved from hunting traditions of early Russian rulers (Grand Princes and Tsars), under the influence of hunting customs of European royal courts. The imperial hunts were organized mainly in Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo and Gatchina.

Contents 1 Big game 1.1 Bear 1.2 Wolf 2 Hunting with hounds 3 Hunting birds 4 Walrus 5 See also 6 Notes 7 Primary sources 8 External links

[edit] Big game

[edit] Bear

Russia's northeast part, the Kamchatka Peninsula and the coastal regions of the Pacific Ocean, have the highest density of brown bears. There are Eurasian brown bear (Ursus arctos arctos), Siberian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos beringianus), Syrian Brown Bear (Ursus arctos syriacus), Ussuri brown bear (Ursus arctos lasiotus), etc.

Grand Prince of Moscow Ivan IV Vasilyevich was present at the bear hunts at the age of only 13.^[3] False Dmitriy I was especially keen on bear hunting.^[4] A legend describes the miraculous salvation of Tsar Alexis I from a bear by Saint Sava. After 1650/51 the bear hunts of Tsars became rare. In 2007 Russia proposed to allow polar bear hunting by the Chukchi people, for the first time since the Soviet Union banned hunting the dwindling species in 1956.^[5]

[edit] Wolf

Main article: Wolf hunting

The wolf is the most widespread large game animal in Russia.^[6] The best hunting time is considered to be January-February.^[6] The traditional way of hunting is done in the European part of Russia. Preparation takes a great deal of footwork, but the success rate is very high. When the pack is located, it is encircled with a 3-5 km long tether, having small swatches of fabric (the "flags") stitched to it every few feet. The fabric is usually of red color to be easier spotted over the background of snow by the guides. Since it retains a human scent for several days, wolves tend to stay within the encircled area. When the hunters arrive, the pack of wolves is already "flagged". Therefore, the hunt must begin immediately. Four to five hunting days are usually sufficient.

[edit] Hunting with hounds

Further information: Borzoi and West Siberian Laika

Under Grand Duke Vasili III, who personally loved the huntings for hare, there were over one hundred chasseurs who dealt particularly with wolves and foxes.^[7] The court hunt of that time embraced the chasseurs with hounds (выжлятники), their head (доезжачий), borzoi hunters (борзятники), dog-breeders and beaters. Additionally there were cooks, grooms and drivers. Depending on the number of hounds there were big and small hunts. The first one involved forty hounds and twelve packs of three borzois each, and the second consisted of eighteen hounds and twenty borzois in five packs.^[7]

The gunless hunting with hounds, particularly for hares or foxes, became widespread in the Russian Empire in the 18th-19th centuries, after the reign of Empress Anna who liked gun deerstalking. Emperor Peter II and Empress Elizabeth were among the most prominent lovers of hunting with hounds. The longest hunt of Peter II took place in 1729 in Tula, where fifty foxes, five bears, five lynxes and many hares were baited between September 7 and October 16. In that time the state kennel consisted of two hundred hounds and 420 borzois. Poaching has been fought notably by Empress Anna and Empress Catherine II.

As landlords, counts and dukes had kennels, there were stables and villages with serfs, who sowed oats which was to be mixed with meat as a hound forage. Each kennel could support up to 1,000 hounds.^[8] The Emancipation reform of 1861 put an end to hunting with hounds. In 1917 there were only two hound chases in the fading Russian Empire: Gatchina and Pershino, in the Tula Governorate.^[8]

[edit] Hunting birds

Orthodox martyr Saint Trifon is often depicted with a white merlin on his hand. Particularly the name of Moscow's Sokolniki Park refers to the rapid spread of falconry-related slobodas in Tsarist Russia. As indicated by English diplomat Jerome Horsey, Boris Godunov used to be a hawker. Meanwhile the use of hunting birds was already popular among Russian nobility in the times of the Golden Horde.^[9] There were several hundred such birds in possession of Ivan IV, and even the road tax was collected in pigeons for falcons.^[9] However, the first famous hawker was Alexis I, who created the falconry statute book (Урядник сокольничья пути). The white, red or speckled merlins were also in common usage in those days. The merlin cocks were called cheligi (челиги). The places where the birds were caught were called pomchishcha (помчища) and the catchers - pomytchiki (помытчики). Before the reign of Feodor I each pomytchik community annually delivered three living falcons to the prince's falcon loft. In the time of Feodor I it became necessary to obtain two red merlins, three speckled and thirty-five grey.

There were two state merlin lofts, in Semyonovskoye and Kolomenskoye. An Italian ambassador, Horatio Calvucci, had been trying to get in and sketch at least one bird for six months; the embassy finally gained an access on February 13, 1662. In 1805 there were only fifteen hunting birds left in Semyonovskoye. The last event with hunting birds occurred during the coronation of Alexander II. The golden eagles were taken from Orenburg Governorate to hunt for wolves and foxes at that time.

[edit] Walrus

The first mention of Russia-related walrus hunting, in the Arctic part of the Northern Atlantic, is dated back to the late 9th century.^[10] At that time the Viking Ohthere from Hålogaland, sailing along the Kola Peninsula, landed somewhere on the White Sea coast and established trade relations with aboriginal people for walrus ivory.^[10] The Slavs and Saami people, who penetrated to this area in the early 12th century, could only hunt for small groups of walruses and came to the northern part of the White Sea from time to time.^[10] The Russian walrus hunting in that region started in the early 16th century.^[10] Purposeful and mass walrus hunting was stimulated by the exploration of the Arctic archipelagoes Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen with adjacent areas where the large walrus rookeries were concen­trated. The collapse of Russian walrus hunting happened at the first half of the 19th century, being a result of interaction of both ecological and anthropological factors.^[10] In addition, as Russia joined the Napoleonic conti­nental blockade in 1807, the Royal Navy sank Russian ships in the Barents Sea for several years.^[10]

[edit] See also

• A Sportsman's Sketches
• Sergei Aksakov
• Leonid Sabaneyev
• Aleksandr Chumakov
• Nikolai Samokish
• Yegerskaya sloboda

[edit] Notes

[edit] Primary sources

• Кутепов, Н. И. Великокняжеская, царская и императорская охота на Руси. Т. 1-4, 1896-1911.
• (Russian) Overview of Russian State Archive documents on court hunt

[edit] External links

• (Russian) Hunting history of Suzdal