Russian Brown Bears

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One interesting article again about brown bears in Russia and what they represent there and impact in culture etc. Something else than always talking about some kg here or there. This is from August 2014.

Quotes:

”The master of the taiga: the perils of life where the brown bears roam free

The brown bear – a symbol not only of Siberia but the whole of Russia – is not listed in the Red Book as an endangered species and is not threatened with extinction like the snow leopard. However, it comes out of the forest and into cities and towns, towards humans, thus confirming the common myths about Siberia.

”Vladimir Kozhechkin is a senior research scientist at the nature reserve and a specialist in the ecology of large predators. He began his work at the reserve in 1979 and defended his thesis on the wolverine, a rare and difficult-to-study species, but the brown bear has also been within the field of his scientific interests for a long time now. However, outside the urban jungle, V. Kozhechkin does not look like a PhD in biology and an armchair scientist, he rather looks like a forester: warm trousers with a belt, a stretched grey turtleneck with a wide neck, rubber boots on his feet and an old blue-grey backpack on his shoulders.”

”The master's tracks

The bear in Siberia, just as in the whole of Russia, is more than just a bear. Political engineers use it as a symbol of national power, marketing specialists as a profitable regional brand, journalists as an excuse to boost the ratings of their evening news, and citizens use it as a horror story for foreign tourists. However, for zoologists, the brown bear is simply a brown bear, a large carnivorous mammal found in almost Russia’s entire forest zone.

“The bear, as you are saying, is the master of the taiga – but how can it be?” Vladimir Kozhechkin is genuinely surprised. “There are also wolverines, wolves, lynx... The brown bear is simply the most numerous predator in our reserve.”

”During the long period of their shared history, humans and bears ate the same food, used similar shelters and often preyed on one another. It is no coincidence that the indigenous peoples of Siberia, in particular Evenks, treated the bear with reverence and called it "amaka", which means "grandfather", while Russian peasants and Siberian long-time residents called the bear "the master" in conversations with each other in the late 19th and early 20th century. Hunting for this animal was for them a natural means of survival, and was accompanied by complex rituals and holidays.  ”

Source: https://www.rbth.com/travel/2014/04/09/t...r_of_taiga

A little bit about Evenks, native inhabitants in Siberia, since they have been mentioned in some articles.

"[b]The Evenki,[/b] formerly known as the Tungus, are spread over a huge territory (about 2,500,000 km²) of the Siberian taiga, or boreal forest, from the Orb River in the west to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to Manchuria and Sakhalin in the south. Having occupied this vast region since the Neolithic era, they are recognized as one of the indigenous peoples of the Russian North. with a population of more than 35,500. Anthropologically, the Evenki belong to the Baikal, a Paleo-Siberian Mongolian group."
https://www.mikaelstrandberg.com/2012/04/09/evenki/

Two maps showing where they have been/are living.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Text for this latter map: "Evenk settlement in Russia by municipal areas and urban districts in percents of the total number of this nation in the Russian Federation. According to the 2010 census" Reply