The Caspian Tiger (Panthera tigris virgata)

[BorneanTiger]

Forward from (https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-europea...9#pid81909), and bearing in mind that North Caucasus is in European Russia ...
[quote pid='81909' dateline='1558198804']
... it is likely that the tiger didn't just inhabit or occur in Transcaucasia or South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia), but also in Ciscaucasia: 

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The tiger in this famous image from Berlin Zoo in 1999 was from the Caucasus: https://web.archive.org/web/200708240914...ger-13.htm 

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Also, they mention an 11th-century Eastern European account from the book Poucheniya Detyam by Vladimir II Monomakh, Grand Prince of Kievan Rus', a state that is regarded as a cultural ancestor of the Ukraine, Belurus and Russia (not the 'Rus' in the latter 2 names). Map of Kievan Rus': https://02varvara.wordpress.com/2010/02/...h-century/ 

*This image is copyright of its original author

In this account, Monomakh, while he ruled Turov (in modern-day Belarus), and Chernigrov (in modern-day Ukraine), he was on a hunt when he was attacked by a lyuti zver (лютый зверь, Old Russian for "fierce animal"). The zver sprang towards his thighs, and hurt him and his horse. Traditionally, the zver was considered to be a wolf or lynx, but according to Heptner and Sludskii, neither would spring at a rider or injure a horse, so it was more likely to be a big cat, with some people thinking that it could have been a leopard, or that it was more likely to be a tiger than a lion. The occurrence of the lion at the southern Russian Steppes, or the area of the mouth of the Don River, is disputed by Heptner and Sludskiy, whereas according to them, tigers likely occurred in the Russian Steppes or at the estuary of the Don River: https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...lyuti+zver 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

The manner of this attack reminds me of this famous video from India: 

Also, this statue of a tiger attacking a man is in the area of Mount Akhun near Sochi, which as I mentioned above is in North Caucasus: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:...untain.JPG

*This image is copyright of its original author

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