Russian folk entertainments were sometimes, as they say, not for the faint of heart. A good example of this is bearish fun.
Ice baiting
Bear fun has existed in Russia since ancient times. These amusements were loved by the people, and starting from the 16th century - by the royal court.
Fun with bears, one might say, was divided into three genres: baiting, combat and comedy.
The cruelest form of fun is bullying. Most often she arranged for special occasions, on holidays. It was possible to watch bear-baiting, for example, during Shrove Tuesday. Jacob Reiten-fels, a Courland traveler and author of a book about Muscovy, recalls how once on the Moskva River “on the ice there was a persecution of white Samoyed bears by the British and other terrible dogs. This scene was quite amusing, because both bears and dogs could not stand firmly on their feet and slid on the ice."
As a rule, the persecution involved "muzzles", or "slugs" - an ancient Russian breed of dogs, which today can not be found anywhere else. Mordashi were famous for their death grip. It happened that they grabbed the bear by the ears from different sides and, having pinned it to the ground, stretched it out like a fourth.
A fight with a bear is a bloody spectacle, which in our time is unlikely to seduce anyone. But at the royal court, bear fights have been popular since the time of Ivan the Terrible.
Promotional video:
Archers, officials, boyar children tried to face the forest beast in single combat, to demonstrate dexterity and strength. The fun was especially popular among the servants of the royal hunting path - hunters, hounds, hounds. For some, fighting became a matter of life. Thus, the huntsman Pyotr Molchanov “went to the bear” for over 30 years.
Russian gladiators
The battles took place on a territory fenced off by a wall or moat so that none of the opponents escaped during the performance. A soldier was placed in the center of the circle and, upon a signal, the bear was unleashed. Attacking a man, the beast got up on its hind legs and rushed at the enemy with a roar. The fighter needed to react quickly, so that, having guessed the right moment, thrust a spear into the bear's chest.
The predator was furious in pain and leaned even more on the spear, as a result of which its iron ends penetrated deeper and deeper into the bear's chest. Emitting sounds tearing the soul and sprinkling blood on the ground, the bear fell on its side.
“It often happens,” the Englishman Giles Fletcher recalled, “that the hunter makes a mistake, and then the fierce beast either kills him at once, or tears him apart with his teeth and claws. If the hunter withstands the fight with the bear well, he is taken to the tsar's cellar, where he gets drunk in honor of the sovereign, and this is his whole reward for sacrificing his life for the fun of the tsar."
Are they not Russian gladiators? And, surprisingly, voluntary. And the award, frankly, is not impressive. True, the families of those killed in the bear fights were kept on the royal support.
Not everyone liked bear fun. In "Domostroy" such amusements were condemned as "demonic lands" and "disgusting deeds", and the Nizhny Novgorod priests wrote a petition to the patriarch condemning "evil demonic delights." As a result, in 1648, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich issued a decree officially prohibiting bear fun.
Nevertheless, the performances, amusing and amusing the people, continued - it was not so easy to abandon the centuries-old tradition. In practice, the law was violated everywhere, and the authorities turned a blind eye to these violations.
Protopop Avvakum in his "Life" tells how in 1648 buffoons and "dancing bears with tambourines and domras" came to Lopatitsa. The indignant archpriest, "jealous of Christ, drove them out and broke the hari (masks) and tambourines one for many, and took two great bears - one bruised, and released the other into the field."
Just at that time voivode Vasily Sheremetev was sailing past, to whom the injured organizers of bear fun complained about the arbitrariness of Avvakum. Sheremetev at first slightly chided the priest, and then, when Avvakum refused to bless the son of the governor, who walked without a mustache and beard, he threw the archpriest into the Volga, so much so that he almost drowned. And I found a scythe on a stone, recall, because of the bears.
Hot training
In the comedy genre of bear fun, a special role was assigned to leaders who amused the people with their caustic comments, sayings and sayings. Bands with tame bears wandered through Russian cities and villages, causing delight among the people.
“The arrival of the leader with the bear,” wrote Dmitry Rovinsky, the author of the most interesting everyday sketches, “constituted an era in the rural life of the country, everything ran to meet him, both old and small; even grandmother Anofrevna, who has not come down from the stove for already five years, and she runs.
- Where are you, old bastard? - the master shouts after her.
- Ah, priests, - Anofrevna sips, - so I won't see a bear? - and mince further."
The best of the amusers ended up in the royal court. They were searched all over the country, sending special letters to the regions. And in the 17th century in the city of Smorgon the "Smorgon Academy" was founded at all - a special school for training bears.
The training took place as follows: two or three young bears were placed in a cage with a copper bottom, which was lowered into a deep hole. At the bottom of the pit, brushwood and dead wood were set on fire, which made the bottom of the cage heated. From the pain, the animals rose on their hind legs, which, unlike the front ones, were previously shod in bast shoes. When the bottom got even hotter, the cubs began to shift from paw to paw. It was at this moment that the trainer began to knock on the tambourine. Such exercises continued daily from one to two months, depending on the abilities of the trainees.
Then the bears were released from the cage, and training continued in the wild. Those bears who tried especially hard received a reward - a piece of bread or a carrot.
But the "educational measures" did not end there either. The bears sawed off their claws and teeth, passed a ring through the nose and lips, for which the trainer, if necessary, could pull the animal, giving it a pain signal. Those bears who did not behave in the best way faced more terrible punishment - they gouged out their eyes.
Bow for a beer mug
Amusing bears, performing in the comedy genre, were popularly called "scientists". And it seems that it was well deserved. In 1771, an article was published in the St. Petersburg Gazette, which described the performance of two bears brought by the peasants to Kurmysh.
The author of the article admired the learning of the animals and listed their skills in 22 points. Bears and gunpowder were cleaned from their eyes, and they parodied judges and soldiers, and portrayed village girls, showing off in the mirror, and showed how the kids steal peas. And they also politely accepted mugs of beer and vodka from the people and, having drunk them to the bottom, gave them back, bowing politely.
Gradually, however, such fun began to fade away. After 1861, the life of the Russian people began to change rapidly. Societies for the protection of animals appeared, the Senate issued another decree banning bear fun. The number of menageries grew throughout Russia, and the circus began to gain great popularity.
However, animal training in circuses is not much more humane than the one practiced by our ancestors.
Asya KOKORINA