BEAR DRIVING IN RUSSIA
By the Earl of Kilmorey
No sportsman passing a winter in Russia should leave the country without trying his hand at bear shooting.
It is not necessary to go great distances from St. Petersburg to satisfy every desire, as plenty of bears are to be found in the enormous forests which still cover innumerable square miles in the immediate neighbourhood of the principal lines of railway. Moreover, to simplify matters for residents and foreigners alike, information concerning the whereabouts of bears is being constantly brought to St. Petersburg during the season, either by letter, or more often by estate agents or by the head-men of villages, who come up to the capital for the purpose.
Personal interviews are to be preferred, at which all the necessary arrangements can be entered into, prices fixed, contracts for beaters and sledges made, and a plan of campaign drawn out and agreed upon. The countrymen accustomed to this business not unfrequently exhibit considerable intelligence when an amount of organisation and generalship is required which would much interest and amuse our keepers and stalkers at home. Old hands always make payment by results the basis of their contracts, for disappointments are frequent, no doubt unavoidably so in some cases, though very often the unconscious sportsman is made to wade through the whole business of the chasse, everyone present, barring his innocent self, knowing full well that Mr. Bear nyett doma—i.e. is not at home.
Russians are beginning to fear that foreigners will soon spoil their sport, as foreigners usually do, by paying too much per pood for their bears, too much per diem for their conveyances, too much for their lodgings, and too much na tchai (tea money) at the close of the proceedings; but, under the direction of gentlemen who can speak the language fluently, who understand the people and their peculiarities, and who are thoroughly ‘posted’ in the whole business, one cannot go far wrong. After six days’ continuous sledging, we bagged four bears out of six promised, a fair average considering the market value of promises. For this sport we paid at the rate of ten roubles per pood, lodging, beaters and na tchai included, so that our bill only came to 60l., which I do not think excessive, considering we covered over 400 versts, or about 260 miles. There is no doubt that the man you contract with makes a fine profit over the sledges, but I believe the money paid out is fairly divided among the beaters, and averages about 25 copecks a head, equivalent to 6½d. in English money.
Finding your bear depends mainly on the strict sobriety and untiring vigilance of the men employed as watchers during December and January.
As soon as the first snow has fallen, the villagers turn out in search of tracks, and when the animal’s winter quarters have been approximately discovered, a circle is marked out, within which, unless fresh tracks indicate a move, the bear is certain to be enclosed. This is called ‘ringing.’
Bears, unless wantonly disturbed, will scarcely ever move when they have once comfortably established themselves, though cases are on record where they have been known to sally forth with extraordinary caution in search of food; but as a rule they remain at home, content with the nourishment said to be derived from sucking their own paws. This being so, it is remarkable to find bears still in excellent condition after many weeks of somnolent starvation.
Should the watcher get drunk, as is not unfrequently the case in Russia as in other countries, and let the bear escape unperceived, or should he develop a desire to rival Ananias or Ah-Sin—a practice not altogether peculiar to the Russian peasant either—then the sportsman’s lot is not a happy one.
A very favourable opportunity of securing several bears at no great distance from St. Petersburg having presented itself to me at the beginning of March 1889, I gratefully accepted an invitation to join an expedition into the province of Novgorod, organised by Count Alexander Münster, son of the distinguished Ambassador of that name so well known to us from his long residence in England.
Our third ‘gun’ was M. Constantine Dumba, First Secretary to the Austrian Embassy, whose agreeable companionship added considerably to the pleasure of the trip.
With these gentlemen I arrived at Malo Vyschera, a station 152 versts down the direct line from St. Petersburg to Moscow, at 7.30 p.m., March 2/14, 1889, had supper, and after packing ourselves, our trusty henchmen, and our provisions into country sledges which baffle description, started à la belle étoile at 9.15 p.m. The moon was nearly at her full, the thermometer at -9° Réaumur (about 9° Fahr., or 23 degrees of frost), and not a breath of wind. The sensation of gliding along through the silent night, comfortably wrapped up and extended at full length on the hay with which each sledge was amply provided, was most enjoyable. The weird beauty of the forest scenery by moonlight, the countless rows of dark firs, the silvery birches, the sudden clearings, all exciting the imagination, whilst the constant jolts and dislocation of the body, resulting in curses loud as well as deep, forbade sleep till the small hours. I had, however, begun to slumber, when we were tumbled out to change sledges at a small village called Falkova, at about 1.15 a.m. While fresh horses and drivers were being collected we had tea in the principal room of the posting house, which we found very clean, dry and comfortable. I am afraid we disturbed the family in their beds on the top of the stove, which may sound strange in English ears; but these stoves, being made of brick and cement and about the size of a pianoforte van, whole families can, and do, sleep atop of them without inconvenience. At 2 a.m., or a little after, we were again en route.
I have experienced extreme cold in various quarters of the globe, but recollections of nocturnal expeditions in Canada at Christmas time, and of middle watches on the fore bridge rounding Cape Horn in May, fade into nothing compared with the memory of what the air felt like in the province of Novgorod in the early morning of March 5/18, 1889. We were covered with hoar frost, and our coat collars and comforters, where they crossed over our faces, were frozen as hard as boards. We calculated that the thermometer stood at -24° to -28° Réaumur that morning between three and five o’clock.
6 a.m. brought us to a waking village called Zaruchi, 72 versts (or about 48 miles) from Malo Vyschera, where we were not sorry to make a light breakfast of the inevitable tea. Here began what turned out to be our daily disappointments. Three bears, which we had fondly hoped to have encompassed and slain in that immediate neighbourhood, had been quietly disposed of during the past week to higher bidders, and three lynxes, said to have been seen not far off only the day before, were an hour later reported to have ‘vamosed.’ There was no good waiting any longer at Zaruchi, so as soon as fresh sledges had been provided, we started again on a 40-verst stage to Crasova. The rising sun changed the entire aspect of affairs; gradually the air got warmer, and very often in sheltered places the heat was almost oppressive. At Crasova, where we put up at the agent’s house, we lunched and made arrangements to pass the night, and at 1 p.m. we started once more to drive 15 versts to our first bear. There is no denying that fatigue and sleeplessness were now beginning to tell, and that all hands were dog-tired; but excitement kept us up.
We arrived on our ground about 3 p.m., and, leaving our overcoats in the sledges, placed ourselves unreservedly under the direction of one Alexei Nicolaïevitch, as general of the division, his two brothers, Ivan and Dimitri, acting as brigadiers.
Before us was ranged the army of beaters, collected from the immediate district, some seventy to eighty persons of all ages, sorts, sizes and sexes, a goodly show. The beat on this, as on other occasions, was arranged in the shape of an elongated square, the guns being placed in line at the end nearest the starting point.
The approximate position of the bear having been indicated in a hoarse whisper by Alexei Nicolaïevitch, he proceeded to post the guns. Having drawn lots before starting, as we do at home when grouse or partridge driving, I was No. 1, M. Dumba No. 2, on my left, and Count Münster No. 3, still further in the same direction, at, I believe, about fifty yards apart.
No. 1 has almost always the best of it, Alexei invariably posting him, as he thinks, right opposite the bear. It is from No. 1 that the army of beaters silently diverges, making a large circuit right and left, and meeting again at a point in the forest, perhaps a verst or more distant, far in the rear of the bear, facing the line of guns. When the wings of beaters meet, and the cordon is complete, the whole set up an appalling shout; the far side gradually advances until the area enclosed is reduced to about half its original size; then the beaters begin to draw inwards, shouting, screaming, snapping off old guns, and rattling sticks. After an interval of ten or fifteen minutes, according to the nature of the ground and the temper of the bear, he or she, as the case may be, begins to move, though sometimes the creature positively refuses to stir, actually seeming to prefer to be shot sitting.
The yelping of a dog who had attached himself to our party—a sort of stunted, wiry-haired, wolfish-looking collie—very soon gave notice that the bear was afoot, and she (for it proved afterwards to be a she bear) appeared suddenly among the trees right in front of me, about eighty yards off: a poor harmless, distressed-looking object blundering along in the deep snow. Bears move a great deal faster over the ground than they seem to do, and having selected a convenient clearing not twenty yards off as a good place in which to cover her, I had not long to wait before she tumbled headlong into it over the stump of a big tree. This sudden and unexpected fall at the moment of firing rather disturbed my aim, and the bullet struck her somewhat higher than I had intended, going bang through her, ripping up the muscles of her back, and bringing her to the heraldic position of ‘ours couchant.’ The novelty of the situation, my inability to see my companions, and my ignorance in concluding that one shot is ever sufficient, except in a vital spot (it is not always so then), deterred me from firing again, as I ought to have done; and in the exuberance of my spirits I was about to run in and ‘put her in the bag,’ when she got up, and, moving a pace or two forward, received her quietus through the heart at the hands of M. Dumba, who was only a few yards off.
Immediately a bear is defunct a curious scene takes place. The beaters run furiously together, all radiant with joy and streaming with perspiration. Many of them cross themselves devoutly, and sing a melancholy ditty descriptive of the death of their enemy. As every male peasant in Russia carries an axe, and has a long scarf bound round his greasy sheep-skin coat, in less than no time a young tree is cut down and fashioned into a convenient pole, and the bear’s legs being made fast over it with one or more scarves, the triumphal procession staggers through the snow towards the nearest sledge. This, our first bear, weighed 5½ poods, i.e. about 15 stone, and was light in colour, as bears generally are in the province of Novgorod. The heaviest bear shot during the expedition weighed 6½ poods, or about 260 lbs. (40 Russian pounds go to the pood).
One word of advice in conclusion: when a bear is crossing in front of you, there is no time to lose if you have—if only for a second or two—the clear space between you and him, which you ought to try for. Two seconds before he ‘opens,’ he will be sheltered from your fire in the thicket to your right, and in two more, if you hesitate, he will be out of range again in the trees to your left; and if he is coming straight to you, aiming is not as easy as may be supposed. The poor brute goes floundering along, with a pitching motion not unlike that of a waterlogged ship in a heavy sea. At one moment he is crawling awkwardly over a fallen tree, at the next he is almost lost to sight in the deep snow. It is on such occasions more than any that the sportsman must remain cool. More shots have been clean missed at close quarters than at thirty and forty yards, and though as a rule the animal’s sole idea is how to escape from the din around him (the idea of attacking his disturbers rarely occurring to him), still instances have been known, and not unfrequently, when an old she bear with cubs has stood up and charged. Poor thing! she has not much chance against two rifles, a bear spear, a long hunting-knife and a revolver, which generally constitute the equipment of a chasseur d’ours.