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If you observe the changes which take place in the ratings of Record Book SCI, you can pay attention to the young Russian hunter who quickly broke into them. The animals, he got, were in the top three of such "popular" categories among trophy winners as the African lion, Eurasian wild boar, Red Deer in America, White-tailed deer… But we don't know much about this man today. He has not published his essays and is still "writing for himself.” His name is Anton Sokolov. We advise you to remember this name. Our readers will be the first who will learn about the "rising star" of trophy hunting - today we publish an interview that Anton gave to a representative of the magazine "Magic of real SAFARI”   The Magazine: Perhaps, the first question will sound very banal, but ... how, when and why did you become a hunter? A.S.: It turned out that I came to the hunt completely on my own. No one in my family hunted, and I didn't have any hunter friends. I spent my childhood in one of the satellite cities near Moscow, where had many different hobbies - from boxing to ship modeling. But... none of them lasted more than a month. I was thirty, when heard about sporting for the first time in the company of friends. I wanted to learn how to shoot. It was the first time when I really wanted it so much. After completing a number of formal actions, I became the owner of "Benelli Raffaello", and got into sports shooting. My results were not brilliant, but I began to communicate with shooters, many of whom turned out to be avid hunters. After talking with them, I wanted to go hunting. I wanted to know what was it? And I felt in love with it. I went to collective hunts twice, and almost gave up on that idea. It reminded me the famous movie. The Magazine: Do you mean the comedy about Russian hunting? A.S.: Exactly. I even became an opponent of hunting, at least collective hunting. But everything changed when one day in the middle of winter I found myself on Lake Baikal and met there a wonderful man and an experienced hunter Yuri Nikolaevich Milvit. He understood the "spirit of the hunt.” He knew a lot, he showed me how to approach, how to hide maral and roe deer. And I cheered up again. But I had to embellish myself "a little" in order to get to the real hunt . I told my first teacher of hunting about my non-existent hunting experience. When we were going to the very serious hunt. There was a very serious matter ahead – to get an animal at the den – at that time it was allowed. I won't go into the details how that hunt took place; I can say that my first trophy is a bear. The second trophy became a wild boar, obtained in the Tver region. Several collective hunts followed, It made me sure that I was better off hunting alone. The Magazine: Now you can be called a trophy hunter with good reason. When did you realize this happen? Had it happened after the extraction of the first trophy or after the boar? A.S.: I've learned much later that trophy hunting exists. My first trip to Africa was the turning point. The hunt took place near the South African city of Port Elizabeth. I was just shocked by the abundance of wild animals there – we drove along a modern highway and saw them, it seemed, everywhere. Then on the third day of the safari, I took the Cape buffalo and in just 10 days I got 10 animals. Only after that African trip, I realized that I would like to have a "collection" of hunts and trophies. And I realized that I was a trophy hunter. I want to emphasize once again that I collect not only trophies, but also hunting itself. I had many hunts, and they all were all different – in different natural zones, at different times of the year, with different PH. And different results. I am full of expectations before each hunt. I’m thinking about it each moment. I am in another reality, live a different life when I am busy searching for an animal, approaching it, aiming an rejoice in the prey finally. It’s a real magic. That's probably why I like the name of your magazine so much - "The Magic of a real SAFARI"… But I’ll continue. In a year after my first trip to Africa, I got my lion from the same outfitter. It's a certain stage to get a lion. Now my trophy divides 2-3 places in the SCI ranking. And soon after that a trip to Burkina Faso took place. I remembered it not so much for the trophy of another buffalo, but for a shot that I have not been able to forgive myself for several years. I did not hit the phenomenal trophy of a water goat from 30 meters shooting distance. It was a world record! Sometimes I still dream about it… I know that many trophy hunters have stopped chasing maximum trophy scores, and try to get the maximum number of different species, but I have not yet had the "disease" "trophy size". I think the reason was the very failure in West Africa. The Magazine: What trophies can you consider outstanding? A.S.: My trophy of the Eurasian boar from Croatia has the third place in the world. The top lines of the ratings of American animals are occupied by the noble and white-tailed deer, extracted in Pennsylvania. They both were taken from a pistol. I'm very interested in so-called alternative methods of hunting, including hunting with a pistol. You can safely hunt with a rifle, pistol, bow, crossbow in America. Americans promote actively such a variety of hunts. I am interested in hunting elephants. Today I have the best trophy of an African elephant in the Moscow Safari Hunting Club. The Magazine: Do you have non-hunting trips now? A.S.: Not many. In recent years, I have had the only non-hunting, but extreme trip - to Bolivia. I pay tribute to my children, and rest next to them in the summer where there is a warm sea and white sand. The Magazine: How do children and family relate to your hobby of hunting? A.S.: The wife perceives hunting as a hobby worthy of a man, and the children (they are from different marriages) treat differently. The elders strongly disapprove. And the younger ones like my hobby. Sometimes I discuss with my six-year-old daughter some details of the upcoming trip, and she encourages me in every possible way, and clarify whether I will bring meat home and what can be cooked from it. The Magazine: What hunting agency or outfitter do you trust the most? A.S.: I can remember companies, or call the names of people when the conversation turns to outfitters. Names that I will never forget, I prefer the last one. I know how much, if not everything, depends on the personality of the person behind the company in trophy hunting. Today I have two main organizers of my hunts – two people I trust very much and am proud of their friendship. These are Antonio Reguera and Sergey Dmitrievich. These two people are always ready to help me in everything, and they are passionate hunters themselves. They both have collected wonderful collections of hunts and trophies. The days spent next to them; I would attribute to the happiest days of my life. They are my teachers! I’m always ready listen to them. In September I traveled to our Far East, and I am very pleased with the results of that trip. Everything was organized not by a Russian company, but by a Serbian Sergey Dmitrievich. I was accompanied by Russian guides both in Kamchatka and in Chukotka, but Sergey took full responsibility for the result. The Magazine: It seems that we need to talk about our Russian hunts. Do you often hunt in your homeland? Do you know about the existence of the Russian hunting awards "Magnificent Seven" and "Mountain Five"? A.S.: Yes, I know. I came close to the "Seven" in the 2017 season, when got a moose in Chukotka. And I took a step towards the "Mountain Five" after the extraction of a snow sheep in Kamchatka. I would like to tell you about one nuance of this hunt, I think it will be interesting to the readers of your magazine. We had to live in a tent camp in Kamchatka, where I was accompanied by a hunter from Canada, who also came for a sheep trophy. It's a usual thing, when two or more people who try to get similar trophies, start a competition. Who will be lucky more? Whose trophy will be better? But trophy hunting is in many ways a lottery. On one of the first days, a Canadian refused to shoot a very good ram because hoped to meet a male with horns over 1 meter. No, matter. But that beast with horns 95 cm was the best specimen among local males as it turned out later. So, It became my trophy. I was lucky, but the average size horns flew to Canada. After returning from the Far East, I managed to hunt red deer in the Rostov region. I am still under the impression of being in the south of Russia – deer are roaring there from all sides! What else can I say about my hunts in Russia? We, Russian hunters have to communicate. At last, I found people with whom I am very pleased to be in a hunting company. We travel twice a year to well-known lands with this company. One time we did it in the winter before the New Year, the second time in the spring. I am not lucky in the bird, unlike animal hunts. I chased after the only capercaillie for several years. But now I have it. It was a labor hunting. Yes, I would like to hunt more at home, otherwise I am traveling abroad more and more (laughs!). I hope that to get to Yakutia and the Caucasus. The Magazine: Is it possible to assume that you will have mountain hunts in the Caucasus and Yakutia? A.S.: I would like to get all the subspecies of the snow sheep that live in our country. And to get the "THE GREAT CAUCASIAN PRIZE". I don't know if such a hunting award is currently established, but it must exist. The Magazine: I hope you’ll like it. Currently, the Club of Mountain Hunters has developed regulations on two Caucasian prizes. One of them will be awarded for getting of five species of mountain ungulates, which inhabit on the territory of the Russian Caucasus. Another one is the Great Caucasian Prize that will be awarded for the extraction of eight varieties of wild goats living in Russia and in the states that were formerly part of the USSR. A.S.: Thank you very much, now I will know. I’ll try... The Magazine: Since we start to talk about mountain hunting, can you tell us exactly how interesting they are to you, and what they mean for you? What mountain trophies have you obtained? A.S.: I had already told you about one of my last successes of this year, when I got a Kamchatka snow sheep. I have hunted in Europe several times in previous years. I can boast that the hunting of ibex and chamois in the Alps took place in a completely natural, wild environment. I extracted a rare Tatra chamois, which is considered to be a valuable mountain trophy in Europe. I collected the "Slam" of Spanish ibex, I got all four subspecies. All my mountain hunts were really hard. I had to walk a lot. It is easier to meet animals in the mountains of Europe than in Russia. But they were still not an easy hunt. If you ask me what mountain hunting means to me, I can answer– it's always some kind of getting over myself. If a mountain hunt ends with a trophy, it gives me an excessive feeling of hunting happiness. The fact is that as a child I was not afraid, but feared of heights. Apparently, some childhood experiences are always realized by me and come out. I am very happy about my victory over the mountains every time. The Magazine: Your collection includes almost all the trophies from the Big Five of Africa. There is only one species missing in it – the rhino. Licenses for this species are the most expensive. Therefore, some hunters try to get this animal with a dart with sleeping pills – it's ten times cheaper. Have you thought about closing the Big Five in this way? A.S,: I am an opponent of "green" hunting. I think that the outfitters can abuse the proclaimed "humanism", by informing society about the nobility of their goals. I speak on this subject as correctly as possible, but I could have done it in other words, much tougher. I don't have a rhino in my plans yet, but things may change. The Magazine: What about your hunting plans? What are your goals for the next year? A.S.: I have already said about the Caucasus and Yakutia. I also have a trip to Zambia, where I'm up to get a leopard from a sitting. I already have a leopard, but it was obtained in a different way. I plan to start that hunt with a buffalo - its meat will be very useful. We'll need to do a lot of baits for a leopard in different places and determine where the best cat goes. I also want to add to the list of captured antelopes. I also plan to repeat the trip to the African rainforest. I have already mentioned Antonio Riguera, the owner of the largest hunting concession in Cameroon, with whom I have developed friendly relations. I'm up to get a forest elephant, a forest buffalo and a sitatunga there, in the Cameroonian jungle. I really want to go to Zimbabwe for an elephant once again. I already have three, but I want more! The Magazine: Speaking of elephants. Is it possible to expect that you will ever tell the readers of our magazine about elephants’ hunting? A.S.: I've almost finished the report about these hunts. Your publication seems to me the worthiest place where it can be published. The main thing is that this essay will meet the high requirements of the magazine. This hunt’s really "hooked" me, I often think about it. I would like to hunt elephants every year if I have the opportunity. The real danger situations that usually happen on such hunts only spur my desire to repeat it. The Magazine: Can you tell us about these dangers? Where were they and what were they? A.S.: There were lots of them. I 'll tell you about a few memorable… First of all I'll tell about the most unusual, but very serious. Hunters usually don't pay attention to such danger, which come from our "cousins" - great apes. But where gorillas live, there is always a risk of their attack. And one day I found myself in such a situation. Perhaps the monkeys were excited by unusual and frightening sounds. We were cutting through the jungle to the dogs who stopped the bongo, and the dogs were barking. Visibility in the rain forest is limited. Psychologically, it was very uncomfortable to feel their pungent smell and hear how gorillas beat their chests nearby, broke trees. Suddenly I saw they were only one and a half meters away from us… I understood that that was how monkeys protected their females and cubs, but that understanding could not protect me in any way. Thank God, everything ended well and no shots were fired. Shooting gorillas is a criminal offense. Any elephant hunting is a danger. Not only because you can be attacked by a huge animal that is difficult to stop. There is a panic in the group of elephants after the shot, and no one knows where they will run. It is possible that this gray mountain will rush right at you. You will be crushed, and the elephant will not even pay attention to it. The animal from the disturbed herd swept next to me several times. But the elephant can also attack. It always acts either in the interests of protecting offspring, or it wants to revenge. One day after I got an elephant (a male), I and my entire escort group were attacked by the female elephant who wanted revenge. We were happy and relaxed. Suddenly, that giant jumped out and rushed at us out of nowhere. Both PH and I managed to make several shots, after which the dead elephant fell a few meters away from us. One more story from the series "the most terrible". I remember the Sable antelope hunt that took place on the very border of Zimbabwe and Botswana. The male, I wanted to get, came to a watering hole every day, which was located in Zimbabwe but it came from the territory of a neighboring country. The antelope had to walk several tens of meters to the watering hole after crossing the "control and tracking lane". I had to shoot at her when it was crossing or at the watering hole itself. The place where I sat and waited was a temporary structure made of local vegetation, which was supposed to hide the silhouettes of the hunter and the guide. It couldn’t protect from anything. Suddenly, a herd of elephants came out to drink while waiting for an antelope. Probably, everyone knows from the movies how carefully and bravely the mother takes care of the baby elephant. It is capable of anything to protect the baby. None of us didn't like that situation. A small, newborn baby elephant ran merrily through the place where we were sitting to the water. The elephants were moving behind the baby… They ran three meters away and only the wind saved us. It was blowing in our direction. Another case was also related to elephants. One night several elephants came to our camp at once. One of them began to rub against the fragile house, and then began to rock it on purpose. I was inside that cabin at that moment. I could touch the beast if I wanted and needed just to reach out my hand and done it… The Magazine: I think that trophy hunting is not only horns, which hang in the office, but also dangers, and much more what makes people unite. Do you communicate with other trophy hunters? Are you a member of some kind of hunting club? A.S.: A year ago, I signed up for a lifetime membership in Safari Club International. So far, I have not had to attend large community meetings– their Conventions. But I will. I am a member of the Moscow Safari Club for several years. Many of people there can be called legendary and even great hunters. Such lifetime recognition of their merits has already happened on an international scale. I want to reach the same level to receive the same high awards from international hunting organizations. I think I can do it! I’m lucky! It would be impermissible not to use this luck - otherwise it may leave me away. The Magazine: Where have you keep your trophies? A.S.: It’s a serious question. I had enough walls in the house, but now they are gradually filling up and not only they. Yesterday I had a call that the table and stools made of elephant legs were ready, they needed to be taken away. Many trophies are still in the works and very soon they will have to be placed somewhere. Soon, I will have to make some kind of decision where to storage the trophies. The Magazine: The traditional question about weapons. What do you use? A.S.: I have already said that I have a smooth bore Benelli. Currently, I used several units of rifled weapons . I have two Blazers. One of them is in the "universal" caliber.300 Win.Mag., another one is 375 caliber for African hunts. My new acquisition for mountain hunting is a weapon in the Weatherby 300 caliber. The Magazine: Anton, thank you for this conversation. I suggest we meet in a few years and talk again about hunting, about new trophies. A.S.: I agree. The Magazine: Let's hope that our meeting will be just as interesting in a few years.

«Per Aspera, ad Astra» says the Latin proverb. What means: “Hitch your wagon to the star”.  The sacred “star” in our case was the Ibex trophy but we had to work hard while hitching our wagon to that dream. I am often asked about which of the hunts can be considered the most difficult? And every time I can't answer this question with full confidence. I’m sure that all hunts, where you have to work hard, are the most difficult. It depends on what feelings the hunter wants to experience on such hunts. And what are his personal ideas about difficult hunting. Most of mountain hunts can be difficult. Difficulties in the mountains are primarily associated with the rarefaction of the air. This leads to problems with walking by the mountain’s gorges and rocks. Our inseparable assistants- horses help to solve partly this problem. Telling the truths, if there was not the possibility to use horses in the mountain’s hunts, lots of the hunters couldn't take part in them. But now I'm going to tell you about one of the MOST difficult hunts that my client and I've went through. It will be about ibex hunting in the Sayan Mountains. You will understand why I consider this hunt to be one of the most difficult. I met at the airport my old fellow and client Witold. He arrived to Sheremetyevo from Poland. We spent few hours at the airport, had lunch and flew to Abakan. I often feel tired after the night flight. It was 7 am when we landed in Abakan and immediately drove to the hunting area. We both tried to sleep while driving to Shushenskoe. My old partner Valery drove calmly by the known way. We passed the majestic Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP and drove down to the pier. The boat had already waited for us. It didn’t take much time to reload the luggage and soon we sailed in the water area of the reservoir. It was October. The time when nature painted by the variety of fall colors. The bright yellow-orange tones of the local fir trees looked unforgeable on the on the background of the blue sky. It wasn't not my first time there but I was always amazed by the beauty of nature there. The only dissonance to that palette add the flooded logs and boughs, which we saw in different places in the water. The most of them were near the Hydro station. The far we went the more the water area was clear. It couldn’t but make us pleased. Rocks, overgrown with larch and spruce, grew steeply out of the water and squeezed a huge mass of water from two sides. There was no wind and water as a mirror reflected everything that was on the shores. The mirror landscape added extra charm to the amazing view.       We should boat about 5 hours. It was long enough and we didn’t sleep well and not stop for having lunch. But none of us was used to move in such way in the hunting trips. It was normal.       It was the second part of the day when we arrived to Bazaga. Bazaga was a residential village long time ago. People lived , raised cattle, and children grew up there. At the end of the Soviet period the locals moved to the cities. There are several wooden houses now where the meteorologists and the Sayano-Shushenskoye reserve staff live. We had to make one stop, while sailing to the Base, to deliver some food and necessary equipment for the guides who worked there. The friendly and hospitable occupants of the village Bazaga met us on the shore and helped to carry the luggage. We all accommodated in one of the wooden houses. Our team had to spend the rest of the day and the night there.  We had light dinner and went to sleep. It was necessary to get a good night's sleep before tomorrow's serious hiking. Next day we went very early. The first thing, we did, was to separate and pack the equipment, we needed for a few days stay in the mountains. Soon we were in the boat. We couldn't take much there. We couldn’t take a lot luggage because had to carry heavy backpacks by ourselves. You feel each extra gram when rising and walking in the mountains. Two guides accompanied us. The owner of the hunting land was Sergey. He was a moderately tall man, strong constitution and with a large receding hairline. He had a very characteristic look that was always directed either through a man or past him , and I had the feeling that he was communicating with someone else who stood behind me, when told a plan of action or something else. Sergey was a very endurance guy and always helped Witold with the his cargo. But at the same time he was not ready for any compromises when we discussed our hunting plans. He thought that he was always right, and it had negative influence to all his human relations. He didn’t admit any mistake even he wasn’t right. But on the other side he knew the territory well and the animals’ habits that’s why we should have to rely on hunting luck in addition to this knowledge. The second guide was Ruslan. That guy was fond of talking. His speech was filled with metaphors and exaggerations that's why the locals called him “Russia- TV”. In general, Ruslan was a very open and good-natured person who put part of his soul into the business. Being a very strong guy, he suggested to deliver our provisions to the top. The plan was to leave us and Sergey and continue to boat up to the next place where he would moor and bring up the part of provision. There were three wooden cabins on our way. Ruslan had to bring products to one of them. The boat was cutting the mirror of the reservoir. The light and fresh wind blew. But everybody realized that the idyll would be over soon and we had to ascend to the mountains. It happened in forty minutes. Ruslan dropped us off with Witold and Sergey, and went on further.  We put rifles and heavy backpacks and set off to the mountains. I had not only things which were needed in the mountains but the camera with several lenses and batteries. I knew how the Siberians measured time and the distance but asked Sergey, how long should we go. He replied, there were 4- 5 hours walk to the first cabin. In fact, it turned out to be almost one and a half times longer, i.e. more than 6 hours. The beginning of the day promised it’d be hot. Each hour it became hotter and hotter. It was tough to rise with the heavy backpack especially when the temperature was about 25 C degrees. It was unbearable. But we should have to go. The additional complexity to the mountain ascends was the absence of the visible finish. We could always see only one ridge and it seemed that our goal was just behind that ridge, just stretched out your hand. But each time when you reached it, you saw another one again and again. So, your ultimate goal was pushed back every time. It morally affected us. It was hard to calculate the strength when we didn't see the visible motivation. The athletes experience such condition in sports such as cross-country skiing, road cycling or cross-country running. But we SHOULD HAVE TO GO. In two hours, we reached the plateau and could look around. We decided to make a general halt there. The backpacks almost fell from our shoulders. I had a desert in my mouth. I should say that water was a strategic deficit throughout that expedition. Witold drank almost all water we had. Thus, he complicated the process of climbing, because it was better not to drink water at high loads in the mountains. Water influences your feet and makes them weak; each step will be even more difficult. Sergey and I knew about such effect and realized the large water consumption danger. That's why we limited ourselves to small sips. After the next water stop, we began to think that we wouldn't have enough water if Witold continued to drink so much. In the future, what we feared happened. We experienced an acute shortage of life-giving moisture throughout the entire hunt. We were having rest when detected the group of Ibexes. There were several trophy size males. But there was no sense to chase them. They smelled us, crossed the ridge and disappeared. Our wet T-shirts had completely dried out, while we were sitting and the same steep climb was waiting for us. The sun was baking hotter by every minute, not by the hour. Our path ran along a completely open slope. There was not any tree or a bush which gave the shadow to protect us from the sun. That beginning of October in the Sayans was extremely hot. We moved along the small gorges with no wind which could fresh us. But it was the shortest way and we followed it. Our caravan was going on. Various grasses and small bushes of barberry grew on the barely noticeable path.  Once I lost the balance and kept of one of those shrubs. Everybody, who saw that shrubbery covered by prickly thorns, could imagine what I felt at that moment. I jumped and jerked my hand away. I didn't count how many itchy, insidious thorns were in my palm but I took out these small needles until I arrived home. The palm was swollen, and did not subside until the end of the hunt. But there were not all surprises, prepared by the Sayan. Six hours later, we had crawled to the first hut, pretty battered and exhausted by the climb. It was located at the very edge of the ridge surrounded by old larches, dressed in the fairy yellow and orange decor. The cabin was built from the wood boards and covered by polyethylene outside and roofing material inside. It should protect us from wind and rain. Polyethylene was teared in some places and didn’t protect us from the wind, which we felt in the mornings. There were two beds, a stove and a table inside. But the cabin could hide us from the sun and we were happy. We should spend a night there. We removed the backpacks, boiled tea and began to cook dinner.  We spent a huge amount of energy spent on lifting and had to be replenished. Although my body refuses to overload itself with food during such physical exertion, which is quite natural from the point of view of physiology. The best variant in such situation is to drink tea and to have rest. It's better to eat later. I've experienced that more than once and know the best variant for a hunter is to have rest and then to eat.  You need to allow our body to relax and to bounce back. Better to eat in one or two hours. Those who rode horses in the mountains noticed the fact that horses also abstain from eating for 1.5-2 hours after heavy crossing!!! And who better than animals feel what physiology dictates at this particular moment?! I’ll tell you the story from my experience. Once we came back to the camp after a similar difficult crossing in the Altai Mountains with the same weather conditions. There was the same problem with water. We all were physically tired to the point of nausea, none of us simply could not even fall asleep for an hour and a half until the body recovered and came to a more or less natural state. None of us could even think about dinner. We just drank some tea and had food just next day before going to the hunt. I remember this condition from that time and don't eat much. Listen to you body and trust it. We drank a cup of tea and stretched out on the "wooden beds".  It was the sunset - the time when animals were more active. Sergey took to binocular to examine the surroundings. He hoped to detect the trophy Ibexes. Later he came back and said that saw several males but small ones. We ate and were ready to sleep. But I couldn’t sleep without going outside before going to bed. I went out under the shade of ancient larches and a huge blanket of sky, studded with myriads of stars. You could hardly see such view from any of the skyscrapers. The day was hot and warm air rose along the ridge. I breathed, admired the pristine beauty of Nature and went back to the cabin where my companions had already slept, that's why I laid into the sleeping bag and fell into a deep sleep. In the morning, everything was as usual, but that was not quite ordinary, mountain hunting. We got up at dawn. So, we went to binoculars as they said in Siberia. It meant to study the nearest slopes looking for the animals. We spotted several groups of female ibexes. The snow partridges shouted somewhere, when move from one place to another.  It was an exciting sight, to see these rare birds in the wild and not so far away from us. It was a real miracle. Then we heard a black grouse not far from us. In October they had so called false rut. Then Sergey went down and waved us. Witold and I went down to him slowly , so as not to make noise. He pointed the direction to the right of us. Two nice males were at odds on the right. They stood on the back legs from time to time and pushed by horns. The horn's tips were polished in more than one clash, shone under the sun. The clash sounds together with the bird's noise pleased the ear and filled the air by the amazing mountain symphony. Those males didn’t have record size but our hunter didn’t want to haver the record one. We solved to get one of them. The shooting distance was prohibitive in those conditions. There were about 400 meters to them but at large angle and against the sun. Sergei suggested to go around in order to go from the side of the sun and go down lower. We had to climb up, cross the bridge from where we watched the ibexes, then go down and walk through the dense thickets of the Daurian rhododendron (in ordinary speech – the bagulnik). But when we came all that way and looked out to inspect the place where the ibexes were. They were absent. Thus, we went back by the same way to the cabin to pack our things and to go our long and tough journey by the Sayan ridges. An hour later we were already moving in the direction of the second hut, and inspecting the ridges and gorges on the way. The animals didn't stay long on the places where they grazed at night, it was too hot, and moved to the nearest shadow places. We were a little lucky that day because moved mainly through a wooded area on the very crest of the ridge. The sun was not yet at its zenith, and we enjoyed the opportunity to move around without languishing from the heat. We didn’t have enough water and that thought disturbed us.  We drank just a cup of tea in the morning and it was all. Sergey hoped to find some in the natural water intakes. But we could drink it only after boiling. We all were thirsty due to a large loss of moisture while going. Unfortunately, almost all the places, we checked, were dry. At last, we managed to pour a little muddy water together with small leaves and needles of larch in one place. We decided to boil it later after coming to the cabin. We’d walked for about an hour and a half them left our backpacks, and went down a small ridge trying to find that herd of ibex that we saw at the very beginning of the ascent on the first day. They disappeared just behind this ridge. We stopped on the small plateau, covered by the brushes of acacia and rhododendrons, and tried to detect them. But all in vain. But there was no sign of them. I used that stop to dry boots and socks. It is always advisable to do this in order to avoid scuffs. I involuntarily caught Witold's eye when lifted my hunting trousers to untie the laces of my high mountain boots. He stared dumbfounded at my legs, or rather at my shins. I couldn't understand what he was so interested in, but when I looked at them myself, I immediately understood everything. They were all covered in scratches, abrasions and blood. It was an impressive sight. I didn't see my feet until that moment, because we undressed and dressed in the dark, and I had long been used to pain, abrasions and scratches. The problem was that I was wearing a very light hunting suit designed for very hot weather. And I took off my jacket, remaining only in a short-sleeve T-shirt when climbing uphill in such heat. Thin trousers did not protect against the thorns of acacia and barberry, and the open forearms were accessible to the same thorns. There were no chances to dodge the thorns there due to the fact that they were everywhere and we had to go through them. So, in a day of walking through such places, my body resembled the painting of one of the tattoo parlors.  An outsider may be thrown into a slight shock, but we have to put up with this and go to our goal. It was possible, to dress like Witold, but I was just sorry to look at him when he was sweating on the crossing in his attire. I always prefer lighter clothes when walking It doesn't need much time to dry. So, I dried out, we didn't find the ibexes, and we set off again. Thus, we overcame several ridges and gorges and arrived to the second hunting cabin, build from the real wooden logs. It was more spacious and even had the small terrace with a table and benches. There also were two beds, a table and a stove inside. It differed from the previous one in its larger dimensions and the presence of ropes for drying clothes. It was built in the larches and cedars shadow on the edge of the northern slope. Ruslan waited for us there. He rose from the bank of the water reservoir and brought some products. He also delivered some water and we boiled not only tea but cooked soup too. There was no water near the cabin. The regime of water austerity was maintained. We ate dinner and even drank some cognac, Witold saved for the lucky end of the hunt and discussed our plans. Next morning, we appreciated the beauty of the surroundings. We all admired the view, the ridges below us and to the water reservoir. It was mesmerizing. I was fascinating to contemplate the ridges and gorges on the opposite shore of the reservoir. We could hardly take a look of the immensity of prospect which started on the opposite bank and went over the horizon admired the variety of colors and tones from blue-black on the shadow slopes to golden- orange on the rocky tops. The morning smog was still somewhere in the gorges and it made that landscape more mythical. We went to the small rocks on the southern slope and got the binoculars. There were several groups of ibexes but without big males. After a shot discussion we solved to go down a little, hoping to meet “the desirable star”. No result. We noticed females and young males only. Then our team descended a little more. We examined each hole and the slot in the rock but without any result. One more discussion and we moved to the next ridge and the next one. At last, we spotted the group of males but had to descend a little more to consider them better. And the descent was possible so that they would not notice us, only on an extremely steep rocky slope. We looked as Ibexes ourselves or spider when clinging each ledge on the rocks and tried to keep balance. Nobody wanted to fall down with the heavy backpack and the weapon. The special poles helped a lot.The Austrian and the German call them alpenstock or the Alpine sticks and don't go the mountains without them. The trekking poles secure the walker when he needs to jump over the small holes or to push off from soft ground or even to clean the way in the think bushes. We went down with the great difficulty to one of the small rocks. It was possible to look around the opposite slope from there. We got out the binoculars once again and inspected each brush or the cleavage. There was a small forest from young aspen trees and other deciduous ones. The ground was overgrew with the bushes of acacias and rhododendrons there. Suddenly, we detected the group of males there. They very definitely males but we couldn’t define their size because they laid having rest under the tree's shadow. We couldn’t say so about us. We stood in the sun and it burned us as pancakes. According to our assumption, there were no good trophy goats in that herd either. The time passed and we had to ascend back by the same the steep route. Again, we got sweat and cut arms and legs while crawling through the brushes. The salted sweat got into wounds and corroded them. But there was not another way and we clung the rocks and scrambled through the bushes losing moisture. We were rising to the top. So, we spent two more days hiking up and down in the mountains. Ibexes were seen every day and a lot, but there were no worthy trophies in the group, then it was impossible to approach. I made several good shots of females and even made video for the future adventure movie. There was another hut and little further and lower along the main ridge, and we decided to go to that area and try our luck there. It took us three hours to get there. It seemed that we were on the edge of the universe when we finally got to the hut. It was fitted into the landscape as if it was the natural end of the ridge where we came from. There were steep rocks and canyons around it. The huge canyon started just from the cabin and led to the water reservoir. I managed to see a small herd of females with goats in that herd, and even approached one of the females with her offspring at a distance of about 50 meters, take good pictures and shoot several video. We watched the Urbun river and the endless prospect of the reservoir, surrounded by the mountain’s ridges. Everyone went about their business to settle the house. It wasn’t so spacious as the previous one but there was enough room to spend night and to dry clothes. A table with benches was outside that was good in our situation. Our company could eat and enjoy the beautiful view of the Sayan mountain landscape from there! Where else can you find this? Ruslan left in the second cabin to wait us. We agreed to hunt there for a couple days and then to come back to the second hut. After it we were going to descend to the boat even if didn’t get the trophy. The trip was going to the end and we didn’t have time to stay more. But there still were chances. But we all were exhausted by everyday rising up and down in the rocky ridges and thick bushes. The most difficult problem was heat and the lack of water. I didn’t know how I looked like but Witold looked thin and lost some several kg. We were constantly haunted by an amazing, constantly increasing sensation throughout that hunt. We could see a huge bowl of water below and languished with thirst at the same time. I felt the same during the hunting in Altai before. The accumulated fatigue during those days left the mark on Witold physical conditions. He weighed more than 100 kg and was a rather dense man in his build and with a height of about 176cm. I could hardly imagine how he carried such weight in such weather conditions, in mountainous terrain, and even with a shortage of water! Those factors had to affect his physical form sooner or later. Witold showed the first signs of fatigue when we went down in the hope of finding a male, immediately after a small snack. It was much easier for me in that regard. I was in 30 kg lighter than Witold and was in a good physical form and trained all year around. Sergey used to hike in the mountains. It was his job. So, from that time we had to take into account the state of our weak link and choose routes based on the client's capabilities. It made our hunting more difficult. The mountain hunters have to be ready to go a lot if they want to meet their luck. Our small group moved along the rocky ridge jumping from the one stone to another. The area was clearly visible for many kilometers. There were gorges from both sides of us, which transferred to the ridge. We stayed on the plateau and monitored the surroundings. The heat subsided and animals would go for feeding soon. But we didn’t see any sign of Ibexes. Probably it was too early. But then someone of us noticed the movement. Four males came to the open place just near the ridge foot near Urbun. They grazed on the meadow. But... They were not ours! It was too far to go down to them and it was necessary to think about the ascend, which would be after it. We decided to just keep watching and wait when the ibex, we needed, would go out. It appeared in a half of an hour.  Sergey spotted it in 500 meters from us to the right. It was a big male which came from nowhere.  It was a worthy trophy with horns not less than a meter or even more with a wide base. The hunter had to take it. But It was exactly not easy in that situation. Witold had to descend about 300 m to approach it the shooting distance but he had to go down by the steep rocks. Sergey and I easily did it. But not our hunter! It was the steep descend, so Witold went a few meters and stopped. Obviously, he thought about the fact that later he would also have to climb. We asked him to go down 100 meters more but he refused and decided to shot from the place, he stood. It was not the most comfortable position. The distance to the trophy was 400- 450 meters and there was no any opportunity to lay down or to seat and to shoot from a knee. We found a small ledge and put my backpack on it. Witold put his BLASER 93 300, 300 WSM on it and began to aim. I sat behind him and prepared the camera. He didn’t shoot for a long. Witold tried to change the position several times. The Ibex was still feeding. At last, the sound of a gunshot broke the evening silence of the mountains and echoed along the nearby ridges.  I saw the Ibex shook its head and disappeared in the bushes. We watch video later and concluded that the bullet hit to its horn. That was the only explanation why the male shook the head. Sergey went down to check if it was wounded or not. We had to chase the wounded animal in such case. He came back in thirty minutes and told that there were not any sign of the ibex or blood. Such a state of affairs was better than chasing down a wounded goat, or even worse, to miss it in the end. So, he missed. Hunting isn't a shop!  Then we had to go back up the steep cliffs that we "loved" so much. We climbed, watering them with their sweat, which seemed got thicker due to lack of moisture. It was twilight when we came back to the cabin. Fire- tea- bed. We were too tired to make plans for tomorrow. Night brings wisdom. We got up at first light.  I was making a fire, while Sergey was watching, examining the side opposite to the reservoir. At last, he arrived, and reported that he had found a large herd of ibex. But there were four wolves, which lay and rested a little lower down the slope. It was very interesting. On the one side we saw Ibexes on the other nobody guaranteed that the wolves wouldn't frighten the herd while we would approach it. We made a very passable meal and went to the long way through the deep gorge to the opposite ridge. The slope was all covered by the dry grass and our mountain boots slid as on ice. It was hard to go down. One more unpleasant surprise waited for us at the bottom of the gorge. It was overgrowing by the think bushed of young aspen trees and we could hardly go running in those scrubs. But we couldn’t but be glad when heard the sound of running water. There was a mountain spring below us. Finally, we saw Water. I write it with a capital letter on purpose. It was purely clear mountain spring with fresh and cold water! We all were ready to give up half of Kingdom for a sip of water. We were more than happy. The only one who was indifferent was Sergey. Witold and I took off clothes while coming close and rushed into water. It was real happiness to drink as much as we wanted and wash ourselves. Last few days we drank just stagnant water and it was also limited.  Occasionally I looked to Sergey. He stood on the ground and looked to us with a certain grin. I asked him why didn't he wash and he answered: “Why?” I froze looking at him. A thought flashed through my mind: "It's either me or him, but one of us is clearly overheated.”  He stood in a warm jacked with dirty hands and a face, smeared with soot. How could one not take advantage of such a wonderful opportunity and wash off the dirt, dust and sweat accumulated over all these days? It is still beyond my comprehension. We refreshed with clean water, quenched our thirst, and set off on our way to the trophies. The long and steep climb started just at the gorge exit. We went one third of the way and were sweat once again.  It was the sunny side and the sun was already high enough to burn us with its rays again. I need to remind you that all action has taken place on the heights from 1500 to 2000 masl. Sun radiation level there was higher than in the valley. We were moving up on a tack. But it wasn’t fast. I would like to say a few words about the ways of movement in the mountains. Sergey walked slowly, made small steps but didn’t stop to have rest.  He looked like the caravan camel or a mule and gazed just only under his feet. That was a good tactics which meant the high endurance. I always go fast when being in the mountains and make large steps. I think that it allows me to cover more distance. But I have to make lots of stops to recover breathe. Witold followed my tactics. We were close to the top of the ridge when I noticed the movement. I rose the head and saw the herd of Ibexes which ran from the right to the left in relation to our position.  Someone scared them and it was not our group. They didn't pay any attention to us. The animals were disturbed by something else. Witold was below me and Sergey was above us. I whistled to Sergey to attract his attention to the goats. He looked at them but said nothing.  I run to him and said that they were the goats we saw from the cabin and probably wolves frightened them. I thought that there was no sense to move where we were going. He ignored my words and went on to climb. He intended to go to the place where he planned. It had no sense from my point of view. If such a herd galloped at such a speed from that place, the other goats would still be exposed to the herd instinct and would also rush after the first herd. But Sergey was adamant in his stubbornness and a sense of his rightness, which came out sideways to us later. There was not any sign of the animals when we reached the place. So, we had to return the same thorny ways. There was a long way to the second cabin. We didn’t need to rise down and up but just to go along the slope. But people who walked along the slopes, know that it can be tired and even dangerous for the ankles. The same muscles and tendons stretch all time while you move in such position. If you have not good boots and don't tie them well your feet will hurt you. That journey was really exhausting, considering the fatigue that had already accumulated. Witold puffed like a locomotive and was ready to give up. We had to wait him from time to time.  Two hours later, we were already approaching the hut after we had had a huge circle . We entered a fairly dense forest. It was twilight and it seemed as if there was an ibex in front of us. But it had small horns. Probably, it could be the young male about 3- 4 years old. I doubted if it was possible to approach the Ibex in 50 meters because we were in the forest, not mountains. But it was so. Soon I detected few more young males. Sergey and I decided to shoot one for meat. The guys had the license and the season was almost over. I commanded Witold to shoot. That time he hadn’t aim for a long. He shot and suddenly the ibexes startled by a jack-in-the-box. They ran toward us and around us so close that we could touch them. It was like a "bullfight"! There were about 30 males. They almost trampled us. But our goat stood on the place and we ate it later. Fortunately, the stream gave us enough good drinking water. Freshly brewed golden broth and the most tender juicy meat, and allowed us to taste a full-fledged hot meal and restore the strength that was running out every day. The goats at that time gain a decent fat reserve. But that shot was not a consolation for the hunter. He wanted to get the trophy. There was one more fighting day left, and we have to work to the last on the hunt. I have seen this more than once before. The Gods of hunting like hard-working people. Next morning we went to try our hunting luck for the last time. Ruslan should go down and wait us on the boat. Everything was in place- the mountains, the reservoir, the black grouses and the heat. We just needed one more component to make the picture perfect - the Trophy. We saw several males but had no chance to approach them because of the landscape. At last, we made a stop and decided to examine the rest part of the way to the reservoir. We monitored the surroundings for about the 30 minutes when Sergey detected two, as he called them, retirees. Two old males grazed on a small plateau and merged their strength from time to time, by pushing the horns. We waited them would go to lay down and decide how to approach them. But suddenly they disappeared behind a small ridge and became completely invisible to us. We didn't waste time and ran headlong down. It took us a half of an hour to reach that ridge. Sergei told us to drop our backpacks and wait, and he went to check where they were. Since we hadn't seen the goats went somewhere, it meant they might be somewhere very close. I prepared the camera and was ready to make video of hunting. Witold pulled himself up, a serious fighting spirit was visible on his face. The factor of the last day and the last opportunity to get a trophy affected. Soon Sergey waved his hand, beckoning us. We ducked and moved to him along the ridge. He said that two males laid on the plateau through the gorge and he knew the place from where we could fire. The most comfortable shooting distance was about 150- 170 meters. We slowly wriggle through our “favorite” acacia bushes and went to the small cliff from where Witold had to shoot. It wasn’t the very comfortable position. We could hardly find the place where he sat and leaned on the stone. Sergey stood on the left side of him and pointed the destination where Witold had to spot the goat. There was no place for me but I couldn’t stay aside and didn't make that epic video. I tried to seat on the ledge of the cliff not to disturb the hunter. It was hard to do but I tried to do my best and even found the stone which used as the right foot base. But could hardly find a place for the left one. Nevertheless, I managed to find something with my toe. I had not time to look around because was ready to make video. Small bushes and grass got in the lens and make the video to be soft. Witold was aiming.  We stood opposite to the sun and it was difficult to aim through the sight. I heard Witold kept the breath. It meant he’d fire soon. I gathered all my strength though my right leg was shivering from the tension. The Shot! One of the male jumped up and watched to the opposite side. Probably, the echo went there after the shot.  Sergey monitored the situation through the binoculars and insisted on the second shot because the Ibex was still alive. I couldn’t even see the wounded ibex and saw the only one which stood. I thought that Witold missed or it was the wounded one which jumped up. Later I watched the video and found another goat. It was slowly sliding to the ledge of the gorge. The second one was still on its foot. Witold made one more shot to the male and it had somersaulted and fell into the gorge. The second rushed headlong up and immediately disappeared behind a rock.  I made video and I could stand up. My right foot muscles were stiff.  But it was not the worst thing that could have happened. I looked down under my feet and was frozen. There was such a chasm with sharp rocks that if I fell suddenly from that cliff, they would surely collect me in parts. In general, the whole area where we were, was covered with rocks, steep gorges, sharp stones and stone placers. And then another test fell to our lot. But I’ll tell about it later. Meanwhile, we took a deep breath, straightened up and began to congratulate Witold on his trophy and on the overall success of our such a difficult, but at the same time interesting expedition. The hunter had not yet fully felt the significance of what he did, so he stood more confused and somewhat exhausted from overexertion than satisfied and happy. It often happens on the hard hunts when hunters realize what they have done later. There was no time to waste, and we moved down to the trophy. It was not an easy matter to find it. It rolled down into the gorge that covered by the brushes of acacia and rhododendrons. We barely pulled the trophy out of those wilds and began to pull it down a little lower to take photos for memory with a view of the place where Witold got his trophy. It was a hard process because we should walk the stone sea, spread around us. I stood up on flat stone, the stone river carried me further down, and even balance was difficult to maintain.  At last we found a small island. Witold put the trophy on the ground and sat near it when the whole composition, he built, began to slide down.  It ended as abruptly as it had begun and the happy hunter could seat without moving for few minutes while we made pictures. Only at that moment I saw how Witold's face lit up with a radiant smile. It was seen, he realized what way was over and what challenges he had overtaken. We all were happy like people united by one love and goal. The horns of the ibex were 99cm and it was a really good result for that subspecies. Most of hunters could be proud to have such trophy. We were surprised that there were just 200 meters to the boat from the place, we sat. The fate favored us because we could hardly imagine how to carry the trophy by those steep slopes especially in such weather. Then we made pictures and dragged the goat to the bank. There we skinned it and cut the meat. After butchering the boat carried us along the mirrored surface of the water. The wind blew our faces burned and dried by the sun.              I wanted to think about something pleasant not about difficulties which were already over. But I'd never forget that expedition despite all the difficulties! INSTEAD OF AN AFTERWORD. Many years passed from that time but I still remember each step we did there. still feel dry mouth and the tongue is like the dry leaf when I tell about that trip. My feet and hands twitched in the places where they were wounded by the endless bushes. Fortunately, I’m healing like a dog and almost not haves’ scars.  But I’d never forget that thirsty which I didn’t feel anymore from that time. I kept the memory about that barberry which gifted me so many of its thorns.  There are two moments from that hunt which I’d hardly forget. The first one is the moment when we came to the stream, where we were able to wash and drink plenty of water, and the second moment when the hunter made a beautiful shot and got a beautiful trophy. Someone might ask me this question: “Why do you need it?” I guess that the person, who asks such a question, is alien to the feeling that you get from communicating with wildlife, observing animals and birds in their natural habitat. He will never understand the beauty of sunsets and sunrises in the mountains. And he will never agree to experience such difficulties as our team overcame in the Sayan mountains. But you wouldn't be able to increase your level of self-esteem and make sure that you can still do something, without going through all these trials. I wish all real hunters to go through the trials of their strength and spirit like those described by me in this article and test themselves for strength and for solvency as a man, and a real, not a salon hunter.  Here is one of the episodes from my past, which I've experienced. Well, everyone should judge for himself where and what kind of mountain hunting is the most difficult.

When a hunter comes up with the idea to hunt in the mountains, the main thing that he starts to collect information about places, weapons, equipment and ignores completely such things are usually comprehended with experience, sweat, and sometimes blood. I'm speaking about hunting ethics and safety. A hunter should have an idea of cultural and religious traditions and respect them, and about people, which live in the hunting area. I had never doubted it. And life has never tired to confirme it. For example, it is not customary among the inhabitants of the Altai Mountains to enter someone else's house (a hunting hut or a shepherd's village) with a weapon. I knew it when traded furs for several dozen seasons there. The guest had to leave it outside. You'll be permitted to bring it inside only after a little chat with the owners. However, It is better not to bring a carbine into the warm part of the house for anticorrosive reasons. In the national dwellings of the Siberian peoples there are conditional partitions dividing the inner part into male (left) and female (right) halves. The place that the hunter should take is to the left of the door. The guest can approach the table or the bonfire burning in the center of the house only after the invitation of the hosts. Most likely, you will be offered a bowl of hot national tea in the Altai house. This is an unusual drink for us, which contains the infusion of black tea, milk, roasted ground barley, salt and butter sometimes. However, you should not refuse it - it will offend the hosts. If you know a few welcome phrases in the local language It'll help you to establish friendly relations. Ethics is not a form of speech. The local population evaluates the visiting hunters and is able to create conditions under which the hunt will be unsuccessful, or even you will have to pay for your health in case of a negative attitude towards you. You need to take care of nature, hunting huts, temporary homes of shepherds even when you hunt alone. The place should be left clean after spending the night by the campfire in the forest. You should stack on the stones the firewood harvested, but not useful for a night fire, so that they do not get wet from the ground. If there are large pieces of logs left, they need to be leaned vertically against the nearest tree, putting the butt end up. It is necessary to leave the place of cutting the extracted animal as clean as possible. You should bury unused insides, or at least hide them under the grass. There is a requirement in the culture of some peoples to remove all traces of blood from the ground, grass and fallen leaves. They are collected and burned at the stake or buried. It is necessary to clean up temporary homes when you leave, regardless of what conditions they were in at the time of your arrival. The more remote the place where you have found shelter, the more useful the firewood, kindling, matches will be there. If you know that you can leave some non-perishable products without compromising your well-being, do it. The locals will define who do it , and the next time you come, you will be a friend to them. By the way, I don't understand still the ability of people who constantly live in nature to understand what was happening in some place in the taiga, if there was no one but you. Therefore, everything that happened to you on the hunt will become common property after your departure. Some peoples of Siberia have customs that are completely incomprehensible to the townspeople. For example, the Altaians leave a lamb shoulder bone in a prominent place when leave the house (hut or village) for a while. It has to protect the house. If you've spent the night in this shelter, put it shovel in its former place when you leave. Once I was corresponding with the hunting specialist of the state hunting inspectorate of the Gorno-Altai Autonomous Region, and asked him about the possibility of fishing. He kindly informed me that in the area where I planned to hunt, visiting hunters were usually killed. I had complications with the locals, but I am still sure that the main reason for this is the "firewater" and the behavior of the visitors themselves. Once my closest Altai friend "pleased" me when said that the local men were going to kill me because I ate from the same bowl with my husky. Moreover, it had always really been the case that at first I ate hot food myself, and then I put a little cold on the dog. I washed all the dishes after eating. How they knew about it was absolutely impossible to imagine. My friend gave me a half of a children's rubber ball with a diameter of 15 centimeters and made me promise that the dog would eat from it. Then, he promised to talk to the hunters about the cancellation of the "sentence". In addition, he gave me useful advice not to stay overnight in the cabins near rivers. I followed his advice scrupulously to the rest of that season. However, then there was a story that corrected my characterization in the eyes of local hunters. One day, I found a stopped mechanical watch with a date indication in the taiga by a strap sticking out of the snow. Later, when I was leaving the forest I asked an unfamiliar hunter, who was passing in those days. The next day I found the hunter who had lost his watch. The locals still remember this return of the clock. If an unknown hunter came to your camp, offer him food or at least a cup of tea. Ask him if he needs any help, and offer to spend the night in your "apartment". Twenty years ago, I read an inscription made with charcoal on the door of a lonely hut in the Altai Mountains: “ Russian pig”. It wasn't addressed to me. It was the first time, I was there. But I still remember it. At first, I offended by the author of the inscription. But then I realized that that was how we raised one of our children. If the hunt is collective, there must be a senior in it. He is not a master for everyone else, but an "older brother". All participants in the hunt are brothers, so all the work on the hunt should be shared in a brotherly way, as well as the prey. A company during the hunting is very important. It is a gross violation of ethics to impose yourself as a hunting companion. You should have to behave so that other hunters themselves make you an offer to hunt together. You can't go on a difficult hunt with people you don't know well enough. It is more correct to make several trips to relatively easy hunts beforehand. The behavior of quite nice people can be completely different in difficult conditions. Once, in my youth, I could not refuse a well-known dramatic artist in a joint bear hunt. I had never been on any hunting trip with him at all before that. He was a charming man, and I could not resist. We agreed in advance that I would take the first shot. The bullet hit the bear in the head, but it rushed to us to attack. At that moment, I heard heavy footsteps behind me. I looked back, and I saw how my partner was running away at full speed. I searched for him for twenty minutes when the situation was safely over. He said that he was afraid. There is another unwritten rule, which must always be observed. You can touch someone else's weapon (rifle, axe, knife) only in case of a threat to the owner's life. You shouldn't request to see a rifle or a sight in the field. The ethics of mountain hunting has its own characteristics along with the traditionally established norms of hunter behavior. It requires not to shoot animals from a helicopter and not to use it to search for them. It is necessary to exclude shooting beyond the distance of guaranteed destruction of the animal, which must be previously set by each hunter for his weapons and ammunition. The hunter has to refrain from firing shots when it was not possible to accurately aim the beast. In my opinion, the skill of a hunter is not that he can shoot from any position, but that he can resist an unprepared shot. This also makes practical sense. It is very likely that a more successful approach will be possible. Unnecessary shots are unacceptable in the hunting area. The gun's check must be performed away from the hunting area. The hunter is obliged to do everything possible to use not only the horns, but also all the meat of the hunted animal. Therefore, it is better not to shoot in a situation that does not allow you to get to the trophy in the next 12 hours. Females and young males are not shot on trophy hunting. Males 7-8 years and older have good horns. It is a matter of honor for the hunter to get it a wounded animal. Respect for the trophy is an important indicator of the hunter's internal culture. Peoples, whose life the hunting takes an important role, respect for live and harvested animals. Old hunters who live in the Altai Mountains not skin the sable with canonized techniques, and bury it near the hunting camp to the traditional ritual song, "tying" its front and hind legs. It has no sense to instill such an attitude with instructions It is brought up from childhood throughout the whole life in unbroken contact with nature. These traditions are an example of the highest morality, which we, the inhabitants of the "stone jungle" should strive to comprehend, or respect. In conclusion of this article, it should be said that the correct selection of your equipment indicates the level of hunting ethics, because the hunter relies only on his own strength and is always ready to come to the rescue of a friend, which is necessary in the mountains like nowhere else. Written by blood. The main feature of mountain hunting is the difficulty of moving in comparison with the flat terrain. It's hard to say what is easier - to climb or descend. If you think seriously about mountain hunting, then you need to train in walking, and even more effectively - in cross-country running. An average citizen who doesn't play sports needs wo or three years of regular training to bring himself into a more or less decent physical condition. The purpose of these trainings is to increase the functionality of all body systems. Extra kilograms of fat deposits will automatically go away. The extreme degree of overwork waits for an unprepared person in the mountains. It does not allow not only to move at an acceptable speed, but even to think well in difficult conditions. It is clear that there is nothing to think about accurate shooting in a state close to unconsciousness. Most accidents usually occur against the background of serious physical fatigue. You should always have a one-and-a-half-liter bottle of pure water with you. It is useful to replenish water in a bottle at each mountain stream or river. Another serious danger is the loss of orientation in an unfamiliar area. The GPS navigator is a reliable prompter, as long as the power source works. Just in case, you should also have the hunting area plan and compass with you. It should be understood that determination of the azimuth in a mountainous area does not help to get to the right point, since it is often impossible to pass through it due to the complexity of the terrain. You should try to remember the way, or take pictures from time to time of the landscape that remains behind you on the way "there". If there is snow in the mountains in sunglasses are absolutely necessary. The eyes can become so inflamed in sunny weather that you can become completely blind for a day or two. You need to forbid yourself to move in the mountains at night, except on the road or on a horse trail, and only if you have a flashlight. It requires extreme caution to overcome mountain slopes covered with snow and especially ice. An alpenstock or a monopod helps well along with special shoes in this situation. Any of these tools helps seriously in mountain walking, it removes part of the load from the legs and shift it to the hands. They are also indispensable helpers when overcoming small mountain rivers and walking on large stones. You should pay special attention to the safety of weapons in addition to saving your own body parts (arms, legs, head and everything else), when passing difficult sections. Most hunting rifles are quite shockproof. They stay safe and don't lose working capacity after unauthorized flights from the rocks. However, a rifle with an optical sight requires a completely different attitude. This is already a subtle product. It is most correct to wear it "backwards" on the stomach in difficult places. It's safer for her that way. A small sapper shovel is often useful in the mountains, with snowfields on the slopes. You need to be ready to spend two or three nights and sit for a day or two in the rain while hunting in the mountains. Fortunately, light enough tents and sleeping bags are available today. Once, my friend and I had to put up an old canvas tent with two carabiners in the Kamchatka mountains, and tie the tripwires to the shaft A set of spare warm clothes is also a must-have in a backpack. If you are up to spend two or three days autonomously in the mountains, then you need to take matches (in two separate sealed packages), a light hatchet, a pot with a volume of about one and a half liters, a gasoline or gas primus, a couple of small cans of stew, 200 grams of breadcrumbs, about the same amount of sugar, a chocolate bar and a small pack of tea. A polyurethane foam mat in a waterproof case will be useful too. It is better not to go to the mountains without at least 25 meters of nylon halyard. If you are going to hunt for a week, a month or even more, the set of products should be incomparably wider. It is necessary to have with you a means of communication (satellite phone and walkie-talkie) during mountain hunting and a pair of flares. Going to the mountains, you should tell your friends (and even better rescuers) the expected route and the time when you plan to return to the locality when going to the mountains. I won't teach the mountain hunter the general requirements for the safe handling of weapons, since there should not be "beginners" among them, but I emphasize that they must be carried out especially strictly in the mountains. Unfortunately, most of us learn from personal experience and personal mistakes, and no matter what the instructions are written (with blood, with life), we don't follow them. Therefore, it is necessary to start mountain hunting with "light" mountains, so that the inevitable mistakes do not become fatal.

Today, we are visiting the Doctor of Economics, professor, deputy of the State Duma of three convocations – Yuri Viktorovich Vasiliev. “The Magic of Real Safari”: Yuri Viktorovich, our first question is traditional: how and why did you become a hunter? Y.V.: I became a hunter because my father was a hunter. He was a military fighter pilot, fought through in the whole war. He shot down, was shot down himself but he remained alive and returned from the front. My Dad, like most military men related to weapons, was a hunter. The military societies were very solid organizations at that time. That hobby was welcomed. The most of the commanders–in-chief - generals, marshals were hunters. Since the war, officers were allowed to bring trophies, and my father brought a gun. I still have it. It's interesting, but it is not 16 or 12 caliber, but somewhere around 14. Damascus trunks, Lefoche locking lever. Unfortunately, modern gunpowder cannot be used for it, only smoky one. I was 14, and we lived in Armavir at that time, when my father took me hunting for the first time. We hunted for the pheasant. It turned out that Dad shot the chicken pretty quickly and handed the gun to me – now it's your turn. We were walking along a forest path, I was all attention. I expected the bird to appear every minute, but it still turned out to be unexpected. Something rustled, clucked, flapped its wings ahead in the bushes, and a firebird showed before my eyes. The pheasant was incredibly beautiful! I raised my gun – the first shot, then the second and ... the pheasant flew away. But I didn't miss, I hit myself in the heart and since then I became a hunter. Unfortunately, it was not always possible to hunt. It took a lot of time to study, then to work. I studied a lot. After school I entered the Rostov University, then I worked in Novocherkassk at the Polytechnic University then I did postgraduate studies in Leningrad and finally got to Pyatigorsk. When I started working as a teacher there, I fully returned to hunting. I bought my first gun - IZH-27. I still remember the price. It cost 27 rubles. “The Magic of Real Safari”: Did you prefer hunting alone or in company? Y.V.: There we formed a team of friends-hunters. We could go to Kalmykia for a duck, for example. We gathered at someone's house beforehand of time and started to prepare cartridges. Someone knocks out an old capsule, someone cuts felt wads, someone fills with gunpowder, and so on. We did cartridges for ourselves. We even poured the pellets by themselves. We collected old batteries, looked for pieces of cables and smelted lead. The pellets turned out to be somewhat teardrop-shaped, but good enough for the duck hunting We hunted mainly in the foothills for wild boar, birds, and deer. Sometimes, there were wolves, jackals, badgers and even Caucasian bears. I traveled to Kalmykia for goose hunting. Saiga was often hunted, in those days there were a lot of those animals, there were even special hunting brigades. Then, by the will of fate, I got to Moscow. As far as my work allows, I regularly engage a in hunting here. “The Magic of Real Safari”: When have you began to be interested in trophy hunting? What trophies do you have? Y.V.: Trophy hunting is a sing. Nobody collected trophies in the past. Someone could make a hanger out of horns, and no one evaluated the extracted horns-fangs according to any rating systems. Telling the truth, there is no trophy hunting in Russia. Trophy hunting involves organization, large financial costs, the opportunity to show your trophies. There are very few people here who have devoted themselves to trophy hunting. All our hunting is for meat. I didn't even think about the trophy characteristic of the beast when I hunted in the past. My biggest experience is roe deer hunting. I got about a hundred of them. I started hunting it when I lived in the south, in Pyatigorsk. There are a lot of roe deer there. I didn’t' want to throw away the beautiful horns, and began to collect the horns of males "in reserve". When I moved to Moscow and got acquainted with trophy hunters, that "stock" acquired a completely different meaning. Therefore, we can say that my first trophy is a European roe deer. Then I got Siberian, Altai roe deer. I was the first one in Russia, in Primorye, who took a Manchurian roe deer. Then I began to get trophies quite consciously. I joined the International Safari Club (SCI). I have always focused not on quantity, but on quality. Almost all of my trophies are gold, some silver. I hunted a lot of bears, there are trophies of Kamchatka, Koryak, and Amur, European, but I don't have Siberian one. This year, a trip to the Irkutsk region is planned to fill this gap. “The Magic of Real Safari”: Have you collected the Great Seven? Y.V.: I need to take two trophies – the Yakut moose and lynx according to the "Seven". I didn't hunt the moose intentionally. I have no place where I can put it. I don’t have special trophy rooms. The part of my trophies is stored at home, part in the summer house. I wasn’t lucky with lynx hunting. I would say that the hunt for it is very random. You can't plan a hunt, go and get it. But I'm still going to hunt it in Irkutsk this year. “The Magic of Real Safari”: Have you forgotten about our traditional hunting after you are interested in trophy hunting? Y.V.: Unlike some hunters who go for trophies only, I like different kinds of hunting - both for the beast and for birds. I like to hunt goose, duck, quail, woodcock. I love to hunt for the capercaillie. And try to do it every year. “The Magic of Real Safari”: What is the geography of your trips? Y.V.: As for Russia, I hunted almost everywhere - from Kolguev Island, I went there for geese hunting, to Kabardino-Balkaria and Cherkessia. And from Smolensk to Primorsky Krai. I hunted abroad in South America, in New Zealand. My goal is to get all the deer. I went to Africa, but I didn't really like it. I'm a good shot, and it's not difficult for me to hit game at a distance of two hundred meters. I didn't find anything interesting for myself there. But I wasn't in Asia yet. “The Magic of Real Safari”: And where do you prefer to hunt in Russia? Y.V.: I like to go to the Vologda region. They organize everything quite well there. Once I hunted a bear there. They immediately agreed with the processing plant. The specialists checked the meat and made a stew, smoked. There are problems all the time in other places. “The Magic of Real Safari”: As far as I know, you are also passionate about mountain hunting… Y.V.: When I was young, I hunted a lot in the Caucasus I got the Central Caucasus tur there. Now I want to assemble the Grand Slam of the Chamois of the World I have two. I got one in New Zealand, the other one in the Pyrenees. I agreed to hunt Cantabrian chamois in the fall there. Then I'm going to Macedonia for the Balkan one. After that I'll go to Serbia to hunt for Transcarpathian chamois. And the last one is the trophy of Alpine chamois, in Slovenia. I am 66 years old, and many mountain hunts are already too heavy. But I felt that I could do something after hunting for the Pyrenean chamois. Although I won't go for the Caucasian chamois hunting. I also refused from hunting ibex in Slovenia. Probably if everything is well, I'll try to get it in the Austrian Alps next year. It's easier to hunt there. I've already had all the European ibexes- Beceite, Southeastern, Rondo, Gredos, Kri-Kri. I only need to get the trophy of the Alpine ibex to completely close the list completely. And I need a Cantabrian chamois to close the Spanish seven. “The Magic of Real Safari”: Yuri, were there any dangerous situations on the hunt during your hunting career? How did you manage to come out of them as a winner? Y.V.: I was always lucky in the mountains, but in general there were some situations. Once when I was on Kamchatka, a bear rushed at me. The guides frighted it down, and it jumped into the lake. I fired and pierced through the abdominal cavity. It attacked me immediately. The guide, who stood near me to protect, quickly ran away, and a huge, under three meters, the beast ran toward me. I remembered my childhood at that moment. How we visited our Grandma. There were steam locomotives that had steam flying out on the sides. The streams of blood flowed out from the wounds on its sides, it was a frosty morning, and the blood was steaming. I said to myself: “ Aim, Yuri”. I don't know why, but I've not been afraid. I was completely confident in myself. I took aim and shot under the head, into the heart. It fell at the same moment. I always hit to the place. I used to experiment long time ago and wanted to get into the head, into the eye, and then I realized that it was pampering. The hunter has to shoot to the “definite place” not to torment the animal. Otherwise, it leads to the situations when the hunters have to chase the wounded animal. Although there were cases when I shot boars, and then they ran two hundred meters with a broken heart. There was even a wild pig running after me. I was running around the trees from it until another hunter came to the rescue and got it. “The Magic of Real Safari”: What kind of weapons do you use now? Y.V.: After 1990, when it was allowed to have rifled weapons, I purchased a Tiger carbine. And now I mostly hunt with a "Blazer". I like it because it is possible to have five barrels of different calibers for one unit of weapons. So, I get a simplified registration of the whole arsenal for ammunition .222 , .30-06 Spring, 6.5-284???, .300 WinMag and 9,3x62. It means that I can hunt for any animal - from a groundhog to a bear. “The Magic of Real Safari”: Are you fond of varminting? Y.V.: I go to the varmint hunting every year. It's very interesting. You need to know how to shoot. A good varmint is from seven kilograms and above, and I shot a trophy by thirteen kilograms! It was as big as a ram. Such a "professor" won't let you get closer than two hundred meters. “The Magic of Real Safari”: How do you manage to maintain a shooting form? Y.V.: I am a member of the Sporting club "Moscow" on Mozhaika and regularly go there to shoot. I mean, I train in the shooting gallery. We makes bets there, put one hundred rubles on a hundred meters and arrange a competition. I know that there are hunters who lose control over themselves, when they see any animal, and shoot if it's necessary or not. I don't approve of that. You have to go to the shooting gallery if you want to fire. I can't stand it when someone shoots at bottles – then the glasses are lying around. The hunter needs to shoot a lot, but to shoot in the dash, on the stand. I believe that the right eye in hunting is the most important thing. If a God gave you a sharp eye, you'll shoot, if not, no matter how much you train, "everyone is not fit to be a musician.” “The Magic of Real Safari”: Which hunting agencies do you prefer to deal with? Y.V.: I consider the Profi Hunt company to be one of the best in Russia. The first time I went goose hunting with them to Iceland and since then I prefer to hunt with them. I knew a number of hunters who traveled with Profihunt, then decided to organize a tour themselves, which should have been cheaper, and as a result they overpaid. Therefore, I've decided that it is better to travel with a "Profihunt" than to waste time, efforts and money on an independent organization of a tour, which often turns out to be a failure – after all, there is no demand from the such guides later. “The Magic of Real Safari”: The situations can be very different, often dramatic, as in your case with a bear in Kamchatka. And each case can teach the reader of our magazine, to prevent him from a rash act. What cases could you share with us? Y.V.: There were many of them. Each hunting is different. I remember all trophies. I can look at any of my trophies and tell you where I got it, how and under what circumstances. The longest shot was to the roe deer at 490 meters. It happened in the Krasnodar Territory. I was hunting the North Caucasian roe deer. The goat was standing far away, it was impossible to approach it – there was an open space around. So, I decided to fire. I used bipods. The wind was blowing from the male, and it didn't realize that it was being shot at. The first bullet did not reach fifteen meters., I was aiming at the spine. Then I raised the second one about forty centimeters, and the bullet passed under it. It jerked and went up the slope. Then stopped. I raised a meter the third shot and ... hit exactly in the lung. It ran about fifteen meters and fell into the thick grass. Such shots are certainly remembered. A similar shot was fired at a European roe deer in Hungary. The hunting was organized in a very good place, I think that the organization of roe deer hunting there was one of the best in the world. Hunters from everywhere come there – from Spain, Scandinavia, England and even from Africa. The guides know personally all goats. You can come and say - I need a goat for gold or bronze, and the guide answers immediately whether there is one or not. If you call wherever in Russia and ask the same question, they say that everything is there, of any dignity. But when you arrive and you find out even without surprise that there is nothing at all. In Europe, they sent you to the territory where the specific specimen that is needed lives. I suddenly remembered - how I let the beast to go only because I liked it, although he had good trophy qualities. I thought at that moment: "Go, walk with your reindeer girl-friends and produce offspring.” It was in Hungary. And there was such a curious case. I was hunting for Pyrenean Chamois. On the first day we saw two animals but the huntsman said there were more. The second day we saw nothing. On the third day we found a good male. Then we crawled to it as close as it was possible and I put the carbine on the bipods. Suddenly the chamois began to move. I was leading it with a carbine, then the right moment came, and I shot. The splashes of manure flew in different directions! It turned out that the muzzle rested on a cow manure while I was moving the carbine. The next day, I took a good trophy. “The Magic of Real Safari”: Do you have someone to share your hunting experience with? Y.V.: I have a grandson. He is 14 years old now, but he has been hunting with me since he has been 9 years old. He shoots well, we go to the shooting range with him to train. He has already hunted for wild boars, roe deer, pheasants. The last time we went to the Pyrenean chamois, and he withstood all the difficulties. We got up at half past three and climbed the mountains. Then we descended back to the camp, had a snack, rested and in the evening repeated that route once again. So he continues my father's hobby and mine. “The Magic of Real Safari”: Thank you, Yuri Viktorovich, for an interesting conversation. I wish you to get all the trophies you want. 

Heading: Adventurers "The evil spirit of Urga"   Andrey Storchilov: Photo of the author  I have heard about irkuyem ... I know that scientists don't believe in its existence and prove easily the impossibility of the existence of such a beast in the north. They say, about meetings with this bear in Chukotka and Koryakia. In Chukchi, irkuyem means "someone who is dragging on the ground", or "dragging pants on the ground" (alternatively, "lowered pants"). It's called so because of its overly bloated rump. Dropped pants sounds ridiculous. But only in Moscow. Somewhere on the coast of the cold lake Elgygytgyn, aborigines pronounce it with the same enthusiasm and life-affirming optimism as we pronounce the words "deceased", "grave", "cemetery” …   Irkuyem is a cryptid, a hypothetical animal that supposedly lives (or lived) in Chukotka and in the adjacent areas of Kamchatka. It looks like a very large size bear, but different from brown and white bears in build and color. In the second half of the 1960s, there were reports from Chukotka about the appearance of giant bears, which were twice or three times bigger in the weight of the average brown bear and distinguished by an unusual appearance. Basically, these animals were allegedly encountered by reindeer herders, the lake Elgygytgyn was most often mentioned as the place of the largest number of such meetings. I heard some stories, which told very large bears of strange appearance were hunted in Kamchatka — in 1976, 1980 and 1982 in the Olyutorsky, Karaginsky and Tigilsky districts of the Kamchatka region. Back in the 1920s, Swedish zoologist Sten Bergman was very interested in information about the giant bears of Kamchatka. He studied a huge bearskin, taken from there, and announced the existence of a new subspecies of the brown bear Ursus arctos piscator (the so-called Bergman bear). The reconstruction of the possible appearance of the irkuyem, based on a set of rumors, legends and unconfirmed evidence of varying degrees of reliability, gives the image of a very large bear, about twice the size of a brown bear (the weight of the irkuyem was estimated at 800-1000 kg). The front paws of the irkuyem are powerful, but curved. The hind legs are relatively much shorter than those of a brown bear and are also curved, so that the irkuyem lowers the ass very low, almost dragging it when walking. This impression is enhanced by the heavily sagging, heavy lower part of the body. The color of the skin of the irkuyem is much lighter than that of the brown bear - almost gray. Irkuyem's movements are slow and clumsy. The large size, short paws and sagging ass don't give it the opportunity to quickly hide when meeting people. The hypothesis of the existence of irkuyem was at the peak of popularity in the second half of the 1980s. It became possible and received considerable resonance. due to the active activity of Kamchatka enthusiast Rodion Nikolaevich Sivolobov, who conducted an intensive correspondence with a number of Soviet scientists and several publishing houses. Sivolobov claimed that he saw that animal himself, and became the owner of its skull and skin of an unusually light color with an abnormally wide back.   May 2011 year. Kamchatka I never thought that it would be interesting to get an irkuyem, since it was just a hypothetical creature, something like a goblin or a brownie for me. But I really wanted to get a large Kamchatka bear, and in 2011 I went to Kamchatka. I understand now, years later, that the trigger of fate has been pulled at that moment , a trigger's been triggered that could no longer be stopped (I haven't occurred to me that it should have been stopped), and fate unwillingly unfolded into a chain of dramatic events Everything started when my friend and hunting partner Irek Khasanov invited me to hunt for a Kamchatka bear with the famous hunter Alexander Shemaev. Alexander was known among other hunters as an experienced man, as a professional with a capital letter. But his main feature was an indefatigable passion for bear hunting, versatile hunting acumen and skill in tracking down trophies. I didn't think long, and decided to go. There was not much delay, and in the first days of May four hunters met in Domodedovo – two from St. Petersburg and Irek and I. Our meeting continued by troublesome movements around the airport, checking in weapons and ammunition, then fuss, then waiting, and at last we were on the flight "Moscow - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky". After eight and a half hours of flight, Yelizovo Airport pleased us with good weather. And I must say that this is not always the case in Kamchatka Sometimes the weather is almost the main stumbling block for the hunter. Then we took our time and accommodated in a hotel for the flight crew, near the airport – the next day there was another four-hour flight to a small regional airport – Palana, from where it was planned to start hunting. There was a good place for hunting large bears (and not only bears). A few years later, in May 2015, I got a very good bear in that area. Let's look into the future for a while – four years ahead. Or a year ago, if you count from today. It depends on you.   May 2015 year. Kamchatka. Urga river It was a day when we left the camp. Shemaev was ahead as always, the guide and I were on the second snowmobile and followed in the "wake". It was very cold, just dog cold! The snow froze overnight, and the sledge skis went hard, creaking through the icy crust. We drove about six kilometers when a thick fog covered us suddenly. It was as thick as milk. The cold was right up to the bones! The barrel of my carbine was quickly covered with a thick layer of frost. Suddenly Shemaev turned off the engine, and we bumped into his "ass" by inertia. - What? Let's stay and wait...- Shemaev turned to us. - How long? - I asked. - Until the fog clears! - Is it a problem? Are we afraid to drive in the fog or I don't know something? - We stay on the rock. There is abyss 100 m near us. And there are only one hundred steps to it. I tried to look around, but I saw nothing but "white silence". But Shemaev continued: – Last year, one bear waited for me at this place twice. By a miracle I was alive then. It even chased me though I was running a snowmobile. It was thin, like a dog. It died later. I found its remains not far from here. Why didn't it hibernate? I don’t know. Probably, someone interfered or occupied its den. And in the summer, I saw another bear here, and it looked like a monster obviously! We waited for 3,5 hours already. The fog didn’t move... Shemaev was nervous, when gave the orders: let's go, then we stopped, then we moved, then we sat.... Finally, the sun broke through the clouds, and we slowly got off the sleigh. I threw my Blaser over my shoulder, and our team went to the edge of the cliff, which was visible. Then, we moved stealthily over the edge, looking down. So we walked about a kilometer, and then Shemaev’s behavior, who was walking in front, was changed. He sat down briskly, fell on his side and moved his legs amusingly, climbed forward along the snow cap to the cliff. A terrible thought flashed through my mind – now the snow cap will break, and then that's it! He lay on his stomach, then turned around and beckoned me with his hand. Let's move faster! he gesticulated with a face contorted with excitement. I crept up and sat down next to him, crossing my legs. Shemaev pointed his finger sharply down and to the right. The bear, which any trophy-taker can only dream of. was just a hundred and fifty meters separated us. The massive male walked under the ledge with a wide, sweeping step. It didn't fall into the snow – so wide were the paws of the beast. I could clearly see its powerful chest, it was possible to shoot. The carbine in the 8x68 caliber with a bullet weighing 14.5 grams was ready to fire. I pulled myself up higher and started aiming from the elbow. The bear felt something and was clearly nervous, it was jerking its head higher, greedily sucking in the frosty air and exhaling it just as hard. The nervousness of the beast was transmitted to me - I suddenly remembered what happened four years ago almost the same place. The whole atmosphere around was saturated with nervousness, as if the critical mass had already been reached and an unrealistically terrible explosion was about to follow. And then it turned its side! I had aligned the aiming grid vertically below the shoulder blade, and fired. The monster stopped. It froze like a stuffed animal! It seemed to me that it wasn't even injured – it didn't rush to the side, didn't fall, it just froze. Time slowed down, it seemed that nothing had been happening for an eternity that would have to happen. Even the air froze so that the cartridge case, which jumped out of the chamber, described an arc with a ringing whistle in it and just sank slowly into the snow. Then a sharp discharge of the cartridge into the chamber happened and a second shot. The bear collapsed, burying its muzzle deep in the snow. We should make a very decent detour through the gorge, maneuvering n two snowmobiles among the trees, we could reach the place, where it lay only two hours later. When we managed to pull the beast to an even place, I saw that the first bullet lay much lower. The reason was in the morning cold that froze the barrel of the carbine completely. But the second one fell right in the heart. We measured the skin and it was 305 cm. That's how our next hunt has ended on a frosty morning, but I'll return to the story and tell you about the events, which have happened there four years before.   May 2011 year. Kamchatka. Palana Alexander Shamaev and his wife Lyuba welcomed us with great cordiality. Alexander was very cheerful and at the same time modest by nature, and was able to combine the rigidity of character with sincere hospitality. The following week of communication strengthened this confidence in me. It took us no more than two hours to get our "huge" luggage at the Palana airport, after that the whole group went to the local hotel. The plan was to go 100 km away in the morning, to the temporary construction base, located on the way between Palana– Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, where an ATV with a trailer was supposed to wait for us. Then we were going to drive eight-hour by ATV from there through the impassable tundra with snowmobiles and sledges on board to the Shemaev base, sheltered somewhere in the distant foothills, near the Urga River. So, it happened. We got up early, changed into all hunting gear and drove two jeeps to the meeting place. The guides were already there and were already working hard, tying up the rigging, securing snowmobiles and sleds. We also joined the loading, looking for places for our belongings and carbines inside the ATV, which was already packed to capacity with food and all sorts of things necessary for the camp. After lunch, we set off smoothly. The ATV was constantly shaking and roaring… Spring came early to Kamchatka that year. The snow had already come down, and the elfin wood was showing everyone its intricate "labyrinths". It was clear that the snowless hunting wouldn't be easy. It was pointless to hunt near the base at all. Shamaev decided to leave the staff at the base, and go further with the rest of the team into the mountains, where there was still snow and it would be possible to move on snowmobiles. We were going to the place where a tent with a "handmade stove" was already set up and there were barrels of fuel. And everything turned out exactly according to Shemaev's plan. After a day of living at the base and 6 hours of driving on the tundra, we finally got to the place. Shamayev's staff cleared the area from trees in a small wooded area on the bank of the Urga, and they set up a tent there. We jumped out of the ATV, and came closer to it and were dumbfounded. Nothing was left from it, just visibility. It was torn to shreds by a bear from top to bottom. There were only aluminum arcs and tattered tarpaulins around the edges… We had to collect urgently all the tarpaulin that we managed to find in the ATV, then we got wires there and began to sew the tent. By the evening, We set i a kind of choom with a stove in the center. It somehow saved us from strong wind, snow and frost during the whole time of hunting. Irek Khasanov -my friend and a very experienced outfitter took care of our "inner world" – we went for hunting, and he went to the kitchen, and when we were coming back, and he greeted us with a delicious dinner! There were three hunters with me on that expedition. We got six bears for three hunters for three days of staying in the foothills of the Urga River. Five of them were very large, enviable trophies. But the last one. But the story about it is ahead. May 2015 year. Kamchatka. Urga river It was a sunny day, the weather was simply magnificent, without any hint of fog! It was the third or fourth hunting day. We zigzagged on two snowmobiles around the snow-covered cedar in search of bears. I had already had a trophy, which I told you about a little earlier, but there were several licenses more, and hunting was not only a tick in the list of hunted species of trophy animals, it was also a little comparable pleasure – so why not try it again and again? We had been "in the saddle" for six hours already, and there was no result. We stopped to rest, drink tea. We turned off the engines on the edge of a rocky cliff, and decided to walk a little along the ridge that stretched for many kilometers. Then I went a hundred meters away from the sleigh, and took out binoculars and began to examine the opposite wall of the cliff, overgrown with deciduous trees and shrubs. It was a kilometer and a half to it, according to my estimates. I examined the rock scrupulously, peered into the stones, then into the shadows, then into the gaps between the trees. The search did not yield results for an hour, and suddenly it seemed that there was an inconspicuous movement between the stones. I focused all my attention on that place. I no longer doubted that it was a bear. But what size? After a while, he appeared from behind the stone, came out, sat on its ass and began to look around, turning its head. The long distance made it impossible to determine its size. Thanks to the years of bear hunting, I have learned to draw conclusions about trophies from long distances, about the actual size, especially when the initial detection of the beast. The most significant thing is in this assessment is the distance between the ears, the ratio of the size of the head of the beast and its trunk; the second is the height of the trunk relative to the ground; the third is the length of the belly from the elbow bend to the posterior kneecap but it’s not all. More information can be obtained by analyzing the movement of an animal over rough terrain, especially in the mountains – you can get a clear idea of its mass and physical condition how it throws its front paws forward. That beast seemed too massive and therefore extremely slow. It was exactly the one we had been running after for half a day. I called Shemaev on the radio, and he was there in a few minutes. He took the binoculars, looked at the bear for a long time, then returned the binoculars to me, lit a cigarette and, said after being silent for a couple of minutes: “Why do you seat? Let's go!” It was obviously clear that we would not make it leave the gorge. Therefore, Shemaev decided to make a trap. We'll send a guide on a snowmobile to drive through the gorge, while we'll climb on another snowmobile to the top of the rock ridge opposite from us. It'd hear the huntsman's snowmobile and, break up, where we meet it. A few minutes later we parted with the huntsman in different directions and an hour later we were already on the opposite slope of the ridge. Then we went down the slope a little, drowning in the snow, and took a very convenient position for shooting in all directions. All distances were up to two hundred meters on average. Shemaev radioed the guide to start moving through the gorge. We didn't have to wait long. I spotted it in the sight almost immediately. The beast was floating powerfully through the snow, hurrying straight to us. It was huge! I watched how hard it worked with its paws, while climbing up, how its broad chest heaved when breathing. It often stopped and, turned around at the roar of an approaching snowmobile. There were about 400 meters left when it turned sideways suddenly and walked along the ridge past us, sinking deep into the snow. The bear paddled in the snow between the trees without slowing down, soon it came out at a convenient distance for me to shoot. I had it in my sights the whole time. Shemaev sat next to me and, mumbled something, but did not interfere, and that pleased … Suddenly I saw how it reached the open area and… The bear rested against the trunk of a tree and froze. I immediately fired, and the bullet entered its shoulder blade. The bear roared and stood up to its full height, clinging to the branches of the tree with its paws. It had lost its balance at some point, and fell heavily on the back in an arc and lay still… It was all over. It was impossible to describe the delight we felt after that hunt. I got the specimen of the Kamchatka bear with a long skin of more than three meters! I always have luck on the hunt with Shemaev! If I do not remember and do not think about the "luck" that has happened four years ago, in May 2011, on the penultimate hunting dayь…  May 2011 year. Kamchatka. Urga river Two hunting days left. Then we should get to the hunting base of Shemayev, and from there to Palana. Strong winds with snow began in the mountains, and our tent was torn apart. We left the camp before dark – Shemaev on his snowmobile was ahead, I and very experienced guide Victor behind him on a snowmobile. His Yamaha was briskly pulling the sled with the only passenger-me. The weather on that day decided to pamper us with sunlight and the absence of wind. We had to cut our way through the cedar tree with axes and saws, because it had already melted, and its thick hooked branches stuck out everywhere, and handed the movement. Pretty soon we reached a wide plateau near the foothills and continued to move to the farthest part of Shemaev's hunting grounds, which were the most inaccessible and impassable. He rarely visited those places himself– either he was saving them for a special occasion, or he was saving fuel – there were enough bears to hunt near the base. The other hunters and the locals saw a huge bear in that remote place but it never gave a close look at itself. Many of them said that bears of that size were rarely found in Kamchatka. How you can stand near the well, but not to drink - Is it good!? The desire to meet that monster worried my soul. I noticed lots of things, which didn't come across so often in other places while we were riding there. There were a lot of remains of wild deer everywhere. But I attributed that observation to the fact that there were just a lot of bears in those remote mountains. The hunting area was nothing remarkable. Mountains looked as all other mountains. Shemaev suggested to climb higher on snowmobiles and inspect the area from above. "Maybe, - he said. - We'll get lucky and notice something special.” So we did, climbed into the mountains and stared into the eyepieces of binoculars. At first it seemed that everything and everywhere was flat. Then at a distance of three or four kilometers, in one of the gorges, we noticed a very strange feature – it was all covered with bear tracks. They seemed to be tracing the snow cover with dotted lines. There were plenty of them! Shemaev explained it as follows: that narrow ravine was protected from all sides by mountains, and it was a unique aft "bridgehead", covered completely with cedar with a still preserved cone. It was quickly covered with snow in autumn, when the onset of cold weather, and now, when the thaw started almost the entire Kamchatka bear gathered in that place. It was our chance! The option to go there "quietly" disappeared immediately: a thick, slightly melted cedar would not let us step a step. Therefore, we decided to drive at speed from two sides into that gorge and see what would happen. Shemaev said: – It's not an easy road there, it won't be possible to get to the exit right away, you both have to turn your heads 360 degrees, there are steep ascents and descents, a river, a cedar tree. If you notice something "good one", don't think, but shoot immediately! Let's start! I nodded in agreement. I took a proven HS Precision carbine in 338 Lapua Mag caliber with Sierra bullets weighing 16.5 grams for that trip. Later, after the hunt, I thanked fate that that particular carbine was with me at that time and in that place. We started up engines, I took a comfortable position in the sled for shooting and sent a cartridge into the chamber. We accelerated and almost flew into the intermountain after a minute or two with a roar for the whole neighborhood.… I remembered for a lifetime what I saw there. The groups of bears of 3-4 individuals began to appear on the slopes in the ascent at the exits from the hollow, because of the rumble from our snowmobiles. In total, I counted six groups at distances from 300 to 800 meters, in which there were three or four bears. Unbelievable! It was unforgettable to watch herds of bears in one place! The animals scattered on the left and on the right side of the gorge. Suddenly the snowmobiles stopped abruptly, and silence fell. We turned our heads to the left, then to the right in the hope to see something really worthwhile. I got out of the sleigh, walked ten meters to the side, and then I heard Shemaev's shout. - On the right, in the ascent, the last one!!! I laid the carbine between the bent branches of a cedar tree, fell knee-deep in snow, but somehow managed to balance my feet on the snags. There were two of them. One was small, but the second one ate porridge with vitamins in childhood. It was a trophy that any trophy hunter could only dream of! The shooting distance was 600 meters. Shemaev shouted: -Andrey, shoot! Don’t let it leave! I put the carbine, and calculated the correction for the shot, and fired! Two my shots didn’t give any result. The animals walked more powerfully than I thought – there was a hard crust under the paws of the bears. The distance was increasing! I fired a third time, focusing on the aiming grid. Shemaev shouted: - Lower! The next, fourth shot... stopped the bear. It stood up, swayed, and sat down. The distance was 720 meters. We froze in anticipation… After a while, the bear got up and went to the right and up, moving its paws heavily. My breath caught in my throat, but then I noticed a clear trail of blood on the way it left. Shamaev shouted for Victor to get on the snowmobile quickly and take me to the foot of the cliff, from where I could take a few more shots. We jumped to the place, and saw large bear tracks going up the mountain. At last, I saw the bear through binoculars, but the distance to it was critical – already all 1000 meters! And the angle was too steep! I did two more shots but without any result. The bullets went in the wrong place. Nevertheless, it was clear that the bear was slowing down - it often stopped sat down, and shoveled snow with its paws. It did it each 100 m. Blood gushed from it in a stream, flooding the snow. We continued the pursuit, and after a while I saw it, had already climbed very high, and lay down behind a boulder. It was over! I felt it. It always happens with a hunter – this strange connection with an animal. But how could we get it from there? Who could climb waist-deep in snow on a bear trail – and there was no less than a kilometer to that very boulder – and finish off the beast It was beginning to get dark... There was only one person among us who was able to go to the icy mountain - huntsman Victor. Neither Shemaev nor I had any strength left. Victor took the carbine and started climbing. We kept looking up and saw him slowly closed the distance between himself and the bear though he did frequent stops. The most difficult thing was to overcome the narrow icy strip on the crest of the cliff to the boulder where the bear lay hidden. About an hour and a half, Victor reached the mark of 1000 meters, and we noticed how he crouched down and began aiming towards the boulder. Two shots rang out, one after the other. The bear jumped out with a swing, from behind a boulder, turned over on its back and rolled down to the bottom, where we were standing. It didn’t last for a long. Soon it gradually slowed down, turned over on the belly and spread its paws wide. Victor began to descend diagonally to the beast and after a while we saw him shoot again. Then, the dead bear rolled downhill without stopping. It had been rolling for a long time from such a height. And flew almost to our feet. I was shocked by its size. It was an incredibly massive male Kamchatka brown bear with a large yellow-red head. It turned out that the bullet Scenar hit the bear in the hind leg, broke the bone and artery, and went somewhere higher (then it was found under the spine). It was a serious injury that just stopped it. I was bubbling inside with joy, and I had no doubt that congratulations would begin \. I noticed that for some reason Shemaev was not particularly cheerful to my indescribable surprise. He even looked sad. What's happen? What's wrong? I was sure that everything should have been the other way around! Soon Victor came down to us. He breathed heavily, looked at the bear, and then I saw concern in his eyes. He suddenly fell to his knees and almost howled like a wolf: - My God, we killed irkuyem! Soon, we all die. It didn’t look like a joke. I looked at him and saw in his eyes an unspeakable horror!!! – We have released an evil spirit! A curse is hanging over us!” I felt a little uneasy. Shemaev stood motionless and did nothing. What was next? Man is often turns out to be a hostage of the conventions created by himself. The men could not, although they really wanted to, to leave such a prey, they simply had no right to do so. I didn't really believe in all these fairy tales, and I wouldn't have understood them if they hadn't skinned the trophy. So we stood for a while, and didn't look into each other's eyes, then Viktor butchered the trophy tearfully. Then there was a long road on snowmobiles to the tent camp… P.S. In the year that had passed since that hunt in Kamchatka, a number of events happened that placed a heavy burden on our destinies. I got to the intensive care unit of one of the clinics in Moscow, and was on the verge of life and death. Fortunately, I was discharged a month later. In the same year, Shemaev was hospitalized in Moscow in a very serious condition – stomach cancer. He was operated, then there was a long treatment, rehabilitation in Palan for a year - he survived. Victor died. We all know that everything is not so simple in this world. We certainly don't know what else fate has in store for us. Let's hope for the best.

Putorana dead end, or how a little-known online publication registered in Latvia, Medusa hopes to deprive the Putoran Reserve of real funding. Anatoly Mozharov: Sergey Gorshkov, a hunter and fishing enthusiast in the past, and an outstanding wildlife photographer, went to the Putoran Plateau a few years ago to shoot a local subspecies of snow sheep. There is no need to remind that this is a red book subspecies, which is protected by the state. After the landing, Sergey immediately discovered the recent butchering sites of sheep killed by poachers. The helicopter pilots, military men, geologists and others who fly helicopters there, extract the red book Putorana sheep... for meat! It's no need to say, there is the only one thing that protects (and protects very conditionally) Putoran sheep – the inaccessibility of the plateau for hikers and water travelers, but not for those who use helicopters. How much damage do poachers do to the population of these animals? Probably not very big. Nobody knows, it can be big. Today, no one is able to answer this question even approximately. In early 2000s we stood on the bank of the Norilka River and talked with the the director of the Putoransky Reserve Vladimir Larin, who estimated the existing population with the words: "There are a lot of sheep.” Do you agree that "a lot", "full amount "countless" - these are not the most accurate numerals. At the end of 80s the last century, the number of sheep on the Putorana plateau was estimated at 1,500 heads, by the beginning of the XXI century there were already 6500 individuals (the reserve occupies only a part of the plateau territory, and about 800 individuals presumably live in it). Neither then nor now is anyone aware of the correct number of sheep, since the number of Putoran sheep both within the territory of the reserve and outside it (and sheep inhabitat not only in the reserve) has not been taken into account for decades – there are no funds for this. Moreover, the reserve doesn't have the means to protect Putorana sheep from poachers, wolves and other predators. The reserve doesn't have the means to monitor the physiological state of these ungulates. It's necessary not only to shoot red-book animals to make monitoing (which is provided for by the legislation -  "Rules for obtaining objects of the animal world belonging to species listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation ..." (approved. by resolution  The Government of the Russian Federation dated January 6, 1997, N 13)", in accordance with paragraph 2 of which "The extraction of wildlife objects belonging to species listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation, with the exception of aquatic biological resources, is allowed in exceptional cases in order to preserve wildlife objects, monitor the state of their populations ..."), but to do a number of biochemical, microbiological and genetic analyses in certified laboratories, and this also costs money. The shooting for scientific purposes, which I have just mentioned, will still be carried out sooner or later by the staff of the reserve. The reserve staff can only measure and weigh the animals. We'll have to forget about the tests. The weighting and the measuring- this assessment of the animal looks adequate for the century before last, but not for the XXI. But they'll shoot the animals to carry out not a particularly informative "scientific examination". The Club of Mountain Hunters knew about the problems with the protection of sheep and offered the help. The idea of financial assistance to the Putoransky Nature Reserve was received with enthusiasm and as a result, a project was developed. A significant amount would be allocated to the reserve, which would help both to keep records of the number and to establish animal protection. Almost 30,000,000 rubles is so much money that only a hypocrite is able to call them "payment for hunting". There are no such expensive hunts in nature. This is really a concern for the protection of animals. Not mythical, but quite real. The same funds will make it possible to conduct analyses of the extracted animals according to the full program. The Club asks for the only that the shooting was carried out not by employees of the reserve, but by members of the Club. It can be done not in the reserve, but outside it. The project is designed for three years, its main tasks are to assess the number, population density and territorial placement of snow sheep, to determine the boundaries of the habitats of individual isolated groups of animals, to conduct genetic studies with the removal (extraction) of 6 individuals from the population. The Federal State Budgetary Institution "Taimyr Reserves" sent the entire set of necessary documents provided for by the regulations for consideration by the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation for making a final decision on the implementation of this project, in accordance with the "Administrative Regulations of the Federal Service for Supervision of Nature Management of the provision of state services for the issuance of permits for the extraction of objects of wildlife and flora listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation (approved by the Order of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation dated February 18, 2013 N 60). The package includes expert opinions of scientists who specialize in the study of snow sheep, which confirm that the planned extraction of animals for scientific purposes does not contradict the existing laws of the Russian Federation, scientific goals and objectives, that the project as a whole is designed to optimize the research and environmental activities of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Taimyr Reserves" both in the Putoransky Reserve and in adjacent territories. This project is the reason of hysteria over such a blatant fact that hunters are going to finance the work of the reserve for many years, which neither the state nor greenpeace are able to do! And now we see how the social-media "Medusa" publishes a pamphlet which is full of absurd statements, built on guesses, assumptions and absurd conclusions. What do you think about this attack on the President of the club Edward Bendersky: "Other hunters accused him of corrupt ties with the former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources Vladimir Melnikov; the Medusa could not find any evidence of this"? So, I can write in my turn: According the evidence to some people "Medusa" is a pro-fascist publication funded by Islamic terrorists; I could not find any confirmation of this,"then will it be OK? This is a cheap trick from the arsenal of unscrupulous journalists, but it does its dirty work – they didn't seem to lie, but "soiled goods". Medusa found nothing better than to asks Academician PANI Zheleznov-Chukotsky to comment the situation and he found nothing better than to say an obvious absurdity: "... at the age of 12, a snow sheep ... participates in the social life of the herd, and no one except it can know the structure of the placement of winter main and reserve pastures.” Then he's came to this conclusion, based on his experience. According to his own words, he has been studying sheep for the last 25 years," concludes that it is unacceptable to shoot six (two per year) male overstocks.   I must say, PANI is the Petrovsky Academy of Sciences and Arts, created on a voluntary basis by a group of St. Petersburg residents during the collapse of the USSR. They were not accepted as academicians, but they wanted to be listed as academicians – in general, a pardonable weakness. Yesterday, I has also created an academy with quite such a solid name ASAC - the Academy of Sciences, Arts and Crafts named after Lomonosov, Repin and the Polzunov brothers, where I myself am an academician. I am, Mozharov-Nizhny Novgorodsky want to ask Zheleznov-Chukotsky, as an academician of the academician, what kind of twelve-year-old males of snow sheep participate in the social life of the herd, if only females go with the young, including five-, ten-, and twelve-year-olds? And these female sheep know better than any males where there are pastures. One more question is how do the youth of other subspecies of snow sheep,which are regularly and in sufficiently large volumes extracted by hunters, find out where the pastures are located? They don't degrade numerically, but also grows more and more every year? If after 25 years of studying sheep the academician Zheleznov-Chukotsky can only make the conclusions he shared with Medusa, then it is clear why PANI is the top of his scientific career. Our editorial board is not at all concerned about the "scientific opinion" of Zheleznov-Chukotsky and not the cheap method of "Medusa" – the use of ridiculous statements and unreliable information in the publication in order not to wash, but to get their way. We are concerned about what is behind the position of Greenpeace. It became clear   from the provocative article that the social- media Medusa and the official statement of Greenpeace, funded from foreign funds, are going to fight so that the difficult situation with the protection of Putoran sheep does not change for the better. The lawyer of "Greenpeace of Russia" Mikhail Kreindlin said to "Medusa": "We are going to use all the ways available to us to prevent this from happening." The Greenpeace statement said the following "The permission to shoot Putorana sheep can become a precedent that will destroy the system of protection of red Book species (highlighted by me - A.M.). To prevent this, Greenpeace appealed to Rosprirodnadzor, the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for Environmental Protection, Ecology and Transport Sergey Ivanov.” Why do they need it? The answer may seem paradoxical – they need an imperfect, practically system of "protection" of red book animals doesn' to change for the better, so that everything remains as it is, so that red book animals are practically defenseless before poachers. Why? It's all about their current system of financing organizations. Who will donate funds to animal protection organizations like Greenpeace if there are so many Red Book animals that there will be no need to put them in the Red Book. If it turns out that limited, rational, inexhaustible hunting will lead to a surge in the number of animals, whose livestock for some reason could not be forced to increase before, the Greenpeace may even be among the outsiders and it'll ruin their reputation. A number of experiments both in our country and abroad clearly demonstrate the phenomenal success of rational hunting in stabilizing the number, and then in the rapid growth of animal populations that had previously demonstrated an extremely depressed state in the conditions of "red Book protection". This is what the animal rights organizations are afraid when they say beautiful words about the "inadmissibility of murder", but at the same time they don't worry about what actually happens in nature with those animals that are listed in the Red Book. I really want to ask those who are "up there": how long will we have to endure the hypocritical "instructions" of foreign agents of influence? Or will we eventually live in accordance with common sense, traditions and culture of the peoples, which live in our country in order to further its prosperity?

This article is a purely personal opinion of a professional hunter with extensive experience of hunting and shooting in different climatic and seasonal conditions on the territory of the Russian Federation and neighboring states and is based on his personal experience and on the experience of shooting hunters for whom trophy hunting was organized. The art of marksmanship has always been appreciated since the use of small arms. A swift French attack was repulsed by a Russian jaeger regiment In the Battle of Borodino in 1812. "We have never lost so many generals and officers in one battle," wrote the French ambassador to Russia, Caulaincourt. - They were disabled by the hunters of the Russian army.” It is known from the experiences of combat operations in military conflicts of recent decades that from 20 to 30 thousand (!) cartridges were spent on one killed from small arms. Snipers used 1-2 to hit the target! The main qualities of a sniper are: intelligence; emotional stability; poise; physical fitness and health; field training. This is the quote from the book "SNIPER" Domnenko A.F. The above can be attributed to a real hunter. It is known that snipers during the war were mainly hunters because vital necessity had already developed in them all the qualities listed above. I am constantly convinced of the correctness of these requirements described by A.F. Domnenko. I had to use almost all the qualities described above during the hunt for the Kuban tur in the Krasnodar Territory. Physical fitness and health.Hunting in the Caucasus mountains is one of the most, if not the most difficult in terms of physical exertion. The guide and I had to spend about 5 hours to climb to the hunting area with all equipment. To chase the beast in the mountains. To butcher the tur on the steep slope. To return to the camp on steep cliffs for 4 hours and carry a load weighing about 30kg. It happens that the hunters should overcome such mountain ascents and descents several days in a row. Field training.We did not find turs in the places where we expected to see them (the very tops of the rocks). But we saw them much lower in a small forest. The terrain around was open, which made it very difficult to approach the beast. That was the situation when I used everything I learned as a child in school at the lessons of the initial military training; during my sports and, of course, in the army (I am a reserve officer of motorized rifle troops). In that situation, even my guide could not help in any way. Rather, he was already in the way, since he did not have all the tactical and practical skills I had. Intelligence. I asked the guide about the landscape of the area where the male was to be hidden, assessed the situation and calculated the route to my trophy. I had to hike part of the way, hiding behind small ridges. I crawled a part of the way, and I had to move down the slope upside down, but it was impossible to overcome that section (about 300 meters) in a different way. Balance. We found ourselves in close proximity (25-30 meters) with a bear while we approaching the tur. We had to avoided any contact with it, in every possible way, so as not to scare the bear off, with the tur. I had to crawl once again the last part of the way about 100 meters and we were already at the edge of the forest, where it was easier to disguise ourselves. I managed to approach the turs at a distance of 30 (!) meters moving silently and hiding behind trees. (Later, I managed to approach Dagestan turs at about the same distance. What even experienced mountain guides were surprised at)?  Many hunters who are in such close proximity to the beast often have their hands shaking or even chills running through their entire body. It is in this case that emotional stability is required. I won't hide that you are overwhelmed with excitement, but those who can overcome their inner excitement manage to pull themselves together can make a confident shot in this situation. Otherwise, a miss even from such a close distance will not be an accident. Such situations are not uncommon in my outfitter practice. Once in Khakassia, a former sniper of the Bundeswehr, saw the marshal at a distance of 200 meters from the excitement, shook and chattered his teeth so much that we had to calmed him down for several minutes. In the end, a miss! It also happened that I had to gather all my remaining strength after long and hard wanderings through the mountains and put them into one aimed shot at a distance of 200-250 meters. There was a case when we were in the mountains for six days. We rode horses from 20 to 40 km a day through the mountains at altitudes over 4,000 m above sea level. In addition to this, I had to spend the night at an altitude of 4,300 meters above sea level in the open air at a temperature of -20 degrees after riding a horse at night on steep cliffs. At night, a large tumor formed in my throat, in addition to that, I was shivering all over. It sometimes happens from physical and moral overstrain. Early in the morning we moved to the hunting area when it was still dark. We had to sit there, practically motionless, in the cold wind for about two hours. After that, we had to make a march along the ridges for 1 hour. At last, I crawled to the firing line from the last remaining forces. Two ibexes were at a distance of about 200 meters, as my guide said. The sun was shining right in my eyes. I could shoot both ibexes, but saw just one until the last moment, because I was afraid that they might notice the glare from the optical sight and hide. Then I would have lost the last opportunity to take the trophy. It was necessary to aim and shoot very quickly! I had to mobilize all my physical and moral forces. I saw ibexes as soon as I crawled out to the crest of the cliff. I caught the first one in the crosshair. The Shot! It rolled down the stone placer. The second one stood there, not understanding what had happened and where the danger was coming from. I reloaded quickly, took aim, and fired. The second ibex followed the first down. My guide rejoiced like a child. I was recovering from physical and moral overstrain for a long time. But I got the result. I learned about the peculiarities of the psychology of marksmanship in conditions of overstrain only two years later and purely by accident. There was a report on the training of the British special forces on the Explorer channel. They noticed interesting features in the performance of shooting exercises. The higher the loads were, the faster and more accurate the shooting was. The explanation for such a phenomenon was a simple thing. It was all about the degree of motivation and concentration of consciousness. The presenter expressed one very interesting idea in the commentary to this report: “If you tell the Special Forces that he can't do it, and he will do it”. I gave that example so that the inexperienced reader could understand how high motivation and concentration should be during a shot to make only one or two aimed shots in such difficult conditions and get a trophy for which the man had made a long and difficult journey of several days and hundreds of kilometers. The shooting process can be characterized by athletes or a simple layman, as the mechanical action of pressing the trigger in order to produce a shot with the whole or aiming at the target of the crosshairs or the optical sight point. They are right but… This is actually the case from the point of view of the scholastic approach. But I would like to discuss all the details and subtleties of the shooting process performed by a hunter and in the process of various types of hunting. The skill of shooting is taught in USA, almost from the childhood. Moreover, both boys and girls shoot from infancy. What advantages give it for the shooter and the future hunter? First of all, a person gets used to a weapon, considers it his integral part of being, and it is easier for him to build that line of eyes-sight-target and direct the charge or bullet exactly where it should fly. But you must always remember that this process is always guided by your brain one way or another. The success of your shooting will depend on how stable and confident you can build this sensory-motor connection. I will try to analyze the shooting experience, which I learned from various sources. These are books, instructions from my teachers on shooting in school years; competitive experience in shooting from a small-caliber rifle; watching the shooting of professional shooters; communication with professional shooters; experience of independent shooting from smoothbore weapons, hunting with a friendly dog and shooting on mountain hunts, shooting hunters-archers. The bias will be made on the psychology of the hunter's shooting. I've been shooting since I can remember. I don't know who infected me with this passion. There were not hunters among my ancestors. My father was a good shot in the army with a pistol of the Nagan system. That's probably all the shooting roots. It was very difficult in Soviet times to go and shoot from any weapon. I gained a little experience of shooting figures when shooting at a shooting range with an air rifle. There I learned how to combine and align the rear sight with the front sight and pull the trigger smoothly. I acquired the first, truly conscious experience of shooting from a serious weapon, which at that time was a small-caliber TOZ-8 rifle, at school. My first real shooting teacher was Sergey Pavlovich Kudrin, a retired major in the Soviet army and a teacher of primary military training at our school. The dioptric sight system helped me to expand my understanding of the types of sights and methods of aiming. We formed a team of several guys from all over the school, who showed good results in shooting practice. Subsequently, we trained with this team and participated in competitions for the city championship. There I learned the monotony of aiming. It was a very necessary thing for shooting the hunting carbine. I learned to breathe while shooting. There at school we were taught how to choose a position convenient for shooting. I haven't achieved any outstanding results in competitions. But I could always hit a series in a circle the size of a "10" target. The caretakers of the shooting range were too lazy to shoot the weapon properly, and Sergei Pavlovich emphasized the accuracy of shooting. It was possible to move the sighting device just before the competition. Once the shooting range keeper who knew me well appreciated the importance of that skill of monotony of aiming when I, being already an experienced hunter in 2016, was shooting my carbine with a newly installed sight. He saw three bullet holes in a circle with a diameter of 0.5 cm, and asked with undisguised surprise: "Who taught you to shoot like that?". I told him that I got that skill from S.P. Kudrin. “Who was he?” "My school teacher," I said with some sarcasm. That guy hasn't known the name of our teacher, but I am still grateful to him for the basics of shooting that a simple teacher at school has given us. Then the psychology of shooting was laid in us subconsciously. We just followed the commands given to us by the teacher. And we were doing pretty well. I was able to understand much later why we were good in shooting. But all that came in handy while I was serving in the army. The state called, and God sent me to serve in the Trans-Baikal Military District. If you serve in the army, you have to shoot, and the more, the better. That's how I saw my service. And how it happened. Infantry on the BMP. All the hills and valleys were ours. We were shooting sometimes around the clock from almost all the weapons that were in the army. I really liked it, unlike what filled our time in the intervals between shooting. We fired AK-74 or AKM at moving and stationary targets at distances from 150 to 450 meters. It was a wonderful shooting experience, wasn't it? Right there I got acquainted with a sniper rifle for the first time. The feeling of "love at first sight" for weapons as well as for a woman is characteristic of any normal man. So it was with me. Since then, I had dreamed of shooting with a rifle with an optical sight. I was always impressed by the role of a full-time sniper, and I saw myself as such. We had very good instructors in shooting training, who methodically passed on their knowledge to us. I learned to shoot very well from almost all types of small arms; at stationary and moving targets; lying, sitting and in motion from the side of an IFV; day and night. Unfortunately, I only lacked special sniper training. But I made up for it myself when I started shooting with a hunting carbine. At that time, I had already had all the qualities necessary for a sniper. All that I needed was practice. Initially, I focused of one aimed effective shot. I participated in several hunts where the military weapons were used. It was in the time when it was allowed to buy and use military weapons on hunting. Telling the truth, I was shocked by the result of the shooting from the SCS and Tigers. The hunters, mostly professional rangers released a whole ammunition (10 rounds) and could not stop the beast. There were a lot of wounded animals and unjustified losses. Irresponsibility for a shot was the norm at that time. In my opinion, it was a crime! Even then I understood that the shot should be one, accurate and in the aim. The beauty of hunting is not in the insane density of fire from different distances, but in the ability to approach the animal as close as possible and to make that decisive shot. Only such shot gives the hunter the right to be called a real hunter and a good shooter. It's my opinion. I tried to link together everything I had learned earlier using the accumulated shooting experience. But new methods had to be introduced. In particular, I was always trying to see my shot. What do I mean? After I put all the necessary aiming elements together, I tried to imagine how the bullet hits the place where I've aimed right before pulling the trigger. This is a small background of my theoretical and practical shooting training. Shooting at a shooting range from a rifled weapon is significantly different from shooting from a smooth barrel on a stand. If the type of nervous activity of shooters in the shooting range tends to be phlegmatic, then stand-ups are closer to choleric. The first one needs to be as calm as possible, the second is the constant readiness to shoot at a target that appears suddenly, quick reaction and honed standard movements. A true versatile hunter must have all the qualities inherent in both. I started hunting with a smooth barrel. The main objects of hunting were birds. I couldn't say that I shot ducks, grouse and grouse well, but on average the percentage of hits was about 50. I practically didn't go to the shooting range. Just one time. I shot 18 skeets out of 25 on the stand and did not appear there again. My dogs taught me how to shoot. First time it happened in 1993, I found myself at the opening of a swamp-field game hunt with my drathaar, named Gera, who was young only 8 months old, but already worked perfectly in the field. The most interesting thing began directly on the hunt. The bird, the dog, my shooting all seemed to exist by itself for me. Why? There was just one reason – I could not understand the psychology of the bird's behavior after takeoff (I lacked experience) with the manner of work of a dog (lack of practical experience) and a very low percentage of hits, as the apotheosis of all that. Each rise of the bird after the dog stand was more of a surprise to me than a pattern. I wasn't ready to fire, and hence a large number of misses. Yes, I shot about twenty birds on the very first day! But, how many cartridges did I use up at the same time?! I didn’t account them! There was more disappointment from a miss than enjoyment of the shooting process. Even the dog turned her head in my direction after another mistake and looked at me with such reproach that I was ready to crumble in front of her in apologies, if she understood them. I promised her to improve. And I did it. The effectiveness of my shooting has changed significantly after several years of hunting with dogs. I have already surpassed the best shooters in our area. Why is this possible? First of all, there was a lot of practice and mandatory analysis of the entire process of hunting wild game. I trained three of my dogs and several dogs of my friends to work in the field. I tried to hunt with them in the field as much as possible. I hunted in my region and traveled to other adjacent regions of the center of Russia and shot from 100 to 200 pieces of marsh-meadow game only during the season. I was watching how the dog works on the bird in the process of training, and then hunting, tried to understand how the bird itself behaved under the dog, from where and when it took off, how it flied. I paid attention to all the smallest details of the bird's behavior under different conditions, as well as the difference in the behavior and manner of flight of meadow birds. I was pleased to get acquainted with the work "Hunting and commercial birds of Russia” (1900) by Professor of the Imperial Moscow University M. A. Menzbir. He described in detail about 130 species of birds, the way of life and habitat of the beloved and respected by hunters, the great snipes, snipes – the main and most interesting objects of my hunting. There, I found out that the great snipe, although it lives almost in the same places with the snipe and has practically the same color, but its lifestyle and habits are much closer to its forest counterpart, the woodcock. I'm not talking about the significant differences between the flight of a great snipe and a snipe. All these points that I paid attention to eventually, helped me to predict with a high degree of probability the location and type of bird that the dog was working on. The shooting turns out to be much more effective when you have learned how to determine it and draw the right conclusions. There were not quite typical cases. Once, my drathaar Ulli fom Rauhhaar and I hunted a snipe in the Vologda region. It was very interestingly and effectively hunting. When the dog stood once again o in an open meadow, I was inclined to think that another great snipe was hiding nearby. The only thing that slightly puzzled me was the dog's too short and firm stance. He was standing with his muzzle pointing down in front of him. As it turned out later, a brood of grouse was hiding in the meadow. They sit very tight in August. Suddenly, the black grouse exploded right from under the dog's nose. I even froze in surprise for a few moments. The young black grouses began to rise behind her, one by one. I managed to concentrate quickly. I released the female and two young cockerels went to my bag after a successful doublet. It was often earlier with myself, and then I observed the same situation with other hunters that the mistakes occurred after an unexpected and sharp rise of the bird. In that case, the shooter was not sufficiently focused on the shot. The sharp rise of the bird deprived the shooter of the opportunity to concentrate on the target.  The result of that accumulated experience of hunting such small and agile game was that sometimes I was not so interested in even shooting. I thought that I looked like some kind of "liquidator" than a hunter. There were long series after another when I shot at a great snipe then and a snipe, and I did not miss at all. Believe me, it's not very pleasant. The bird rises, then the shot and it falls. Again, and again. I just raised the butt to my shoulder and pulled the trigger, not aiming. That kind of shooting was already more like instinctive shooting from a traditional bow. You understand that such effective shooting is the result of your own training and analysis of successful shots and misses, but it still seems to you that something is wrong. Some element of competition with the bird was lost. I didn't miss even the snipes, which were probably the most difficult to hunt. At the same time, I understood perfectly well that I would not be able to hunt any other way. Could I go down a step lower? That contradicted the essence of all that I had accumulated over many years of hunting and shooting. I've never understood the special charm of skeet- shooting on the bench. In my opinion, all the moves there have been predicted for a long time and the only thing you need is to concentrate on the shot itself. I found evidence of that during broadcasts of shooting competitions on trench and round benches. Top-class shooters achieve almost the same results, and the winner is decided only in shootouts, where everything depends on who has stronger nerves. The shooter who does not make mistakes until the last, and wins. It's a completely different thing to shoot at a small bird that takes off from under a dog and flies along an unpredictable trajectory. Recently, I have had a desire to hunt swamp-meadow game without a dog. It makes shooting even more difficult, because no one shows you the direction of the bird's location. It is no longer difficult for me to get a dozen birds (a great snipe or a snipe) after spending only 11-12 shots on it thanks to the experience behind me. In the paddock with optics. I had never agreed with the generally accepted opinion that the hunter need to go to the corral only with a smooth barrel rifle or with a lancer fitting or carbine without optics. It is absolutely true that the shot at the corral is mainly fired from a distance of 10 to 50 meters. The second factor that gives preference to weapons without optics is that there is practically no time to aim using optics. But everything depends on the preferences of the shooter. I want to give examples from my practice of shooting on corral hunts. I had a certain practice of hunting in the paddocks with a smooth barrel before I purchased a carbine. I fired from my IZH-27. The shooting success on a corral hunt depends to a greater extent on the behavior of the shooter on his number. Many modern "hunters" don't attach much importance to this moment. They can afford themselves to sit down and to drink alcohol and then get a snack from a cellophane bag. They are not confused by the crunch of plastic, which the animals can hear and conclude not to go there. Then such a hunter can get up and step aside to relieve his natural need, without thinking about the fact that he spoils the hunt not only for himself, but for the shooters on neighboring numbers too. And then they usually complain that there are not enough beaters and therefore they haven't driven the beast to their feet when they have been drinking vodka. Just for information! It is rare when more than 4 beaters In Siberia. Usually there are two or three of them. The round up lasts from 1 to 3 hours usually. The beast is driven mainly by two or three beaters. "How can it be so?", - our European consumer of corral hunts will ask. But it is so. A beater (the intelligent one) or just an experienced hunter who knows the terrain well, doesn't make mistakes with the direction of the beast's course in various weather conditions. Therefore, hunters are placed at these crossings. The hunters have to shoot at a distance of 50 to 200 meters at moving animals. God forbid you to miss or, even worse, to scare the beast away with noise on such a corral hunt. It will be clear from the tracks why the beast hasn't gone to the shooter. I can cite many such cases.  Once, when we hunted in a corral in Khakassia, we could not understand why the animals did not come out to shooters. It seemed that we did everything right, and the beast went in the right direction, but turned around and went away before reaching 200-300 meters to the shooters. It was easy to explain. We decided to have a snack and organized a small breakfast. But one of the German hunters refused politely our offers, he referred to the fact that he had already had a snack. It turned out later that he settled down on his place, took out his favorite smoked sausage, that smelled so much that was felt at a decent distance and tasted that delicacy. The result of the hunt was logical. But the apotheosis of hunting lack of culture is smoking when you stay on the number. I was pleasantly unaware of the permissibility of such behavior by hunters up to a certain time. It turned out that I was deeply mistaken. There are people who think that it is possible to drink cognac and smoke expensive cigars while standing on the number. This behavior is the guarantee that the beast won't go to the hunter, or even turn back and leave through the beaters, as males of deer and moose do. The animals are so sensitive that the moose is able to catch the smell of cigarette smoke from a distance of three kilometers. The animal will always stop and stand for some time before moving through the forest and especially before a forest road or an exit to an open space. If the hapless hunter ignores the rules of disguise on the number and at least moves a little, the beast will immediately notice this movement and won't to move in this direction. Therefore, I always take a very careful approach to choosing the shooting position on the number. I get up only in front of a tree or bush. I make sure that there are no branches on the side, about which I could touch in case of rotation. I always remove all the knots and branches from under my feet that can create noise with their crunch in case of stepping from foot to foot. In winter, I always rake a small hole in order to get up there, and put several branches of spruce on the bottom, to hide the noise from the movement of the feet. I get up on the number and freeze. You don't have to move. The only thing I allow myself is a slow transfer of the center of gravity from one foot to the other and the movement of the toes inside the shoes It doesn't allow me to freeze if it is cold and unloads my feet. I had many examples when the beast turned away from the next number and came straight at me thanks to that. It was clearly audible by the footsteps of a boar, deer or maral. Lately, I rarely participate in corral hunts, mainly because of the low cultural level of "new" hunters who inadvertently can shoot along the numbers. There were several situations when such hunters shot over my head. But sometimes I have to participate at the request of friends. I remember the moments of shooting at wild boars in conditions of limited visibility they are often preserved in my memory. The forest roads are the usual place in such cases, the shooters on corral hunts are often placed along them. Visibility in such places is often from 10-15 meters to 25-50 maximum. Just imagine, how much time you have to aim and shoot if there are wild boars. There are often about everything 1-2 seconds for everything. I was not always sure, until the last moment, that it would be possible to shoot at the beast. The validity and safety of the shot - first of all! I don't like to shoot badly and to wound the animal most of all. That tactic has never let me down. If you have experience of shooting in a confined forest space, you can follow all my recommendations described above and you'll have many chances to make a well-aimed shot. You need to rise the rifle or carbine much earlier than the approach of the beast you (if you have no experience of shooting "offhand"), or you should wait until the last and to throw it up only when the beast is clearly visible to you. In the first case, you will wait for a long time, and your hands may get tired. Your chances to make an accurate shot fall. In the second case, there is an instinctive shooting (common among traditional bow shooters), which you come to with experience. I will give one example to illustrate this type of shooting. The corral. You hear a few shots inside the corral, but the boars are reluctant to go towards the shooters. It turned out later that someone was drinking, someone was smoking, someone was just noisy on the number. It was a beautiful winter day with a slight frost. That was the reason why the beast's step and even its breathing could be heard at a great distance. The animals heard us too. The young boar went to my neighbor on the right, but did not reach. It turned around in the spruce forest and went to my neighbor on the left, then turned around again and came right at me. The distance was 15 meters. My gun was down. I was frozen, I didn't even breath. The shooting area was about 10-20 degrees. The boar stood and sniffed. Obviously, only the smell gave me away. The boar made a sharp jump to my right. The second jump was its last. I hit just behind the shoulder blade. The corral continued, and the beaters had pressed the boars to the line of shooters. I could hear the dogs worked not far from me in the spruce forest. After 5 minutes, the second young boar appeared closer to my neighbor on the left. He did one shot. The miss. The second shot. He missed once again and the boar went between me and the unsuccessful shooter. The space for a shot was very limited and there was only one possibility – to shoot straight ahead at a running boar from a distance of 15 meters offhand. There would be no way to shoot after it - there was a very dense forest. I would have to allow that boar to go. Safety on the hunt is first of all. But I decided to take advantage of the small opportunity that still remained. The Shot! The boar collapsed right at the beginning of the forest road. It took me a maximum of 1-2 seconds to analyze the situation and to shoot. However, I hit the boar in the sacrum and broke the spine. But the beast was immediately killed on the spot. Two shots offhand – two trophies. But there was nothing particularly outstanding in that. You just need to observe the ethics of corral hunting and to understand the psychology of shooting a boar offhand. The next time the situation was more complicated. My place was on the edge of a forest road. The next number (shooter) was far away from me around the corner, so I was allowed to shoot a boar, even if it was on the road. A boar stopped thirty meters away from me in the bushes. I didn’t see it. But I just heard it inhaled air noisily and prepared to jump across the road; I imagined that I would have no more than 1, maximum 2 seconds to aim and shoot. I got ready, and as soon as the boar appeared, I raised my gun and shot the beast on the second jump, without aiming. The bullet hit right behind the heart, but the boar passed only 20-25 meters and fell. No more shots had to be fired at it. It was over. However, such mastery does not come immediately And I was no exception in that regard. Unfortunately, I have not met a description of the formation of an effective and diverse shooting by any of the hunters in the literature. It was a pity! I collected everything myself by the pieces. One more time I had to shoot an adult boar with a carbine with optics "on the jump". There was a wounded wild boar in the corral. It had the decent size and belonged to those specimens, a meeting with which, especially with a wounded one, would be completely undesirable for an inexperienced hunter. The boar wandered around the paddock for a long time in search of an exit, but everywhere it came across shooters who did not bother themselves with observing the rules of behavior on the number. Eventually, I heard that the boar was moving towards me. There was a dense spruce forest in front of me. I was standing in a small clearing. Snow was above the knee. And none of the trees near me. Experienced hunters can imagine the situation in which I have found myself. I had the only one chance not to be on the tusks of a wounded boar – to shoot accurately. The boar approaches thirty meters almost noiselessly. I didn’t see it yet. It was in the forest. Suddenly it blew up the snow and made two jumps, and on the third I managed to catch it in the crosshairs and made a shot. The boar fell and almost disappeared in the loose snow. (Carbine - Los-7 with 3x9x40 optics). One more interesting example. A corral hunting. Dogs barked at a small family of wild boars. It was agreed to take only one small boar. The line of shooters had the shape of the Russian letter "Г". I was the last from to the right. A shot rang out on the other side. I thought that the beast was got and there would be no more shooting. And relaxed. Suddenly I heard two more shots. Then I began to doubt whether the beast had really been hunted. The dogs continued to work in 50 meters away from me. Suddenly, a young boar appeared right in front of me, 25-30 meters away. Its appearance was unexpected because it almost silently went to the edge of a small grove where the dogs were working and froze in front of a small forest road that went perpendicular from me into a small copse. My Sako 75 carbine with a Leupold 4.5x14x50 sight was lying on the forearm of my left hand as usual during the corral hunting. The young boar stood, sucked in air and thought what to do. I was thinking about whether I should shoot or not if the one boar had already been taken? Suddenly, the boar startled and began to jump through the road. It managed to make a couple of jumps. I raised the carbine when it did the next jump, caught it in the optics and pulled the trigger. It took me not more than one second. Any action sometimes needs only a push. The thought flashed through my mind that other shooters might not have hit the boars only when the boar began to move. There were no experienced and good shooters there, there were licenses, and I decided to shoot. This is the example of decision that I made because was highly concentrated and had a lot of experience shooting "on the flip" primarily from a smooth barrel (!) in combination with the skill of shooting from a rifled weapon with an optical sight. But the main point in that situation was a high concentration of consciousness on analysis and decision-making in the shortest period of time. This experience can be useful to any hunter who will hunt hoofed animals in Siberia, and especially when hunting a bear. It is important when you follow the trail of a wounded bear or accidentally find it at a close distance close, when it will neither hide nor think, but attack, all of the above skills can save your life. You will not be able to miss a good trophy ungulate of you have a good shooting skills. But there were also very offensive misses from the distance of a confident shot. I want to share the experience of the first shooting with an optical sight on a corral hunt. It was the first time when I took my new, Los-7 with a 3x9x40 sight for a moose hunt in our Vladimir region. I was placed at the intersection of two forest roads. It was the very nice place. I could see far. The distance from me to the supposed place of appearance of the moose was no more than 20-25 meters. The hunters don't even aim when shooting from such distance. I have complicated my task as much as it can be imagined. I set the multiplicity of the sight to the maximum value of "9" and narrowed the viewing angle initially. Then, I started shooting with one eye when the moose appeared, and didn't control the target with my peripheral vision. The result was the miss. I have heard the opinion that almost two packs of cartridges have to be shot every week before the start of the hunting season for accurate shooting. Moreover, it is necessary to purchase cartridges from one batch of production. Maybe it makes sense for someone, but I strongly doubt that shooting skill will depend on the number of shots fired before hunting. I haven't considered the problems associated with the quality of cartridges and the influence of external weather conditions on the deviation of the trajectory of the bullet. These factors are quite subjective and difficult to analyze due to the fact that the wind rarely has the same direction throughout the flight of the bullet, and the cartridges will not differ significantly in different batches of manufacture. And it seems quite ridiculous to reach into your pocket or backpack for a device to measure the strength and direction of the wind in order to make a lateral correction when you have the opportunity to shoot a good trophy at a distance of about 300 meters. Moreover, these deviations relative to the animal's torso will be simply insignificant. It makes sense when shooting at a distance of 500 meters or more. There are connoisseurs to shoot at 800 meters and even at a distance of 1 km, but arithmetic will matter more. The beast lives by its own laws, and won't wait to turn its side for a shooter. Sometimes a hunter has 1-2 seconds to aim and shoot. And the hunters have to use that time, otherwise the beast will simply hide behind natural shelters, such as a thicket of forest, a rock, a fallen tree. There are other ways to train and to improve shooting skills. You can practice with a small-caliber rifle with the same optical sight. It doesn't matter what kind of weapon you shoot, when you will learn how to build correctly the eye-sight-target line and how you pull the trigger. The main thing is to understand clearly the psychology of the shot and to strive for uniformity in aiming when shooting from a rifled weapon. All other things will come with time and acquired experience. The essence of hunting for me is still to hide the beast, to approach as close to it as possible at a distance of a confident shot. It is not entirely justified to fire at an animal at extreme distances in the hope that the wind speed will be constant, the distance is measured by a rangefinder up to a meter, and the cartridges are required to go "one in one", and at the same time the animal will stand sideways to the shooter. I pay tribute to the long-distance shooters who make accurate shots at a distance of 500-600 meters to 1 km, or even more, I can't call it hunting. It's just shooting, even at objects of the animal world, and at such long distances. I could hardly call it hunting when you seat on a chair, and your carbine is clamped in the machine and the whole question of hitting the target is reduced to the mathematical calculation of the trajectory of the bullet only and making adjustments to the wind. I wish accurate shots for real hunters, and beginners to complete the path of improving their skills successfully, to appreciate and feel responsible for every shot made on the hunt. I summon to remember that we are not butchers and not murderers. WE ARE HUNTERS! Dmitry Vstovsky. P.S. One more very important observation. Your gun is not just a piece of iron and wood or plastic You need to treat your weapon as an extension of yourself. You must merge with it into a single whole, which will allow you to achieve an absolute mutual understanding that will contribute to a successful hunt.

It's prestigious for American and European hunters to get four species of ibex living in Spain: Beceite ibex, Gredos ibex, Ronda ibex and Sierra Nevada ibex. So, I also got the idea to get these species. And if I had three trophies of Beceite ibexes, then I was not lucky enough to add the other three to my collection yet. Telling the truth, these ibexes differ outwardly only in the shape of the horns and then only slightly. Only a specialist or an experienced hunter can find the differences. In my opinion, let all four of them out into the field, you can't see the difference. But they are listed as different species in the SCI Trophy Book. The four-hour flight to Madrid by Aeroflot flew by unnoticed. There were the May holidays ahead, and I could fit in ten days of the program not only three ibexes (Gredos, Ronda and Sierra Nevada), but also a Balerian goat, as well as a hybrid in Mallorca and a Pyrenean chamois. There were two days for each trophy, and the whole program was structured like that: when I got the trophy – and we had to move immediately to another place. There were five places in total - by type of trophies. Well, and rushed! We rented the car and set off! Our trip had begun. The result of that half-crazy journey was that I realized what exactly meant under the words "Spain was different.” It was true. At first, we went from Madrid to Portugal side to get the Gredos ibex, and it was about 300 km from the capital. After arrival, we dropped things at the hotel, grabbed sandwiches with traditional jamon on a large white bun and - moved into the fields! We were in a hurry because the license closes in the month of April. It was on April 30th. I didn't mention– the day of arrival in Spain. It would be invalid on the next day - May 1st. And nobody would give me money back. It was impossible to postpone the deadline due to the fact that hunting was carried out on state lands. You snooze, you lose. The representative of the host party asked Anton, who accompanied me in that expedition, when we were already on the road: “Can he walk?” They asked about me. It seemed funny to me until we started "walking". We hiked more than two hours in the mountains. Fortunately, we didn’t waste time for looking for animals. It was done by the local police, or by rangers who looked after that area. It turned out that in the morning they hunted with hunter with the penultimate ibex license and two guides stayed there, when had found a herd of ibexes so that I didn't have to look for animals. Ibexes were grazing, guides were looking after them. The animals went over the ridge - the rangers followed them. They kept the animals constantly in sight constantly. The male that I was allowed to shoot was in the herd. There were even two of them (the guides had determined their trophy qualities in advance). We had only to walk, then approach the guides and then sneak up to the ibexes at a distance of a shot. It took us two hours walk. It was about 6 pm. It got dark around 9.30 pm. I won't torment the reader for a long time with the intrigue of "managed / did not have time", I will say right away - we've reached it on time. We carefully crept up to the guides, and they showed a group of ibexes grazing in the valley. Then we began to argue what male I’d have to shoot. The one guide said to fire in the one, the second pointed to another. It was all in a whisper behind a big stone, and in Spanish, emotionally - only hands flashed. I didn't understand anything. One guide was drawn me to one side of the stone, the other to the other. It was impossible to make out which one to shoot at at all from such a distance. Well, at least for me. As a result, we started hiding – we tried to crawl to the right distance. We reached the place, I put a backpack on a rock, a Blaser caliber rifle.30-06 Spring, optics "Zeiss". What else did a person need... and all that! I chose the one that was more convenient to fire, in my opinion. It was lying down, and half of its torso was visible, while the other had only its neck visible. The Shot! The herd jumped up, but did not run away – they did not understand clearly where to run and where the danger was from. Finally, the nerves of one of the ibexes could not stand it, it took off, and the whole herd followed it. My trophy stayed on the place! Hurray! Congratulations, photos, measurements… And two hours walk in the mountains, in the valleys. The mountains were very beautiful there, a little more than two thousand meters high. I was impressed by the sanctuary church on one of the peaks. I still did not understand who built it and from whom it is supposed to hide. But it was quite obvious that that was protection for both shepherds and tourists. Although the doors were locked with a padlock, but that was not a problem, since the lock didn't close. There were stone tables nearby, and a spring with the purest and very tasty water gushed out of the ground. As the local shepherd said later: "We have two attractions - rocks and water." We had rest and resumed our march Down. After we had descended to the car, we had a short picnic on the hood with traditional jamon, cheese and white rolls (they have only white bread). But the wine was red, without which the picnic would not be a picnic. I was surprised that they drunk wine in a circle from a bottle with a nipple. The wine poured into the mouth and did not stain anything (again, hygiene). And... in general, that was it. It was getting dark, and we still had about two hours to drive to the hotel. It was very late when we arrived to the hotel and went to the bed immediately. I guess that fans of El Greco or Cervantes would condemn me for not spending an hour or two in museums or galleries and at the amazing ruins of Moorish castles, but that time I was not up to saturate my soul with beautiful images of the past. We got up early because had to drive almost 700 kilometers towards the coast, to the area of another ibex with the beautiful name Sierra Nevada. It took us eight hours to get there. The scenario was the same– things to the room, a short snack and forward to the mountains. I should note that the mountains there were radically different from the previous ones - they were relatively young, because they were dry, without vegetation and without water. Hunting was structured as follows: we drove along the serpentine and tracked down ibexes. We stopped periodically to observe the surroundings and examine the area with binoculars. We watched all together. After two hours of generally fruitless searches, we guessed to listen to the guide, who told us that saw in the morning two ibexes (decent in size) on a rock, where we could drive by car. We drove to the place, stopped at the site for photo, and again "feel out" the rocks with all our eyes. There was the ibex! The only one. We left the part of our team with a walkie-talkie at the observation post, and tried to shorten the distance by car. The animals there were accustomed to the noise of car engines and were more afraid of a walking person. We drove about 800 meters to the cliff and then should have to climb - steeply. We left without slamming doors under the protection of trees. Anton turned around and drove the car to the "command and observation post". The guide and I were almost crawling on all fours, bent double and hiding behind irregularities, we snacked up the slope. It took us not less than an hour. The animals were lying in the same place where we found one of them. There was a whole herd. Two ibexes had trophy size. But how to get close? They were higher than we were, the slope was steep and I should have to shoot almost into the sky! I needed where to put the rifle, and problems arise with that: there were no bipods; if I shot lying down, leaning on a stone, then I couldn't see the goats. There were about 300 m to them. It was normal. But the hands do not obey the head after climbing the "vertical wall", they lived their own, autonomous life, I breathed like a dog in the heat, the chest worked like a bellows. I didn't know what we could have come up with in that situation, but the animals were ahead of us – they suddenly began to descend. It was a real luck! - they were going down to our side. The hunter's task was one - to wait. I chose a clearing where they should appear, and began to whisper to myself all sorts of useful spells in such cases. Twenty minutes passed. It already seemed to me that half a day… At last, the first one came to the meadow. I wanted to shoot, but the guide closed the eyepiece of the sight with his hand. Not the one we needed. “Pequeño” - small. Thanks to the fact that my daughter studied at a school with Spanish, I knew some words and even phrases from the school curriculum. I waited for the “Grande” one. It didn't take much time for that – it comes out second. But it crossed the clearing, which was under the bisector of fire, too quickly. Too fast! I understood that there was a second left for a shot. I could see its ridge only. Shoot! The animals that were on the clearing take off instantly and run away. And suddenly another mature male appeared from above. The huntsman gave the command to shoot, because I probably missed the first one. However, the voice on the radio from our "NCP" gave the command: “Disregard. Don't be silly”. The ibex laid. It fell like a log. It was interesting that I hit its the spine, like the one from Gredos. It should be taken into account for the future - the carbine was shot at three hundred meters, and the distances there was less, therefore the bullet went higher. I did not take my carbine, due to the difficulties in obtaining a permit to export from Russia so I had to rent a weapon on the place. There were traditional photo shoot, measurement, skinning and the road down. I took a picture with the trophy against the background of the flag of the Club of Mountain Hunters. And I did it in order to popularize the club not only in Russia, but also abroad. One more early the morning, the rise at 5.00 and the road for the Ronda ibex. I had managed to save three days by that time, which could have been useful on some other, less successful hunt, and if I got lucky, then it was not worth letting it out of my hands. That's why we left early in the morning for Malaga. We left the things right in the car, changed into hunting clothes and moved to a Range Rover - to the mountains. It was three hours’ drive. Two guides had been already waiting for us on the top. Two guides - once again. They were both called Anton. But the strangest thing was that I was accompanied by three guys who were also called Antons. It meant there were five Antons in one group. What could one Leonid do against five Antons? Hunting for Rhonda ibex was different in that we were not looking for the trophy, driving along the serpentines, and didn't place observers in places where they might exit, but walked stupidly along the ridge and looked around. It wasn't correct to say that it was an easy morning walk. It was more like an Alpine ascent, which did not pass easily – we were soaked to the skin with sweat, our hands were shaking, as if in a fever. Those six hours were very difficult for us. But we didn't see any sign of the animal. The command for lunch was also the command for rest, because it was extremely exhausting to make such hikes and transitions in the midday heat. And it was useless in terms of hunting. We didn't go down low to save time, stopped at the first tavern, had lunch, waited for the heat to subside. Taking into account the fact that I didn't sleep well last three nights, all my dreams had been short, the state of the body was not the most excellent. Some kind of sand in the eyes. The rest on the steps of an inn was not the same as in bed, but also a rest… We slightly changed tactics in the afternoon – then we drove around the observation decks and walked around looking for ibexes with binoculars. We were riding like that until dark and had plenty of time to admire the Andalusian mountains for the rest of our lives. We hadn't seen a single male, but we saw females more than once, and that was something. Finally, we go to the hotel to sleep next five hours. The good news allowed me to sleep peacefully – one of the rangers saw a male on the slope almost in the dark. Let's hope he would wait for us there until morning The morning rise was given with great difficulty. I wanted to sleep so much that yawned, my cheekbones were already cramping. We were going to the huntsman who saw the male. The door was closed. We knocked on the window, on the door. The sleepy wife opened it and said that he had been in the forest for a long time, on a detour. In ten minutes a huntsman rode up on a sports mountain bike. Everything was good, the animals were on the slope! A long, protracted climb into the mountains and no less tedious hiding began. It was not without falling on the rocks. There was not much to tell about the culmination of the third hunt. The trophy was taken from the first shot, and the Grand SLAM was closed. And it became... a little sad. But hunting in Spain was not closed yet for me- there was a flight to Majorca ahead, and there was hunting, then a flight to Madrid, and hundreds of kilometers to Cantabri (they took a license for chamois), and then north to the Pyrenees. Those were the plans, but, life made adjustments, as it always happened. There were no tickets to Mallorca. The only way out was a flight through Barcelona. We flew, but there were 2 hours and 15 minutes left for sleep because of the delay I already thought about five hours of sleep as happiness. Do you remember the joke about the black and white stripes in life: it turns out that five hours has been a white stripe. Mallorca welcomed us with warmth and good organization. It was decided to hunt not in the evening, but immediately after arrival due to the expectation of the arrival of two hunters from Russia and, the best news was that they to arranged a license for the Cantabrian chamois. It turned out that the stripe was still white. So, we got moving: short fees, a sandwich in the teeth and - go ahead, to look for a goat of red coloring with a characteristic black cross. We reached the mountains in an hour and a half. The serpentine in the mountains, was distinguished by an extraordinary sharpness with 180-degree turns. The car didn't enter the turn from the first time, all turns were with overdriving and waltzing back and forth. If the equipment fails in something or the driver makes a mistake, then everyone flies into the abyss. Fortunately, I was not our case. The reader guesses, since I am writing these lines, neither the technique nor the driver failed. We climbed to the very top, and then went along the paths. The results of that day were five hours in the heat of 35C degrees, two shots offhand, and two trophies. As the guides told me, we were just lucky that everything happened quickly enough. I was especially lucky, because after shooting back, we booked a ticket for... early morning. The journey for Cantabrian chamois began at 4.00 am - the car to the airport, then the flight, and six hours by car to the place. It ended at 6 pm. It was four hours before dark. It was late to move to the mountains. But it was enough to test the carbine. Was it worth to do it in the rain, which was promised from minute to minute, if tomorrow morning we could shoot? The guide asked me, using an auto-translator: "Are you going to get married or may have to do it tomorrow?". An inner voice recommended insistently "get married", but only tomorrow morning. I was completely agreeing with him, but it would still be possible to go look around… So, we tried to climb the mountains after shooting the carbine at two hundred meters, where such fog and clouds fell on us! Nothing was visible at all. It started raining, it became incredibly cold – the temperature dropped to zero degrees! For two hours we hid in the car or escaped under an umbrella. I put on everything I took with me. It was a little over an hour before dark. It was clear that there would be no hunting that day. But as soon as there was a break in the clouds, the huntsman offered to climb the first ridge - 500-600 meters and to look from there. Why not? Suddenly! We began climbing. Everything had gone limp; the feet were constantly slipping in the dirt. But we were crawling up. Somehow, we climb the ridge, inspected the mountains and noticed a chamois on the crest itself. There were about 200 m to it. The animal was moving actively. I put bipods just in case. Why not? Suddenly! The beast stopped literally for a few seconds. The guide who accompanied me offered to shoot, but the local huntsman shook his head - it was useless. I shot, and the beast fell as if knocked down. It just disappeared. The guide, as it seemed to me, spoke in a whisper in Spanish: "And now climb after him yourself.” As a result, we descended from the top to the trophy, messed with it for thirty minutes and then came and carried a head with a cape skin and two hind thighs. There were ten minutes left before dark – just in time to take a picture and to make initial measurements. Next morning there was a long road to the Pyrenees – in total, I spent more than twelve hours in the car. We camped for the night, and in the morning, we set off again towards Andorra. The hunt took place after lunch and until dark. I remembered it by its climbing that was so steep that I thought the main task was not to fall off. There was no time to look for the animals, and it was not up to them in such conditions. But we saw them. Unfortunately, either they noticed us earlier and hid, or we were very far away, or there were females. The next morning (at 5 am, as you guessed), we ascended the mountains once again. And there was a strong wind in the mountains. We waited for the animals would enter the hollow after sunrise. The wind didn’t abate. The local huntsman shared the revelation after a long silence: "There is nothing worse than the wind on a mountain hunt.” I didn't agree with him – rain, fog and cold could be much worse. But I remained delicately silent. We spent more than two hours there and were already going to move to another slope, but then our attention was attracted by the barking of dogs. And they were getting closer. Three dogs with radio collars rushed past us. Well, I thought it was all over, now they'd definitely dispersed everyone. NO! Vice versa. Those dogs raised a large herd of Pyrenean chamois, and now they appeared at a distance of 200-250 meters. We sneaked up, they showed me which animal to shoot. I shot from the knee. The guide shouted: “We got it”. We climbed up, inspected everywhere, but there was no trophy, no blood. We began to examine everything by centimeter. Anton– our outfitter, who traveled everywhere with us, was attracted by the sharp smell of the beast and he was wright. We found a mortally wounded male of 17 years old with beautiful horns just in five meters behind the stones. Our joy cannot be described! That was all. We did everything! So, we could go home earlier, to meet on May 9 in Moscow and to watch the parade… In those days, I spent eight nights in different hotels, traveled more than three thousand kilometers by car, made three domestic flights. An average, night's sleep took no more than five hours. That trip was a gallop through Europe, or rather Spain. But I was satisfied with everything – both the hunting organization and the trophies! Thank you, Spain! PS. I want to express my special gratitude to one of the Antons – Anton Zagorulko - without whom that hunt simply would not have taken place. PPS. I not only want to, but also express: THANK YOU VERY MUCH, Anton! 

The adherents of the Spanish hunts forgive me for the controversial judgments expressed by me in this article. Hunters are so organized that sometimes we have different goals and views on expectations from the same processes. Most of the reports about hunting for ibexes in Spain come down to a not very dramatic plot: I've combined hunting with a family vacation or I've got the desired trophy in 1 day, etc. I understood all of that quite clearly and set myself the task to find something of my own, special. I didn't want everything to be easy from the very beginning. Looking ahead, I'd admit: I didn't really find it. I hope that not yet. So, I followed the initial setup – "needed to be tested" - I chose the optimal time from the point of view of "do not interfere with work" and "combine with a family vacation". I used a banal solution – May holidays. I decided that it was necessary to get an elderly, but not a medal trophy. It was my way to make it as complicated as possible in order to suffer in an adult way. I proceeded from the assumption that there were a lot of either young or old medal winners in Spain. I contacted Yuri Morozov (Stalker Group) and started discussing the trip. Since I was trying to come up with some special difficulties for myself, I initially paid attention to various little things that were important to me, which I wanted to fully explain to the Spanish outfitter. I suppose that ruffled Yuri's nerves a little. Looking ahead once again, I will say that I am grateful to him for the fact that everything has been done at the highest level as a result! So, we (my wife, two daughters and I) flew early in the morning to Valencia. The hunt a Beceite ibex was supposed to be organized in a place called Fortanete. That was an important aspect of the planned process - to accommodate in an authentic Spanish outback with the aim of maximum "immersion". I rented a car with the guide for the family to examine surroundings and so that they would not be bored. The local outfitter Alejo Sopino and our guide Angel Cortez met us at the airport. They both were colorful Spanish personalities. Alejo, we called him Alexey, visited Russia several times for hunting and could pronounced a few phrases in Russian. He owns extensive hunting grounds in Spain and a very impressive trophy collection of his own. Angel, at his middle-aged age, has began to draw (especially he succeeds in drawing with an ordinary pencil) and his works have been even published in one of the issues of the magazine "The Magic of a real Safari", because he has many works depicting hunters with trophies. It makes no sense to describe the enchanting Spanish hospitality and cordiality when they meet the guests from Russia, so I will limit myself to stating a fact. We plunged into the rustic flavor just in 3 hours after landing. The village had about 100 residents, mostly pensioners, to whom young people came on weekends. I counted 10-15 people during three days while we were there, the rest, apparently, did not seek to show themselves. As I understand it, the village lives mainly due to summer cycling and hiking, as well as agriculture. The stone houses date back to the XVIII century, and there is a bell tower with a clock in the center of the village that rings every 15 minutes for different motives. The windows of our room overlooked the tower exactly… Forty minutes were enough to explore all the sights and surroundings. We accommodated in quite decent apartments, and had a meal in the only functioning cafe at that time. But! What a wonderful place it was!!! I can write a poem about Spanish gluttony. When I said Alejo that wanted jamon, he personally cut half a kilo of this miracle from the legs standing in the center of the cafe, gave me a basket of bread and a bottle of red wine I think that we should stop here and start talking about hunting itself. Let's try... It turned out to be extremely useful to have a separate car for the family, because it took about an hour to get to the nearest interesting places like Morella or Taurel, what the family did while I was walking in the mountains or sleeping. I persuaded my youngest daughter Katya to go hunting with me. It was assumed that most of the time we would drive a car and only when the right animal was found, we would carry out and try to approach. From the very beginning, I blow Alejo's mind, when demanded a difficult mountain hunt, but he only smiled knowingly and cooled my fighting fervor, when assured me that hunting in spring was even easier than at other times of the year. But I didn't give up. Alejo gave me a Blaser R93 carbine in caliber .300 UltraRemMag, certainly powerful with a flat trajectory, but I thought it was too superfluous for the local fauna. The name of my guide was Lionel and he rooted for Barca with all his heart, unlike Angel, who was for Real Madrid... Lionel was talking violently about something with Alejo almost all the time we were traveling by car and fell silent only when he looked through binoculars. I liked everything. The mountains were very peculiar and picturesque. Rather, not even mountains, but such canyons and crevices. We mostly drove along the plateau at the level of 1700 masl and looked down from time to time. There was a solid landscape design – "trimmed" grass, junipers with thuja and rock gardens of various sizes everywhere we looked. We saw lots of animals on the first evening – both wild boars and ibexes, but mostly females with small babies. It was dusk when we detected a small group of "shooting" goats on the mountain closest to the village. We noticed them at the foot of the mountain, when they were returning from the evening meal to their upstairs. How good that I didn't have a chance to shoot on the first evening! I tried to be a full-fledged participant in the process, so as not to turn into just a shooter. The next morning, we left as soon as it was light. Again, we saw a lot of different animals. The daughter was delighted, looking at the slopes with binoculars. At last we found a suitable herd in the same range, but on the other side of the mountain, and Alejo ordered to approach, although the wind was not in our favor. I tried to argue: "Let's make a hook, we'll stretch our legs". But he and Lionel didn't give in. As a result, Alejo stated without any regret that the ibexes escaped:"We'll still find. It's not a problem". We explored the mountain ranges on both sides of Fortanete. I noticed that there were an order of magnitude more animals on the one side, and discussed it with Alejo. On the second evening, I suggested to check out the place where ibexes were seen on the first day before sunset. So, we did it. We drove out into the field, stood in front of the mountain and began to wait. As scheduled, after 8 pm, ten heads appeared and began to descend from the mountain to feed. We decided to approach by climbing a little uphill. The matter was complicated by the fact that there was quite dense vegetation on the slope, and there could be problems with shooting in such conditions. So, it happened. We had risen two hundred meters above the animals and began to examine them, choosing a potential trophy. And then the Spanish temperament made itself felt. And then the Spanish temperament made itself felt. Alejo and Lionel began quite emotionally began to discuss something, though did it in a whisper. Alejo suddenly began to hurry me, quickly alternating the commands "to shoot" and "don't shoot". I threw the camera into the bushes so as not to get in the way as Alejo's request, and tried to understand what the male to choose. When it finally became clear which one, the goats sensed that something was wrong, tensed up and abruptly began chaotic movement, constantly entering the bushes and changing places with each other. As a result, two seconds were not enough for me to shoot at the right ten-year-old ibex. Anyway! Alejo said again: "No problem", and wasted an half an hour while searched for my camera in the darkness. And I was rejoicing in my soul – the process was not completed! The next morning the weather turned very bad, and a very strong wind blew all day. Alejo stated authoritatively that r the beast lived only on the remote areas in such weather, and indeed in the morning and evening we did not see a single one in the mountains. In the afternoon, I joined my family and we went to the town of Turel, got aesthetic pleasure from contemplating the ancient Moorish structures and ate his delicious Spanish food. The next battle started in the evening. We left a little earlier than usual, at about 6 pm. We followed the new route, passed through dense forests that came from somewhere and eventually reached the rocks. We searched for animals for a long time, but they were not there, and therefore we went further. On the way we stopped at the salt lick, where we scared off a trophy male roe deer. Then two boars. Finally, we found ourselves in some kind of translucent forest. Alejo warned that now ibexes would appear from all sides so that I would be ready to shoot, he would give me a carbine, which was in the case all the time - safety first. We were moving just 10 minutes when Lionel slowed down sharply, Alejo quickly pulled the carbine out of the case, handed to me and whispered in great excitement: “Shoot, shoot... But I didn't see any aim where I had to shoot. In any case, I couldn't see anything even remotely resembled an ibex, from the back seat where I sat. Nevertheless, I jump out of the car with a carbine at the ready. The thought was spinning in my head: that wasn't a mountain hunt, but some other… At the same time, I drove the cartridge into the chamber and monitored simultaneously the surrounding forest. There was the ibex just sixty meters away from me. It has quite conditioned qualities and surprised hatched at us. I jumped up very quickly, aimed and shot, but all that time I thought that that wasn't a mountain hunt at all. The miss was predictable ... we searched the place where the ibex stood, but found nothing interesting. That time Lionel authoritatively stated: “No problem”. We jumped into the car and sped on. There were more rocks, more forest, more landscaping... After we had drove enough, I suggested to return to the most where we saw the animals before place. My companions agreed with me amicably, and we rushed to the rocks near our village without slowing down, where we consistently observed males every evening. Here everything obeyed a once and for all formed schedule, and we predictably found a small herd consisting of only males. Telling the truth, they had not very outstanding qualities. It was necessary to make a short walking approach, which I couldn't call painful with all my desire, and shoot at 200-300 meters. I decided to get a male from this group because that was the final day of the hunt. We had to hurry up before dusk, that' why we quickly reached the right point, from where I got my eight-year-old Ibex from 200 meters with a single shot on the spot. The Spaniards rejoiced like children, admired my excellent shot (apparently, after the last annoying miss, it seemed to them a miracle). Lionel even rushed to kiss. I was also pleased: the process was logically completed. The trophy was exactly what I wanted: not young and not a record. I achieved my goal and got unforgettable impressions of everything that affected my senses of the complex - the process of hunting, excellent nature and family recreation… On the way to Valencia, Alejo kindly invited us to his ranch, comfortably located between the mountains, far from populated areas. I cooked the meat of the extracted ibex there, and Alejo put out a bottle of red wine. We discussed the details of a possible hunt for the Gredos ibex in the future, taking into account my indispensable wishes regarding the complexity of the process. So a sequel certainly follows!

Do you agree that the "Mountain Frontier 2017" in the Moscow region sounds intriguing. The Precision Shooting Federation of Russia, which proposed such a name for the first joint precision shooting competitions, took the liberty not to disappoint such sophisticated colleagues and partners from the Club of Mountain Hunters. On Saturday, July 15, 2017, the first joint event of the CMH and the FVSR started after the mandatory registration procedures, instruction on the safe handling of weapons and the traditional greeting. Comfortable, sunny weather with a breeze of up to 3 m / sec pleased the participants and guests of the competition. High humidity and the mirage, as a result, added interest to the upcoming rivalry. Mountains (white cumulus clouds) could be guessed behind tall trees on the edge of a well-equipped shooting range in the Moscow region. FVSR prepared exercises that allowed the competitors to check their weapons, equipment, and equipment at typical mountain hunting distances and train in an accurate shot. The results of the competition showed a high level of shooting training of the participants. Vladislav Reznik showed the best result in the exercise "Cold Shot". Sergey Mazurkevich, Alexey Kiryanov and Andrey Storchilov demonstrated the same, best results in the exercise "Not sure-don't shoot". Sergey Magidov was the most effective in the exercise "Accuracy and accuracy". Alexey Kim showed the best result in the "knockout" exercise, in the "Custom" again the best and the same results for three shooters: Sergey Mazurkevich, Vladislav Reznik, Alexey Kim. The "long-range goal" - a distance of 1200 meters - did not submit to anyone. Based on the results of six exercises: 1st place Sergey Mazurkevich – 214 points 2nd place Vladislav Reznik – 210 points 3rd place Alexey Kiryanov – 163 points A separate nomination and the final event in the measured rhythm of the competition was the "Duel" - a dynamic, gambling exercise and in format not at all typical for our colleagues from the CHM. Shooting was conducted in pairs, according to the draw, for elimination. According to the conditions of the exercise, two shooters are given 1 minute to prepare: ammunition magazine equipment, preparation of the shooting position (convenient location of the rifle, checking the optical sight). The weapon at the turn was in the position: the magazine was loaded and inserted, without a cartridge in the chamber. The shooters occupied the starting position at the end of the preparation time and stood in 3 meters from the shooting line. At the starting signal, it was necessary to run up to the shooting line, take a firing position and hit each of their two targets - steel gongs with a diameter of 25 cm at various distances: 306 m and 397 m . The winner was the one who hit his targets first That's where the real drive and excitement was! Edward Bendersky and Alexey Kim competed in the final "race" of dueling shooting. They had to run, "fall" and hit targets more than once. The final shooting lasted up to two victories according to the conditions. Alexey Kim became the winner in a hard struggle. The shooting festival ended with the awarding of the winner and prize-winners of the competition. The winner was awarded a diploma and was awarded a prize – binoculars from the Group of Companies “Hunter”. A diploma and a prize from the Veche publishing house were awarded for the second place - a colorfully decorated two-volume book "Russian Hunting cuisine". History and practice" (author - E.K. Tselykhova), as well as a laser illuminator from the “Infratech” company. For the third place, the participant was awarded a corresponding diploma and a prize from the Club of Mountain Hunters – a unique two-volume Atlas Sargipae of the World CIC and a laser illuminator from the “Infratech” company. The winner in the Duel exercise became the winner of a prize from the Club of Mountain Hunters - a two-volume Atlas of the Sargipae of the World CIC. In conclusion, I would like to thank the Organizing Committee of the competition, colleagues from the Club of Mountain Hunters for their cooperation, and the hospitable hosts of the wonderful "Polyana". The members of the regional branch of the FVSR in Moscow, the director of the competition German Nefedov and the chief judge Nikolai Zemin with a team of judges and a target team provided good preparation, holding of the competition and impartial judging. I hope that the last event was a good training in the off-season for mountain hunters, an opportunity to meet with colleagues in the hobby of precision shooting and actively relax. I think it would be right to make this competition traditional.

I had worked intensively all my adult life, and only a couple of years ago I realized that I had to give myself the opportunity to recover. Mountains for me are the best way to completely disconnect from reality, sometimes not very pleasant. I like mountain hunting, but there are almost no places left in the world where it has been preserved in its original form. Where you cannot meet a single person for days and weeks, where you have to overcome serious obstacles and danger lurks hourly and even every minute. Nepal evokes respect among such tramps: just imagine 70% of the country is impassable high mountain ranges, and 8 out of 14 eight-thousandths of the planet are located there. There were four people in our company. The first one was the indefatigable Frenchman, who introduced himself as Anthony (in the Italian way), and didn't agree when we call him Antoine , even took offense. He became interested in mountain hunting from the age of sixteen, but since he was not rich, he soon retrained into a PH, a professional hunter who accompanied wealthy clients. He looked about 35 years old, he was lean and very active. Anthony's character was lively and active. He had been to Kazakhstan at least fifteen times and, and was completely delighted with the naturalness of the conditions, like other hunters. Anthony had been making films about hunting for the last couple of years, and he was doing it quite well. Telling the truth, he quite tired us during the expedition, with the demands to repeat the passage on camera and the organization of staged shots.  I could only guess about his purpose in that expedition. Obviously, it was a reconnaissance expedition for him, since his client, whom he will lead to the blue sheep, was due to arrive in ten days. My Spanish friend Geordie, with whom Anthony developed some kind of hunting territory in the Alps invited him to the company as an operator.  As for Georgie, with whom we agreed to conduct this hunt together, he was born a Catalan, worked for a large energy company. I met him at a hunting exhibition about eight years ago, and we agreed on cross-hunts: he organizes a trip for me in Spain, and I do the same for him in Kazakhstan. So we became friends. We have visited each other five times over all those years. He has decisively quit his company a couple of years ago and became an outfitter, who organizes hunting trips around the world. So, he was also the PH. So that to reduce the helicopter cost ($8000), the Spaniard called his sidekick Daniel, who, to our mutual satisfaction, agreed Danny turned out to be an ophthalmologist, who had been fond of mountain hunting for many years, and visited many places in his 45 years (Kazakhstan, Canada, Kamchatka, etc.) and got a lot of things. He was very intelligent and a little (in a good way) boring, well physically prepared. The authority cut the limit on bharal in half while we were negotiating with the organizers in Nepal, and only 3 licenses for the whole country were issued for a tahr at all – just like we had.  There were no farms of their own here, there were several hunting reservations and licenses were sold to local outfitters at auction. At last, when there only two days to our departure left, the host party announced that for reasons beyond their control they had only two licenses. We had to cast lots, and Daniel and I had the opportunity to hunt, and Geordie decided to go as the second operator.  Moreover, it turned out that it was impossible to rent a weapon. I was going about to ask the Spaniard to take a carbine for me (the rules with their export in Spain were much more loyal ), but you couldn’t hunt with someone else's weapons in Nepal . I had to issue a permit to the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the export of my "Christensen". Thank you to people, who helped, everything was issued without delay. Next, I sent in advance a notarized translation of the weapons permit and export permit to all airlines on the route, and got approval from them. It was absolutely necessary to make notarized copies of these transfers in order to give them to our customs officers at the border, as well as to fill out a declaration, which indicated what you were exporting. The question of how to fly had two answers: via Delhi or Dubai, but the Nepalese side prayed that only not through India! That’s why I had to take tickets with connections for 20 hours. Inch'Allah, everything went well, apart from the delay in Dubai, but in the end, I flew to Kathmandu with all my belongings!  The first day. The flight delay in Dubai turned out to be in my favor, because waiting at their airport it was much more pleasant to wait at their airport than in Kathmandu. I had to wait for the Europeans, who arrived four hours later than me. The airport in the capital of Nepal was not the best one. The mess was terrible, luggage was given out very slowly. However, visa processing was put on stream. Kazakhstanis can get a visa on arrival – you just need to fill out the data in a special machine, pay 25 bucks and you're done. The luggage was given out an hour later, I started to worry a little, but everything arrived safely. Then the procedures began – first at the airport inspection and reconciliation. Then in the city, in two ministries. A hunting certificate was issued in the first one, and the issuance of a hunting license was confirmed in the second. Everything was serious, with fingerprinting! It took almost the whole working day. We got to the hotel and rested for a while only in the second part of the day. In the evening we were taken on a short tour of Kathmandu. The roads were broken, there was no street lighting, there was garbage and piles of dirt everywhere. There was such smog that Almaty just seemed like a paradise. How reminiscent it was of the suburbs of Delhi.  It turned out to be a little more interesting in the tourist area: a thousand shops of all sorts of stuff and a bunch of shops of different equipment – both branded and outright fakes. The local cuisine is a fusion of Indian and Chinese, which is explained by the border location of the country. After dinner we went to bed, a helicopter would wait for us early in the morning.  The second day.  We got to the airport. Crowds of tourists with backpacks of various calibers were waiting in line at the helicopter terminal. Spring in Nepal is a high season for trekking enthusiasts. It did not work out to fly away quickly, because of overweighting, the weight exceeded the maximum permissible by forty kg. We tried to leave something, but it didn't solve the problem. So, we decided to fly twice.  All the middle mountains on our route were actively mastered by people - mountains with steps of terraces, small and large villages. I didn't notice asphalt roads, but there were a lot of trails. It was the main transport route between settlements in almost all directions. When the altitude increased to 4000 m, a magnificent panorama of the majestic peaks of the Himalayan eight-thousandth peaks opened. In general, we were in the air for an hour and a half and soon landed in a small clearing right on one of the ridges.  We met a team of Sherpas and guides, it turned out that they were hiking for 10 days already! They traveled by bus for two days, and then walked with all the cargo: tents, dishes, kitchen, groceries and personal belongings! Sherpas (only with a capital letter as a sign of respect) are a caste of porters, highly respected in Nepal. These are not people, they are machines! They are the example of such a natural adaptation, when the entire physiology of the human body has completely rebuilt. A person who has lived a couple of months very high in the mountains can obtain only a small part of these adaptations. In total, together with the guides, I counted 26 of them!  In correspondence, the host party asked us not to collect a lot of things, that's why I concluded that we would carry our luggage ourselves, so I put everything in a Kifaru platform backpack, for hand luggage I used my favorite 35-liter Shlumbejack assault backpack. The Sherpas immediately took the bulk into their baskets – they carried all the cargo in large baskets that were fastened with a rope on their foreheads. The average weight was 25-35 kg with the own weight of Sherpas about of 50 kg. All of them were short - 150-160 cm, they looked very thin, in sneakers on bare feet. Like kids!  I managed to "take away" a backpack with a carbine and optics by 12 kilograms, so to speak, for training purposes. Europe followed my example on the second day and also took the load. We went down from the helipad and then went up through a wooded gorge, the trail was very picturesque and not difficult, it was easy.  We passed a narrow canyon on the way and by lunch we reached the first camp at an altitude of 3300. Here we were met with hot tea by the advance detachment, which prepared the camp. Separate tents were set up for hunters. They were very comfortable and reminded me of Polish tents from my childhood - with a high ceiling and duralumin construction. A larger tent was set up as a mess, the same for the kitchen and a couple more for guides and organizers. The Sherpas spent the night under the tent all together. There was a Guest camp not far from ours, as I understood, trekking is the basis of the tourist business in Nepal – there are quite a lot of them on all trekking routes. The tourists can spend an inexpensive night and eat. In the evening they were fed pizza and garlic soup. As soon as there was a free minute, we were reset to zero. My group "flew" a little higher and to the left. Going up was the expected result for a height of 3300, and it was carried away to the left, apparently due to transportation. I made all the amendments, twisted the turrets. Then I went to bed.  The third day. Uh... Finally we got to the base camp! 2000 Kcal, 700 vertical meters, height from 3300 to 3860. The trail went not only up, there were many descents. I didn't sleep well in the first camp and could hardly eat a couple of spoons of porridge for breakfast, I got the rest of the calories on the route with an isotonic and a bar. We left the camp early. The trail wound through deserted places, along slopes heavily overgrown with various (in every sense of the word) vegetation. You can find on one site there were pine, spruce, juniper, oak, birch, oleanders and ficuses. It was amazing how evergreens get along with leaf-dropping plants? Probably, if snow falls at such heights, it is obviously episodic. All that selva was richly covered with vines and all sorts of saprophytes, which were beginning to bloom. The early spring in Nepal looks very attractive, the mountains are green in summer but are still very magnificent.  There is a kind of high-altitude zoning in the Himalayas. The trees in my country end at an altitude of 2700 m, then the alpine zone began with 3700 m. Animals were not particularly visible, even there were few traces. However, some kind of bird of paradise was pushed a couple of times in the forest – a black rooster with red and blue, a tuft on its head, quite large and edible in appearance. The guides kindly told us its name in the local language, which was impossible to pronounce, much less remember. And there was no need – it was impossible to hunt that bird, it turned out that it is in the Red Book.  We saw a couple of tracks. Some were clearly canine, although the locals claimed that they were wolfish. The others might have been left by a leopard, there were quite a lot of them, but it was not possible to check whether it was the case. In general, we completed the entire route in a little over four hours. The trail went in the mid of the mountain, but took a little bit up all the time. It wasn't a path, but a tract by our standards. Everything was very thorough: steps were laid out on the ascents, there was a detour in all difficult places. Nepal is a Mecca for trekking lovers!  The whole country is solid mountains. It's too expensive to make roads there. So people get out of the situation as best they can. Our group went with the light backpacks (about 10-12 kg each) very confidently at first. But it became more difficult to go after 3600 masl. Not like we had at this altitude at home, but it was noticeable. I felt tired, although I managed to recover well while we were setting up camp. In the evening, the guides returned from reconnaissance. They said they saw a group of kuku Yamans (the local name of the blue sheep). Dani offered to draw lots, but I insisted that he went first.  Day #4.  We got up at 4 am. I hardly slept at such an altitude (3900 m). The sleep was very fragile, unstable. We had a little snack and went out in two groups. Daniel and Anthony were in one group, Geordie and I were in another. We began to gain altitude lightning the way by the lanterns. The gradient was 60 degrees, the heart jumped out of the chest, I specially put on a heart monitor to control the pulse (it was impossible to allow rapid acidification of the muscles), I tried not to raise above 150.  We passed 400 vertical meters; it was dawn. We began to look around, but didn't find anything alive except a couple of Himalayan snow cocks. In the morning, about seven o'clock we heard the sound of a shot. One shot says that the job is done. And so it turned out – Dani took bharal an hour after dawn on the first day of the hunt. He was lucky! We went up another 400 meters, but saw nothing apart from the fascinating views.  At the pass, our guide Monrad (a very professional guide) saw a group of Bharals on a neighboring ridge. Obviously, these were animals from the group that Dani was hunting. We saw a good trophy male through the pipe and decided to try to approach, due to the lack of other options.  But we should descend into a wide valley and then climb an icy, seemingly impregnable wall. By this time we had already "tumbled", crossing the frozen couloir (the ice axe came in handy), and I dressed the crampons for full confidence. The vertical kilometer already made me feel tired.  We found the first group of blue sheep at an altitude of 4760 m but there were not males. They grazed at an altitude of 5000 m, the second group with four males was at our level, the animals slept on a stone moraine. Monrad gave the command to lie low and wait, although I thought it would be right to hide behind the edge and to make an approach while the sheep were sleeping. The snack took a couple of hours, the weather began to change rapidly, everything was delayed from below, and everything was about to end. The guide realized the situation and ordered to run! He just said: “I run and you run”. We all had laughed at his words at such height, but, nevertheless, we ran. The snow began to fall like a wall just in five minutes later and a snow storm began, as it should, with thunder, lightning and hurricane wind! We reached the right rock in 10 minutes later, but the animals were no longer there. Probably, they were afraid of a thunderstorm, since the wind was strictly from them. Probably, it was for the best, because the rangefinder didn't work in clouds and snowfall. As a result, it became cold and sad – from fatigue. We descended to the base camp in such condition. The result of the day was 18 km of travel, 1,480 meters vertically dialed, the maximum height was 4924 m, 4890 Kcal were used. But there was also a pleasant side to the return – fresh meat and a liquid forty-degree energy drink in the company of friends who had won an excellent trophy. The snow did not stop, and we decided to take a day to recuperate. Moreover, there was no particular hurry – it was almost impossible to change tickets for an earlier date and go through the procedure of renegotiating the transportation of weapons.  Day #5.  Although we were scared by the organizers that alcohol was poison at such a height, we felt great. I slept ten hours! The group, which had finished the hunt, planned to go down for a munjak (a small deer), but also changed their mind. It was unusual somehow: it was already getting light, and there was such silence in the camp! It was snowing all night. I saw from the inside that there was plenty of snow on the tent. I looked out… The view was divine! I took the camera and ran to make pictures until the magic of the early morning disappeared.  The rest day was an opportunity to put everything in order. I'd laundered all underwear used for three days. Then charged all devices on electricity connected them to power banks and a solar battery. I got a lot of them: two smartphones (Samsung – field for filming and a ballistic calculator, iPhone - for everything else), two cameras (a small Sony dsc-hx90v chassis and a second Sony Alpha7IIR with a large matrix and two lenses – a new acquisition - for filming on a simple route and in the camp, it was hard to take such a hunting). In addition, I had an iPad, Garmin Phoenix 3, Princeton tec flashlight. As power banks I used Goal zero sherpa 50 with a solar battery and another small pocket for 10A.  By lunchtime, the weather had cleared up and the wind had completely died down. Geordie and I splashed in the river. By the lunch time, the guides came down from the reconnaissance – three groups of blue sheep were found!  The chef was pleased with a wonderful lunch: bharala meat with fried eggplant and boiled potatoes in garlic with homemade tortilla! Awesome! We had lunch seating on the open area and heating under the sun! Everybody was in high spirit! We even thought to go out hunting after lunch, but the weather began to spoil with Dalangiri, as yesterday, clouds began to pull, and thunder and lightning again.  There was nothing to do, but to devote that time to siesta.  By evening, black clouds were pulled from the valley, thunder and lightning intensified around. Some strange snow fell from the sky – small snow balls of 5-7 mm in diameter. But not icy, but soft.  To be continued..

I met Yuri Mathison in 2000, in Moscow, where he came from Tajikistan on business. I knew that American sheep hunters call him Doctor Poli even before the meeting, because Yuri was the best of the organizers of the Marco Polo sheep hunts – the "coolest" argali in the world. "Cool" both in terms of habitat conditions at the heights of the highest mountains , and in terms of the worth of the trophy coveted for mountain hunters. Before I tell you about Yuri's activity as an outfitter, I would like to focus on something else – on the competent organization of the hunting economy, which has made it possible to change fundamentally the situation with argali in Tajikistan over the past time. I’ll start from the Russian Red Book of Rare species and eco-activists. Just a few days ago, the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia approved a list of animals listed in the Red Book. The specialists who prepared this lists ignored with absolutely incomprehensible persistence the fact that listing doesn't protect threatened species from extinction, but in every way contributes to it. Laws are written for law-abiding people, which is a problem in Russia from time immemorial, and the state doesn't plan to allocate sufficient funds to protect these most threatened species. If they are allocated, they will not reach their purpose. I don't know if the "defenders of nature" really don't understand what they are doing, or whether they are deliberately trying to destroy the animal world on the planet. For many years, hunting farms have been proving to the "green" radicals that hunting farms protect and multiply our animal world. According by economic laws the hunting farms can exist only, on the condition that they earn money from hunting. The hunting ban is a catastrophic blow to the number of species that automatically cease to be of interest to hunting farms. It means that the state has take the protection role but it doesn't to cope with this task. All it can do is to threaten poachers with a finger. The road to hell for red Book animals is paved with the good intentions of the "greens" activists. On the other hand, there are many examples when the number of ungulates grew in a few years, on practically empty lands allocated for hunting. I will refer to Ayub Mullayarov's hunting farm in Tajikistan in order not to be unfounded. The article devoted to it was recently published in our magazine by Dmitry Medvedev and Eduard Bendersky: “The lands of the Mulloerovs are not just a hunting farm, but a real reserve, where they restored the number of many species, in particular the snow leopard, wild forest cat and markhor – the screw-horned goat. The number of the last one increased so much that the goats began to move across the Panj to neighboring Afghanistan, thereby increasing the biodiversity of the neighboring state”. Tajikistan that have four large nature reserves and a dozen and a half state reserves and national parks, can not cope with the restoration of the populations of the listed animals, but the Mulloerov family has done Let's return to the hero of our story – Yuri Mathison, who managed to create conditions for the rapid growth of the Marco Polo sheep population, in which there are now trophies of the "Extra" category. It all started with the fact that Yuri, after graduating from the medical institute in Dushanbe, asked to be assigned to Murghab. It was the very center of the Eastern Pamirs, where it was simply impossible to lure university graduates. But he could hunt there for his complete pleasure. Yuri was a hunter from a very young age, and it was the occupation that attracted him much more than a variety of career opportunities in the capital or large cities. Of course, he had to work in his specialty. Telling the truth, Yuri's specialty - a neurologist - was not in great demand there, so he was both a therapist, an infectious disease specialist, and a pediatrician, just a "doctor". And this doctor spent all his free time with a gun in the mountains, where there was no shortage of sheep and ibexes. It is not possible to name a more or less accurate figure of the sheep and ibexes that were then extracted. Changes in everyday life came with Perestroika. It turned out that the organization of hunting trips can be a business. The Intourist company clearly demonstrated it when invited Yuri as a doctor to accompany foreign hunter clients. But Intourist was not interested in inexhaustible hunting and a stable hunting business in the Pamirs. In just three years, the company turned places that abounded with mountain ungulates into a "semi-desert". Intourist had skimmed off and was forced to close this direction, since the guarantee to get the trophy from the helicopter was reduced to zero. In 1988, Yuri and several passionate hunters, decided to rent hunting grounds on the Balandkiik spur and in the area of Lake Karakul. It is curious that there was no such practice in the republic before , and officials didn't put sticks in the wheels and engage in extortion, they cooperated the hunters. Everyone had to work hard in order for the business to move, without sorting out who was the boss and who was not. Yuri, who was the director of a hunting farm, performed simultaneously the duties of a cook, a doctor, a guide and an interpreter. The quota was issued by the Nature Protection Committee, whose employees carried out the number of animals together with the hunting farm staff. The first records showed that there are about 800 heads of sheep in the Blandkiik area and a little more in Karakul. The number of sheep has tripled in ten years later, in both districts!! Since 1997-98, the company's customers have been steadily hunting sheep with horns over 150 centimeters. The hunting organization and customer service are not all that the employees of the hunting farm are engaged in. It is pointless to carry out bioengineering for sheep – it is quite enough for them to have a normal half-hour feeding once a day in clearings with high-calorie mountain grass. The problem that has to be solved is the protection of ungulates from poachers and wolves. Wolf hunting is carried out regularly. The huntsmen organize regularly raids by the territory of the farm and discover sheep or ibex slaughtered by wolves and arrange an ambush at these places. They hunt wolves with the help of decoys and just by following the trail. It is possible to shoot less than a dozen predators in a year, but this also turns out to be quite effective. Poaching, which was mainly carried out by the local population, was reduced to a minimum with the help of "commodity substitution". The fact is that neither bread nor vegetables are imported to mountain villages, the main food of the population is animal meat. Yuri began to import regularly flour and yak meat to the villages in exchange for help in the fight against poaching. Over the years, the hunting territories of Mathison have increased, the populations of mountain ungulates have steadily grown, and today they are one of the richest animal regions of the Pamirs. Once Yuri said when estimated the population of Marco Polo sheep in the years preceding the helicopter hunts of Intourist: "The animals were just like ants in an anthill.” A little more time will pass, and this figurative comparison can be attributed to all the famous hunting grounds of Tajikistan. I emphasize – not to nature reserves, but to the lands where hunting is carried out! About myself and about a friend Sergey Gulyaev conducted an interview with Yuri Mathison If you look at Yuri's page in social networks, it turns out that he has hundreds of friends all over the world who thank him for a perfectly organized hunt. Someone has been to Balyandkiik or to Karakul once, someone, like Hussein Golabchi, returns here again and again. Mathison and Gollabchi have become great friends over twenty-seven years of joint hunting in the Pamirs, and today Yuri will share with our readers the story of their friendship. “The RS Magazine”: Yuri, tell us first a few words about how you became a hunter. Yuri Mathison: I was born in Leningrad, studied at 193 schools where Putin studied, and also lived nearby. I lived in Baskov Lane, and he was on Nekrasov Street. These are practically neighboring houses. My father was engaged in the construction of radio line stations, and he was transferred to Tajikistan. I finished school there already. Then I entered the medical institute, I am a doctor by profession. I chose the area of the eastern Pamirs because it is the best place for hunting when I was distributed. When the Soviet Union began to collapse, I organized a farm in 1988 and have been working in this field ever since. I have four camps there in different districts. Each season I employee about a hundred people, but everyone has their own family, so up to a thousand people are really involved. This is quite important for an area where there is almost one hundred percent unemployment. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: How does the country's leadership feel about hunting? What is the situation there? Y.M.: The President of Tajikistan is a hunter himself and is rooting for the preservation of wildlife, for order in hunting, for control. His son is also a good hunter. Therefore, the hunting economy is well organized, and the population of sheep is now three times more than during the collapse of the Soviet Union. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: When did you meet Hussein Golabchi? Y.M.: In 1990 year. There was such a famous American outfitter Lloyd Ziman, he persuaded him to come to us, to the Pamirs. We were sitting in the mountains, waiting for him, and he was sitting in Dushanbe and could not fly because of the weather. Time was running out, a week had already passed, there were three days left. He said: “One more day, and I'm flying to America”. But the weather became better, and he spent two days at our farm. He took a good male at the first day. The next day we ascended once again – he wanted to take a larger one, but missed. It happened so. We climbed out to the edge of the slope – there was a large ram in front of us 150-180 meters away. We crawled out, almost fused with the ground. The rifle with the small bipods was also practically on the ground. He took aim, fired, the sheep ran away, and I felt that something struck me on the cheek during the shot. He grabbed the rifle in a rage because missed by 150 meters, and even wanted to throw it into the abyss. I intercepted it because I realized that a ricochet hit me on the cheek. It turned out that the barrel, that laid almost on the ground, rested against a stone, and it was not visible in the sight, which was a couple of centimeters higher. Of course it was my mistake, I had to watch out. After that, I spotted big ibexes down in the gorge and persuaded him to "just" look. He was already tired, and had to leave the next day, but he did not refuse. We came up and saw a herd about three hundred meters away. I gave him a rifle and he examined a magnificent specimen through the sight. “O my God! You deceived me, you said that only to look, but how not to shoot when the animal is already at gunpoint!” Late at night, we returned to the camp with a great trophy. Next morning he left. He was struck by the fact that he shot three times at excellent trophies n two days, and took two of them. After that, he began to come to us 2-3 times a year and still comes, despite the fact that he underwent three heart surgeries. Sometimes he comes just to climb up with a tent, to live in the mountains. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What kind of hunts are he interested in? Y.M.: He was interested in sheep, primarily Marco Polo. And Afghan urial but not so much. He arrived to hunt it 5-6 times, but it was always something happened at the last moment and it was impossible to get it. There is a Nurek reservoir near Dushanbe. Its upper reaches are very wild, isolated. Urial hides there, in these rocky forests. These places are very interesting – rocky mountains difficult to move, overgrown with juniper. It is very difficult to find it here, so good results are quite rare. In one year, we worked for two days, hid, almost came up - 300 meters. We saw 14 good size males. And suddenly, as if by magic, a large piece of weightless, but completely impenetrable sky cotton fell on us from above. We began to wait, but soon whole space was covered with fog so that we barely managed to find our way back. And the next day, no urials could be found. Another time there was a civil war, but nevertheless Hussein came anyway. We were hunting not far from Dushanbe, where Russian troops were assisting the legitimate president, and the planes came right over our heads to attack. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Unbelievable! And have you often had such stories? Y.M.: Once there we got into the mountains in a heavy snowfall. A helicopter couldn't pick us up for two weeks, and we could only get there by air. An absolutely wild place in the complete absence of roads and human habitation. There was so much snow that it broke a six-person tent with powerful supports. We measured the thickness of the cover – 1.8 meters! Golabchi lived in a separate tent, and it was good that we checked him at night. The tent collapsed on him under the pressure of the snow, and he was lying on a cot in a sleeping bag and could not get out on his own. He almost died then. Miraculously, we pulled him out. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Can you tell us about how Golabchi took record trophies? Y.M.: In general, he needs to be the first and the competitive moment in hunting is very important for him. He still visits us in the Pamirs, although he is already 77 years old, and his health leaves much to be desired. In 1996, we found a group of three good sheep. The place was very difficult – they were in the open space. We walked around them all day until the evening, went through the mountain to a shooting position, about 300 meters. Hussein was "on adrenaline" and was afraid that he would miss. He offered me to shoot, but I refused. It was getting late and we had no time to go to camp – it would take us eight o'clock to go back. We should have to spend the night there. But we had nothing with us for it. It was the end of November, very cool. At last Hussein shot, and all three sheep scattered in different directions. One male ran and it seemed that it rolled in the snow. We decided that it was a wpunded one, and we started following him. Hussein tried to get it , but it didn't work out. We went down to the place where they stood when he shot, examined everything carefully – there was no blood. Hussein was terribly upset, and he is a very emotional person. Nevertheless, we had to make a fire and spend the night near it. We were freezing all night, and by morning we were really hungry. We were about to go to the base, when I noticed on the side how a dozen and a half eagles were flying circles. This usually happens over carrion. Our guide, Mansur, went to see what was there and after a while radioed - there are drops of blood on the ground and a lot of boar tracks. Then it turned out - the boars found the sheep and began to eat. They ate almost all the croup and stomach during the night. It cost us a lot of effort to drive them away! To date, this is the largest Afghan urial – 1.02 meters. Another interesting case was after the Islamic Revolution. As you know, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi emigrated to the United States, and the Golabchi family belonged to the highest Iranian nobility, and Hussein was familiar with the Shah and his brother Abduriz Pahlavi. So he brought Abduriz to us for hunting. We found a very large sheep and prepared the place. The hunt took place in September, a tent camp was set up. We approached the sheep twice – once the wind gave us away, the second time Abduriza missed. But the sheep did not understand where the shot came from and ran to us. They jumped out at us about 150 meters away. I dragged Abduriz to a comfortable position, but he was then 76 years old and at an altitude of 4,400 meters, he naturally suffocated. He tried to catch his breath for three minutes, and the sheep stood as if waiting for an order. Pahlavi never fired, and the sheep eventually ran away. I must say that Abduriza has been a very strong and avid hunter. For a while he was considered the best hunter in the world. He had the largest collection of trophies. He hunted most of the animals for the Paris museums and it helped him a lot. On their behalf, he hunted even in nature reserves, including the rarest animals. Hunting process was more important to him, and the trophies got into museums. After that hunt, Golabchi asked to control that male for two months, so that he could then get it himself. I left four of my guides, they were on duty in shifts, lived in a tent, constantly accompanying that group of sheep. In November, Hussein arrived. Will you imagine a small ridge, then an open place, and a high slope behind it. Four sheep males were grazing on this slope. But the fact was that it was not possible to pass an open place unnoticed. It was possible to go only at night, in the dark. We set up camp on the other side of the ridge. It was very cold in the tents – it was the end of November, the frost was minus twenty. Hussein has endured all this without complaint, because he is a fan of hunting to the core. One guide with a walkie-talkie remained at the top of the ridge. Hussein and I crossed the lowland at night and hid at the bottom of the slope. Dawn broke. I radioed the guide, and he said he saw three sheep. Why three? There had to be four males! After a while we saw them – yes, three sheep were grazing. And the biggest one was absent. Suddenly the guide contacted and said that the fourth one was lying. And a minute later he reported that a leopard was laying of it! It turned out that the leopard came early in the morning, half an hour before us, and slaughtered this particular big male. Moreover, it did not eat, did not chew. There were only two small punctures on the neck. Naturally, Hussein did not take it – because it wasn’t his trophy, just took a picture. It turned out as if the leopard had been waiting since August for Golabchi to arrive and sneak up on the ram to defiantly slaughter the sheep almost in front of the hunter. In general, there have been a lot of things in twenty–seven years - hunting luck, failures, annoying mistakes, and long-awaited success... “The RS Magazine”: Thank you, Yuri, for an interesting story.

I had never hunted in Dagestan before and I really wanted to go hunting there. I have already been in Karachay-Cherkessia, on the border with Kabardino-Balkaria in the Uchkulan area. A very good and memorable hunt was in North Ossetia. I remember it because I managed to get a very good Dagestan tur on the second day of hunting from a distance of 180 meters. The animal struck me with its power and endurance, a shot from 300 win mag into the upper part of the shoulder blade, knocked it down, but the animal got up and began to leave after a couple of seconds. Doubt grew in me every second about the success of the hit when I accepted the congratulations of the huntsmen with a successful shot. Unfortunately, I could not make a second shot, because I stumbled and clogged the trunk with snow after the first shot, covered with general jubilation and joy. I was amazed by its stamina, strength and endurance while chasing it. In the spring 2015, my friend won a shooting competition in the Republic of Dagestan, the organizers of the competition established a prize for the first place - hunting for the Dagestan tur. This event could not but stir up my memories and imagination, which began to draw new hunting adventures. So I decided to join my my friend in hunting for a Dagestan tur, and began to learn about the prices for hunts in North Ossetia, in Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, the prices for mountain hunting are growing every year. They have grown significantly even in North Ossetia, not to mention Azerbaijan. So, I decided to wait with the hunt for the Dagestan tur, but, as it often happens in life, the chance gives you the opportunity to make your dream come true. Accidentally I was browsing the Internet with a topic about hunting for a Dagestan tur, when came across a Dagokhotobstvo website. I wrote them a letter and they immediately replied to me. A correspondence began, but I didn't have time to discuss the conditions to the smallest detail, since my friend was already going to leave for Dagestan by car. Therefore, we’d discussed the only issue of price and payment, which pleasantly surprised me, and my friend and I went to Dagestan. After a 14-hour drive, we arrived in Makhachkala, a hotel was booked in advance. In the morning my friend and his company would first participate in the next competitions, and then go hunting. I was going to meet with Sasha Yarovenko, with whom I negotiated about hunting. We met and went to his superior boss, Zaurbek Yunusovich Vagidov. He made the impression of a well-mannered, friendly person with a good sense of humor, in general, disposed to communicate. The hunting plan was as follows, Sasha was supposed to take me from Makhachkala to the city of Dagestan lights, then a man named Lamet was supposed to pick me up from there. I was supposed to go to the Rutulsky district already with him, where the guide Zair was waiting for us. All the days I was in Dagestan, the weather was disgusting, it was raining very gloomy, in the end the weather made its own adjustments to my hunting. was offered to take part in a Lezgian wedding after sitting for several days and waiting for good weather. The peculiarity of the Lezgian wedding is that only the groom is present at the wedding and they bring the bride only after everyone has had a good time, but otherwise, the wedding is like a wedding, fun, noisy, good. I had to spend one day at home after the wedding, Gismeteo promised one sunny day, and it was decided to use this chance to test a carbine before leaving. Just imagine my disappointment when I arrived at the place of the shooting and found that the phone, into which a ballistic program was downloaded, that allowed me to make corrections for long-range shooting, turned out to be wet, all attempts to resuscitate it turned out to be in vain. I tested the carbine to zero at 200 meters, and left. Then I called a friend and asked to count the corrections on his calculator. I wrote down the corrections on a notepad up to 500 meters. We arrived in Rutul at night, the guide Zaire met us, as it should be according to the Eastern law of hospitality, he fed us, gave us tea, and almost put us to bed, but since the hunt was planned in the vicinity of the border with Azerbaijan, it was necessary to issue passes to the border zone, which was done. But the excessive vigilance of the border guards made us lose time. Alim and I stayed in the UAZ, while Lamet and Zaire went grocery shopping. When they came back, I sat into Lamet's Niva, and Zaire got into his UAZ and we went hunting, crossing the mountain river. We'd almost driven through it when the UAZ stalled. The situation was complicated by the fact that it was not possible to leave the car there, since we could not have driven further on the Niva. Somehow we pulled it out with the usage of the Niva, but spoiling the clutch. Later, when we were shaking in the Niva on a rocky mountain road, I thought how far-sighted the organizers had acted, when hedged and took two cars, because the only hunting day would have been lost. if there was one car. I tried to take a nap when we got to the hunting place, but it started to get light after half an hour. Zaire got out of the car and began to explore the surrounding mountains, I had a very bad headache, either from lack of sleep, or from the altitude above sea level. The sensations were very similar to those that I experienced when I got a mountain sickness in Kyrgyzstan, hunting the ibex, Zaire helped me cope with inner anxiety and excitement. There were many animals and I tried to focused my attention on them, unfortunately, there were mainly females and young individuals who were not of interest to me as a trophy. Zaire expressed the opinion that at the beginning of the season, the big males keep to themselves, they come to the females before the rutting season would begin. Zaire promised that we would find one or two males, but we should have to climb a small hill. It was a small hill by Zaire standards, and it was a very big mountain from my point of view. So, we started climbing. Zair. Alim and I went up, and Lamet stayed down to look after the camp. The ascent was very difficult, my head was pounding hard. The general weakness affected from a sleepless night, plus my poor physical fitness before hunting, and most importantly the specific of the landscape: lots of open spaces, the most parts of them were covered with small roots (stone scree) influenced to how I moved, I tried to take a step up, but the feet were falling and rolling down, there was no question of any stability in walking. I took a T3 Warmt Tic in a caliber of 6.5x55 rifle as the experiment with weapons and optics on this trip. It has a very good fight, a heavy barrel gave great stability and stability when shooting at long distances, but the weight of the rifle turned from its dignity into its disadvantage with long hiking, and turns into a very difficult test in the absence of proper physical training, heavy terrain to move, lack of horses. Alim, at the next pass, offered to drink cold tea of some kind of local production, and we drank a bottle of sugary drink for two. Zaire wisely refused, I didn't know how much time passed, I thought more than an hour and a half, but I already cursed this tea, it caused such an unbearable thirst that I didn't want anything but water. I was visited by the idea to stop hunting and go back down a couple dozen times, and even looked subconsciously for reasons to stop hunting and return, but the usual human shame did not allow me to admit my weakness to the guys and moved up, slowly moving my legs. Suddenly I saw a piece of snow almost at the top, where we were going. It affected me like a dope, I immediately told Zaire that I had to reach him. Zaire offered to take a backpack, I gave it without hesitation and rushed to the snow, it felt like wings had grown behind my back, when I got to the snow. I started to eat it, when noticed that a small stream was flowing below, and drank water from it. I made me the happiest person. You won't believe it, but I haven't drunk such delicious water from this not-quite-white snow. Then I noticed that Zaire was already at the top and rushed up. Zaire was already looking at the tur, when I got there. It lain at a distance of 650 meters from us, the male was good and I would have shot, but unfortunately the approximate corrections, written down in my notebook, were to five hundred meters only. I already wanted to start approaching the five hundred meters, but Zaire offered to wait and inspect the area for the presence of more turs, I agreed. I didn't know how much we monitored, but my patience came to an end, Zaire gave up and the plan was as follows. I should have to take a rifle and try to reduce the distance to the most reasonable, in my case about 500 meters. Two factors complicated the task, the first one was an absolutely open area with the stone scree, which I hated. The second was a large group of females who could notice me, but there was no choice, and I took a rifle, a camera and began to move, where in normal way, where crawling. Thus, I practically shortened the distance to the needed range, put the rifle on the bipod and heard Zaire shouted and started waving his arms. I tried to examine him through the optics and saw that he was waving his hands - come back. I looked at the place where the tur was lying in the optics, and did not see it. A large group of females was leaving in the distance on the left side. I had to go back to Zaire. My most terrible fears were confirmed, the females detected me and left, scaring the male. Zaire showed me four males who were lying in the settlement on the opposite side. They were at a distance of 200-300 meters from me, he tried to show me them on the horizon already leaving, I could not see them for a long time with my binoculars. It would be better if I did not succeed, because when I saw them, I had not experienced such a mood swing for a long time. Two from them stood out with very dark coloring and very huge horns. But, unfortunately, they were at an unattainable distance That was the end of my hunt. We began to descend. I promised myself while we was descending. that I would return once again and get a Dagestan tur. Then there was the road to Makhachkala, where I had to wait for my friend from hunting on the Dagestan tur. By the way, his hunting turned out to be more successful. He got a record tur with horns under 94 cm and with a very good base. It even seemed to me that one of those two turs that I accidentally scared off, ran 300-400 km to him for a shot. Then there was a Caucasian feast and a fun road to home with adventures.  PS: I wanted to thank all the guys who organized the hunt, whom I met in Dagestan. I have a very stable opinion that these are very hospitable, hospitable, friendly and strong people. I will definitely return to these mountains. With great respect, Alexey Shevchenko. 

“ The Real Safari Magazine”: First of all, we would like to congratulate you on achieving such a high level of awards of the CMH as the "International Wild Goat Super 40 Award", which is issued for getting of forty species of animals according to the Capra list, and in this regard I would like to ask a few questions. The first one is: how did the collecting of mountain trophies begin, how did you turn from hunting in general to mountain hunting? Edward Bendersky : I wouldn't call it a turn, because I continue to hunt for other species too. There was rather a shift in emphasis. And the impetus was an article in Safari magazine about GSCO. I've read it with interest, it just has hit the target, because my life position is to set high goals and strive to achieve them while doing something. The article’s expanded the horizon and has indicated the vector of movement - mountain hunting becomes popular among hunters all over the world, they create clubs that are quite narrowly specialized in terms of hunting objects, and try to reach certain levels. And I decided to set myself similar goals. Somewhere since 2010, I began to give preference to mountain hunting, and the collection of trophies began to grow quite quickly. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: How new were the first such hunts for you? E.B.: Not really new. I hunted in the mountains from my childhood. And my first trophy was a mountain one – at the age of 10 I got an antelope on the border of Turkmenistan and Iran. Therefore, mountain hunting didn’t become a revelation for me seven years ago. Although I had to revise a lot, to gain experience and understand that it is mountain hunting that attracts me the most. Today, at least 80% of my hunts are hunts for mountain ungulates. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What about other 20%? E.B.: Hunting is a big holiday for me. Any kind of hunting. Communication with wildlife, with friends is always very emotional. Periodically I hunt in Africa, in Russia I hunt for birds, and take part in corral hunts in with friends. But my real passion is primarily mountain hunting. It's difficult to explain why. Do I still need to find the answer. I feel the lack something in my life if I don't get to the mountains for a month. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What should happen to an ordinary hunter to "get infected" by the mountains? Someone doens’t like it in principle… E.B.: Mountains are not given to everyone. Even if we don’t take into account the financial side of the issue, then the state of health may become an obstacle. It is necessary to devote much more time to prepare for mountain hunting – both in terms of shooting and in physical terms - than to hunting in Africa, for example. It is difficult for someone to spend so much time on his hobby. One more moment is that the attitude to mountain hunting can be extremely negative even if you have all the possibilities, simply because you met “the wrong people” from the very beginning. An inattentive guide can drive an inexperienced hunter that he will curse both the mountains and the hunt, and put an end to it. Those, who come to the mountains for the first time, are not ready for the specifics of such hunts and are completely at the mercy of the host party. It is very rare to meet a guide who competently know how to work with a hunter. They are all well prepared physically, because moving around the mountains is a daily habit for them. Their bodies are adapted to the highlands. Not everyone can adapt to an unprepared hunter who is still poorly adapted to the mountains. I have seen only one perfect gamekeeper in Nepal for all the time I’m hunting in the mountains. He was a Sherpa who adjusted to the pace of the hunter's walk, and did not rush like a madman. As it turned out, he had his own climbing tactics called "Just don't sweat.” He walks at a certain pace and as soon as he feels a slight perspiration under his clothes, he stops, has rest and then rises again. We walked like that, and in the end, I saw that we almost didn’t lose time and our condition, didn’t sweat and were not cold. It was the work of a professional! Climbing the mountains for the sake of hunting is not some kind of competition, there is no point to catch up with a guide who rises faster. You need to adjust to yourself, to your body. If you travel in a pair with a novice hunter, you need to act as an instructor, correcting the mistakes of the guides. You need to adjust to the rhythm of a friend to help him to adapt correctly to the movement in the mountains. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Are you lucky, as a novice mountain hunter? E.B.: My first mountain hunts from the already planned series took place were in Kamchatka, in Magadan, in Yakutia and I was lucky to happen into good hands. And the hunts were well organized , and the people were trained professionals. It must be said that the RORS Association established the first Russian mountain award – the Mountain Five. I took the participation in it, and considered it obligatory for myself to get these animals. But the first hunts showed that I needed to prepare seriously for mountain hunting. There wasn't enough special information that could have been useful to me at that time. Or I didn’t know where to get it. One of the main tasks that we set ourselves when had established the Club of Mountain Hunter was to provide maximum information assistance to beginners so that they would not make mistakes, but could remotely learn the basics that we were given with sweat and blood. I gained experience with each new hunt, communicated with the same obsessed mountain hunters, my horizons expanded, the ability to select equipment, to find qualified hunting outfitters. It's allowed me to reach a certain level of knowledge and skills, which allows me to consider myself an accomplished mountain hunter. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What is the CMH place among other hunting clubs? E.B.: I must say that we do not compete with any club, but try to contact and cooperate productively. For example, I am a member of the Spanish club "Masters of Mountains", a member of GSCO, a member of SCI. Most of the CMH members are also members of GSCO and other clubs. We are now in process of approving a single prize "Super 29" together with the Moscow Safari Hunting Club. We are participating together with them in the publication of the Book of Russian Trophies. However, with all due respect to the North American clubs and hunters, to their experience and status, they are not systemically determining for us. We use their knowledge and experience, we are interested in trends. But the CMH is not a GSCO branch, we have different approaches to compiling rating tables. I like our ratings more because they are more interesting to me, are much more diverse. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What is the difference? E.B.: There are milestones in the GSCO ratings – 12 objects, 20, 30, 40 and so on. Quarterly, the list of all hunters who have reached these milestones is printed in the club's magazine, and it practically does not change in the top positions for years. Today only five people in the world have reached the level of 40 sheep. There are 47 sheep on the GSCO list in total, but a good dozen of them have been included in the International Red Book for several years already. It means that it is impossible now to reach the level of 40 sheep. If we talk about the Capra GSCO list, then there are a little more than forty objects in it, and several animals cannot be legally obtained. Then it becomes unclear why the club gives hunters a landmark, which is impossible to approach? The members of the CMH have the opportunity to get both 50 sheep and 60 sheep , since the list is much more diverse. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What is the reason for such diversity? E.B.: The CMH ratings include animals of the same species and even subspecies, but extracted in different regions, in different countries. We divide the species into populations. How is the Siberian ibex hunted in the Altai Mountains worse than the Siberian ibex got in the mountains of Kazakhstan? NOTHING! So why not make the rating tables wider? This also gives some advantages: it provides work for people on the ground, creates an opportunity to increase the populations of these animals, which hunting farms are beginning to protect, protect from wolves and poachers. This gives the hunter the opportunity to experience new adventures in unfamiliar places, meet and communicate with people in these areas. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: The increase in the ratings of the CMH is not at the expense of the red books? E.B.: With regard to the Red Book’s species, we strictly adhere to the letter of the law. And we have ratings of photo trophies… “ The Real Safari Magazine”: But they are not very popular yet? E.B.: The reason is simple – the club starts counting them when the hunter has already got 60 normal rated animals and has come close to the red Book species, and there are no such hunters yet. We don’t urge you to give up gun hunting by registering photo trophies. We just give you an additional opportunity to get rating points. There is no need to break the law – you just need to organize an interesting expedition and take a picture of a live animal that will be counted as a trophy. The first trip, in this regard, took place last year – an expedition was organized to Chechnya, where the guys managed to take pictures of a Bezoar ibex. This year I took a picture of a red book mouflon in the mountains of Cyprus. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Now I would like to hear a few words about the forty animals from the Capra list… E.B.: As you know, two lists form positions for mountain trophies - these are Capra (ibexes and related species) and Ovis (sheep). It turned out that my results for ibexes were higher than for sheep. There was any special intent in this. I strive to get animals from both lists when I go to places where both live. But at some point I noticed that I have more species from the Capra list. Moreover, it turned out that there are no people in the world who would get 40 animals from the Capra list. There are many people have achieved high results in sheep, including Russians, for example, Alexander Egorov, Konstantin Popov, Sergey Samotin, Vladislav Reznik, then I am ahead of everyone in ibexes. To be honest, When I’d seen and analyzed the situation after thirty ibex, I began to focus on them, I purposefully hunted them first of all. I am very pleased that I’ve been able to reach such a serious milestone – 40 Ibexes. And I am happy that I was able to reach it first. I came to understand over time that I even like hunting ibexes more than hunting sheep. They live in more inaccessible places, prefer rocky terrain, and therefore hunting them is more difficult, harder. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Once again, we congratulate you on an outstanding result and wish you not to stop there! E.B.: Thank you. There is still something to do Since this year, I have already begun to build a plan of expeditions, the purpose of which will be the markhors. 

Alexey Popov wrote from the words of Andrey Storchilov, the magazine "Basic Instinct", 4-2012. ...That's how differently hunters get their trophies. Someone spends days and even weeks in search of a worthy specimen, and encounters his coveted hunting dream not at all where he was looking for, and when there is almost no hope left. Someone finds luck right away, on the first trip to the grounds. It happens often that a wonderful trophy goes to the hunter, who doesn’t think about the record one. And there are absolutely incredible stories, like the one that has happened to Andrey Storchilov, a Moscow trophy winner and a member of the Safari Club International. Let's listen to his story. It all happened in early January 2012 in Spain. The trip was originally planned not as a hunting tour only, but also as a family vacation. Spain was an excellent choice in this regard - an interesting, mild climate, friendly country. You have a cultural heritage, and <shopping>, and nature, and most importantly - a great hunt there. A few days were devoted to the beauty of Barcelona, and then I was going to hunt the Spanish ibex - endemic, not found anywhere else. And I wanted to get another interesting trophy - a maned sheep, Barbary Sheep. The barbary sheep is native to the rocky deserts and semi-deserts of North Africa. It was a common species everywhere from Morocco to Sudan back at the beginning of the last century, but with the spread of firearms, its number has dropped significantly, and some subspecies are now considered completely extinct. In 1970, Barbary sheep were introduced into the Sierra Espuna Mountains. These animals are used to survive in the harsh climate of the northern Sahara, these representatives of bovidae have perfectly taken root in a new place, and currently Spain is one of the few places where you can comfortably hunt them. It was the second half of my tour. I had already shot the ibexes by that time - thanks to the Spanish side in the person of professional hunter and guide Angel Merino. Only three hunting days left. In the morning, the whole company left Granada, and arrived in the city of Lorca, province of Murcia by lunchtime. We stopped at the hotel there, changed clothes and were in the grounds by three o'clock in the afternoon. It was just 15-20 km from the hotel. We arrived at the place, and immediately found a large herd of barbary sheep - 25 heads. An inspection in optics showed that three males in this group stand out for their size and clearly represent trophy interest. In Spain, the Aoudad sheep live in relatively low mountains below and on the border of forest growth. They feed almost all the daylight hours, but sometimes they lie in secluded places during the day to rest. It was not difficult to detect them during feeding - their reddish-brown color was perfect for deserts, but not for the green hills of Murcia and Alicante. The herd was 800 meters away, and it was moving in our direction. We began to approach them, went down the slope a little, losing sight of the sheep, and suddenly Angel noticed another group of barbary sheep on the left, and there was a giant in it: A giant that amazed everyone - a huge old ram with a luxurious mane to the ground and huge thick horns: It immediately became clear to us that it was exactly the "macho" one could only dream of. Barbary sheep reach a meter at the withers and weight to 140 kg. A distinctive feature of the species is a thick <body kit> of long hair on the throat and neck, a kind of mane, to which the species owes its name. Both males and females have horns, but males are much larger in body. The length of their steeply bent back horns can reach 83 cm. These are the ones worn by the record barbary sheep, hunted in Spain in 1997. The second herd was about 200 meters away, but it disappeared again immediately after the hill as soon as it appeared over the crest of the it. We decided to approach it, went to the top of the hill and behind it, we first saw in the distance the first herd with three trophy males on a grassy plateau, but the second was descending a gentle slope to a pine forest 250 meters away. The same <monster> was spotted right away. It had a special sign on its right thigh - a large gray spot. The distance for the shot was comfortable. I was with a Blaser R8 300RUM carbine and decided to shoot lying down with a backpack. So, I had time to aim calmly, then pressed on the trigger- a shot, and the herd broke down and galloped off into the pines. Angel shouted: “Shoot once again”. But the monster had disappeared already. Nevertheless, it seemed to everyone that I still hit it there. We searched for blood on the trail for a long time, watched the video, but, in the end, came to the disappointing conclusion that the bullet went to the left and higher. Perhaps I underestimated the right-side wind - a wide variety of wind shifts and the bullet demolitions were possible in mountainous terrain. The first herd left. while we were searching for the consequences of the shot. Vladimir and I tried to look for it - to no avail, Angel meanwhile overtook the car. There was still time left, and we decided to look at other places. We drove off fifty meters, when suddenly Angel shouted <on the left! On the left!> He braked sharply, and we saw- a group of barbary sheep was moving in some seventy meters from us. We jumped out, I unclosed and loaded the carbine once again, stepped back a little from the open place to examine calmly the new herd. And we saw there: the same, huge old ram with such a noticeable spot on the thigh! Spain is relatively densely populated, so all game, and barbary sheep is no exception, live in the neighborhood of people. In addition, the Aoudad sheep on the Iberian Peninsula have practically no enemies in the wild. As a result, they are not very timid and aren’t very afraid of cars and housing. The approach to the trophy is not as complicated as in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, and the requirements for disguise are also lower. If the frightened herd is not very scared and does not understand the reason for the concern, then it usually does not go far, and soon begins to feed again. That time the distance allowed me to shoot with my hands, but Angel suggested that I use his shoulder as a stop. Just imagine: when the male was already in the crosshairs, and the descent was on the schnell, Angel stumbled and the bullet cut down a pine branch over the ram's back. I couldn’t describe my feelings at that moment! The herd took to their heels. We followed it. As a result, the sheep which were already jogging again, happened to be in a relatively open place at a distance of 120 meters. I didn't see the sheep, I wanted to get, but we looked out for another old sheep, and then I put him in the neck with one shot. But I couldn't get the very macho one out of my head -a gorgeous trophy, beautiful, well-shaped horns. And I decided to extend the hunt and to go the next morning again. We left early in the morning, drove all day, spent the whole day hunting and didn’t have rest. We saw plenty of animals - one herd then another. We approached them, but saw only rams of not very outstanding trophy qualities. In the evening Angel found another large herd high on the slope. We climbed 300 meters to it. I have aimed an excellent trophy male, as it seemed to me. One shot and I laid on the place. But he laid so high and uncomfortable that it took us almost an hour and a half to come to it. Unfortunately, its horns turned out to be very modest - much smaller than those that belonged to my trophy yesterday. It made my condition even more depressing. I had two chances to meet the same really outstanding trophy and didn’t get it! What was the probability to find it again on an area of 12,000 hectares: well, what was it? Something about zero! There was still a day left, I was offered various other types of hunting: I decided to try one more time. It I saw it I’d get it, if not - no means no. At that time of year (in January), barbary sheep moved little before lunch then hid in the bush or just laid somewhere on the slope - and therefore we usually didn’t see many herds until two o'clock. But in the afternoon, the animals began to feed actively, went out to the open grassy slopes, and the number of meetings with them increased dramatically. Therefore, on this last day, I decided to leave later. “Angel, - I said. - Let's not to drive to the area where we had been before. Let's drive to another side”. We left and noticed a herd in half an hour later, at 14-30. We came out. Angel began to look in and suddenly fell straight to his knees! “There is the big one! It's the one we were looking for”. There was the lost male, which we were looking for all those days. It was hard to believe in such a combination of circumstances, but the noticeable gray spot on the thigh left no doubt. It was the male! Those animals had gone 15 km from the place where we met them for the first time during last two days. The sheep were moving half a kilometer away from us to the hollow between the rocky outcrops. We went out to cross; I took a comfortable position between the rocks. The herd entered into the gorge below us, I caught the same male with a gray spot in the sight - a shot in the heart, and he lay down before he had gone forty steps. The distance was about one hundred and fifty meters. We came up - there was no limit to joy! It was hard to believe that such a thing was even possible - we left at two o'clock, at two-thirty we found them, and at three we had already made pictures with the shot twice and irretrievably lost sheep! I want to add just one thing: Vladimir Smelov, the master meter of SCI (Safari Club International), made a preliminary measurement of the trophy on the spot. It had 119 points what meant the bronze record. Although the trophy has not yet been finalized, but it can be said with a high degree of confidence that it will take the first (!) place among Russian barbary sheep. And it will certainly remain one of the most memorable trophies in Andrey's collection. Do you agree?

The trophy, we got, was 9,5 years old male. Its horns were very similar to the horns of argali of the Tibetan area. They were short, obviously thick and rounded in cross-section, they had a length of up to 118 cm (left) and 111 cm (right). Girths at the base were 40 cm each, 73 cm-the distance between the ends, what fit within the limits of variability of the Tibetan form, especially of North Tibetan males. The weight – 137 kg was generally higher than that of the Tibetan argali. The last ones were weighed not in the best physiological condition, since the total weight of 100 kg for a large male argali indicates that the individual survived the harsh winter or didn’t accumulate fat deposits for some other reasons. The body length of 176 cm and the height at the withers of 122 cm indicated that the animal was not the longest, but tall, adapted to fast, rapid running. Its height at the withers was quite decent with a relatively small body length. But our trophy didn’t reach 13 cm up to the maximum of this indicator in argali – 135 cm. The habitus of that argali tended to "square", i.e., the length didn’t exceed the height at the withers as much as in some other argali. This indicates the sprinting qualities of the sheep, which is able to escape from wolves by running rapidly along the plain slopes of the mountains and intermountain valleys to saving heights. This is also evidenced by the linear indicators of the length of the limbs: the front leg is 70 cm, the back (along the bend) is 105 cm, the hand is 37 cm, the foot is 45.5 cm. The length of the tail is 12.5 cm. The length of the ears is 10.4 cm, they are small, and this indicates that the male under study belongs to sheep, formed in the harsh climate of the highlands. The height where we got it ± 4400 m above sea level indicated it. The girth of the body behind the shoulder blades of 136 cm indicates that, despite its high-speed qualities, the ram is solidly built and is in excellent physiological shape. The height in the sacrum – 123 cm, barely exceeds the height at the withers (122 cm) and indicates the balance of the lengths of the fore and hind limbs, which also indicates the fitness of the body for long, fast running. Thus, the argali extracted and measured by us turned out to be very close to the Tibetan "classic" in horns. The body length is also within the limits of variability, but the height at the withers and the length of the tail are somewhat superior to the known (few) measurements of Tibetan argali. It is possible that they would have entered the limits of the variability of the Tibetan form if the samples of measured Tibetan sheep had been larger. The classic sign of the Tibetan argali is a white necklace (elongated hair on the throat and chest) was fully expressed. The rest of the color corresponded in general to the North Tibetan sheep of a similar age and size. It was lighter than the dark argali from the Himalayas and Ladakh, but it was quite natural, since the animals acquired a lighter color when moved to more northern or arid limits, according to the ecological rule of Gloger. It has to be added that adult and old male argali acquires white hair that create a lightening in the form of "gray hair" on the back. The animal we studied had some similarities in color and appearance with the Pamir form (Marco Polo sheep), but still more resembled the Tibetan argali and the animals from the photo of Huseyn Galobchi. This was especially true of the horns. The classic Pamir sheep could be considered as thin-horned sheep but our trophy and similar ones were easily called the Pamir bighorn. The classic bighorn among argali is the Altai Mountain sheep, or argali. The girth of its horns at the base can reach 58 cm!!! The average values exceed 45 cm in girth. The Tibetan argali is inferior to the Altai samples, but it can also quite correspond to this "proud title". The male we studied fully deserved it. Many people consider the Altai argali to be the largest among the sheep, but we believe that the "giants” can be found in any of the geographical forms of large argali – Pamir, Tibetan, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, etc., but it is out of competition for the thickness of the horns. In general, our Pamir bighorn has turned out to be quite Altai in size, since 122 cm at the withers now appears as the upper bar of the Altai argali, and the body length of the Pamir "thick-horned" (176 cm) almost reaches the Altai "optimum" - 180 cm. Probably, there are larger bighorns both in Altai and in the Pamirs, but we have not yet been able to find a greater measurement of the height at the withers in the Pamirs in literary sources. We’ll give the measurements of the skull of the Pamir bighorn. The measurements of the skull of the Tibetan argali in the Pamirs. (the place where we got it is the Mashaly Gorge) 06.12.2016   MEASUREMENTS OF THE SKULL (mm) The maximum length of the skull is 332 Condylobasal 322 Basilar (main) 300 The length of the front part of the skull is 264 Muzzle length 211 The length of the nasal bones is 140 The length of the upper dentition is 89 Interocular width 135 The maximum length of the skull is 183 The diameter of the eye orbit (longitudinal) 56 The length of the bony horn rods Left. 430         Right. 430. Maximum width (the distance between the horn rods) 510 The girth of the horn rods 324 The measurements of the skull fit within the limits of the variability of the Marco Polo argali from the Pamirs and the Tibetan argali, they are relatively small. In conclusion, it should be noted the following: 1. All argali, including large geographical forms, are close to each other and some of them may not reach the status of a well-differentiated subspecies. 2. Large zones of "hybridization" of individual argali phenotypes indicate the same. 3. It is possible that the territory from the eastern Pamir to the Karakoram, and possibly further (Western Tibet in China and other approximate territories) is a zone of hybridization of the phenotypes of the Pamir and Tibetan argali. We can hardly believe that there are two phenotypes on the same territory that have never mixed with each other. Mutual penetration of Tibetan and Pamir argali is quite possible, as well as the manifestation of both phenotypes in the same population and even a large herd. 4. It is quite possible that there is the permanent existence of the Tibetan (Ladakh) argali in the Pamirs. However, all these are our speculations. As for the argali taken by Edward Bendersky, it has certain differences from the classical parameters of the Marco Polo sheep, and we still have to answer the question if it is a different phenotype of the argali in the Pamirs, a transitional form, or still fits within the limits of the individual variability of the Pamir sheep. Morphological analysis means a lot, but today the geneticists have the last word.   Epilogue The expedition was over, and it was time to leave the Roof of the World. It was time to leave wide, spacious mountain valleys, framed by ridges and crowned with cascades of red bizarre rocks. The steep mountain slopes and valleys were strewn with countless skulls and skeletons of argali as in the time of Marco Polo. Huge herds of sheep ran away in all directions from our path. They looked at us from the tops of the mountains or passed by at a relatively short distance. Sheep were everywhere. We clearly saw there the advantages of a developed and progressive modern hunting economy that protects and preserves argali and other rare animal species. We know what the sheep protection in Russia has led to. Altai argali go to poachers, wolves and other predators. Their number has been progressively decreasing since the 50s. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the south-eastern Altai was considered one of the best places in Central Asia for hunting the largest bighorn argali from existing ones. This fact was recognized by many hunters who visited those places in the early 90s. There is nothing to blame except for the wrong anti-hunting way of the preservation of the Altai argali. It seems an absurd desire of nature conservationists to do everything to make rare species die out under the bullets of poachers and in the teeth of predators – but not allow hunters to protect them and reproduce their population. Let's return to the reddish rocks of the Pamirs, inhabited not by argali only but the Pamir bighorns that occupies our imagination. We managed to hunt the Pamir ibex, watched wolves hunting argali before getting ready for the return trip. During the expedition, we saw a lot of bearded vultures, golden eagles, white-headed barn owls and kumai (snow vulture), huge black ravens which pecked at the corpse of argali. We heard the voices of the rarest Tibetan snow cocks that live only in the Pamirs in Tajikistan, inhaled the dry mountain air and felt all the "charms " of the altitude between 4200 and 5000 m above sea level. We had collected information about the snow leopard, white-footed brown bear, Ladakh urial, mountain goose which nested on Zorkul, and other animals, which dwelled in the Pamir valleys. We observed the peculiarities of the argali rut in the Pamirs. I clarified some details of the habitat, tried to characterize the Pamir bighorn morphologically. Upon arrival in Moscow, we handed over samples of the tissues to the Federal Research Center for Animal Husbandry named after Academy Member L.K. Ernst To the genetics Doctor of Biological Sciences N. A. Zinovieva. and also genetics, candidate of biology, M. V. Kholodova from the Institute of Ecology and Evolution named after A. N. Severtsov. We will wait for their scientific conclusion. We also measured of the Pamir ibex - the most interesting object of mountain hunting, took samples of its tissues for genetic analysis, but this is a separate story. During that expedition we’ve met friendly, cheerful and resilient people, people who have became our real friends at the end of the trip - they are the brothers Atobek and Zafar Bekmurodi, passionate hunters, organizers of hunts and keepers of the nature of these unique places. The rows of our friends replenished by Shoudi Afzurov, who worked with us, Ali Sabzaliyev, the cameraman, the camp staff and employees who left the best impressions. It is necessary to note the selfless work of our cameraman Oleg Laptev, who has managed to shoot the most unexpected and unpredictable moments of mountain hunting. I would especially like to note his professionalism, kindness and cordiality. We will remember, for a long time, the wide mountain valley, rocks, passes and the endless Pamir sky with clouds of amazing shapes carried away by the wind. In the evening, we warmly said goodbye to our friends. It was a long way again, now down. We drove along the Panj, which was raging in the gorges, already in the dark. Then there was the hospitable house of Ayub Mulloerov again. In the early morning, his father took us around his estate and its surroundings and showed where they kept the markhors, ibex, Himalayan snow cocks and snow leopards. He smiled broadly and told how one evening the stone partridge flew down from the mountains right into his hands. Magic! We said goodbye to the Pamirs, to its harsh and beautiful nature, to the good-natured and courageous people hardened by the Pamirs and hoped to return here again.   Quotes: From CIC Caprinae Atlas of the World   The North Tibetan argali. Harris (2002) reported that the average length of the horns of 33 trophies of argali from Aksai was about 110 cm. The average age (judging by the annual rings on the horns) was 8.2 years. Twenty argali, got from 1991 to 2005 and registered by Rowland Ward (2006) and SCI (2009) as Gansu argali, had an average horn length (the longest horn) of 114.9 cm and an average base circumference of 43.3 cm. The largest recorded trophy, extracted in Aksai (2005), had a larger horn length of 127.3 cm and a small base circumference of 42.5 cm compared to the length. Unfortunately, the distance between the tips of the horns is available only for four specimens registered by Rowland Ward; the largest width is marked as 69.9 cm, and the average is 63.3 cm. There are no significant differences between the North Tibetan and Tibetan argali: the average length of the horns and the distance between the ends of the horns are 114.9 and 43.3 cm versus 118.1 cm and 43.2, respectively. We can see a larger gap in a limited sample (n = 4) of North Tibetan argali between the ends of the horns is visible-63.3 cm against the usually dense curl (n = 31) of Tibetan argali with an average value of 51.4 cm. Tibetan argali. The weight of the skull and horns of the largest male, extracted by Schaefer (number ASK 17335), was 12.3 kg. The largest trophy registered in Rowland Ward, with a horn length of 140.3 cm, a base circumference of 47.6 cm and a distance between the ends of the horns of 73.7 cm, is dated 1898 and is listed as taken in Tibet/China. Lydekker mentions this skull with field measurements in "Large and Small Prey of India" on page 85: "The largest recorded horns taken by A. Pike in Ladakh have dimensions of 144.5 cm along the frontal bend and a coverage of 47.6 cm, and the distance between the ends of the horns is 73.7 cm.” The horns of only four other sheep reached or exceeded 127.0 cm in length. However, the average length of the horns of 43 specimens recorded between 1898 and 2000 is 118.1 cm. The horns have rather massive bases – the largest recorded is 50.2 cm with an average value of 43.2 cm. Six argali were captured between 1985 and 2001 in the Dulan International Hunting Grounds (attributed by the Chinese supervisory authorities to the Gansu argali, О. a. dalai-lamae by mistake) in the Burhan-Buddha Mountains, a massive mountain range southwest of the Caidam Basin and due east of the Golmud-Lhasa highway, but these trophies are not mentioned in either Rowland Ward or SCI. We compared the sizes of recently hunted North Tibetan argali (registered as Gansu argali) with early measurements of Tibetan argali and found no significant differences in the morphology of the horns, except for a much wider lumen in the North Tibetan argali. It seems that the distance between the ends of the horns in Tibetan argali rarely reaches the same width as in North Tibetan argali. The average distance from horn's tips in the specimens of the Tibetan argali (n = 31) reaches 51.4 cm, while in the North Tibetan phenotype (N = 4) - 63.3 cm – about 12 cm difference. It's necessary to go on the research to confirm the lumen as a possible difference between the two phenotypes. Photo by Oleg Laptev

Instead of a prologue. This article is intended for those inquisitive hunters who have some experience of hunting with rifled weapons, but would like to test themselves on the most difficult and beautiful mountain hunts and get an honorary trophy that will remind you of the difficult path passed before it.        What do you hunt with in the mountains? The question is as rhetorical as it is complex. Hunting in the mountains is one of the most difficult types of hunting. These hunts are difficult due to many reasons. First of all, mountains are a hostile environment for human life. We are faced there with low atmospheric pressure, low oxygen content in the atmosphere, increased solar radiation, extreme temperatures. It waits the hunter during the hunt for ibex and sheep and other inhabitants of the mountains that’s why the price of a shot fired by a hunter on an honorary trophy is so high, regardless of its size. It is necessary to have a good weapon and ammunition in order for this shot to be successful that can not only hit, but stop a mountain animal that is strong for a wound.      It would be a mistake to consider hunting in the mountains only through the prism of a well-aimed and accurate shot. There are no trifles in mountain hunting, and the accurate shot is rather the final stage of a complex and long way to the goal, rather than a simple defeat of the target. I would divide mountain hunting into two main types. The first category includes hunting in the mountains at altitudes up to 3,000 meters above sea level. The second type of mountain hunting will include hunting at altitudes over 3,000 meters. Why exactly this division? It’s easy. A well-trained many doesn’t feel the influence of altitude at heights up to 3,000 meters. The oxygen content doesn’t have any noticeable negative effect on the work of the musculoskeletal system and the cardiovascular system. Physical exertion can be exorbitant during these hunts due to the complex mountain landscape and very steep mountain slopes. I would include to this category hunting in the Caucasus for turs and chamois, for snow sheep in Kamchatka, in Yakutia, Primorye and in the Magadan region, hunting for bear, ibex in the Sayan and ibex in the Altai mountains.      Our body is exposed to many external factors when hunting at altitudes above 3,000 meters. First of all, I talk about hypoxia, when the hunter is haunted by nausea, pounding in the temples, shortness of breath appears after a short walk. These negative effects of altitude can have a significant impact on the accuracy of the shot. The hunters don’t have to go so much in such conditions because the main movement is mainly carried out on horses or by cars.       Taking into account all the difficulties that await a hunter on mountain hunts, a serious question arises: what arms he has to take with on such a responsible hunt, where every shot can be valued at its weight in gold?      Hunting is a creative process and does not depend on one person. There are outfitters and local organizers - owners of hunting grounds and guides. A lot depends on the guides on mountain hunts. How much the guide will be able to understand and feel the hunter will depend on how close he will be able to approach the hunter to the position for the shot. And it’ll allow to determine how correctly weapons and ammunition were chosen for this type of mountain hunting. It is necessary to divide the hunters into those who have already had experience in mountain hunting and the beginners. Those who like to shoot at an animal from exorbitant distances, and those who prefer to walk the path and experience the sensations that are characteristic of close contact with the animal. Ultimately, the choice of weapons will be determined by these factors. I will take the liberty, based on the experience of mountain hunting, personal moral and ethical attitudes, and hunting rules, to give recommendations to those hunters who, in addition to owning an honorary trophy, want to leave in their memory both observations of the animal in its natural habitat, and unforgettable impressions of chasing the beast, and how to get into the shooting position and the shot itself.  I remember always, the process how I’ve approached the beast and prepared for shooting. It always occupies a significant place.      It is necessary to take into account the fact that almost all mountain animals are very endurance on the wound when choosing weapons for mountain hunting. Even a mortally wounded ibex or a sheep can go far into the rocks and be lost by hunters as a trophy. Therefore, the widely held opinion that it is necessary to be guided by the principle of range and flatness, is unlikely to stand up to criticism when you choose weapons for mountain hunting. Usually, 7 mm Rem.Mag calibers have good flatness characteristics and others like them. You can hunt an ibex with a caliber of 243 WinMag., BUT ... It can apply to the very experienced mountain hunters who can approach the animal and "scratch it behind the ear". A caliber 243 Win bullet that hits the beast in the neck or behind the ear at a short distance of up to 50 or even up to 100 meters, won’t give it any chance. But not many hunters can make such a shot. I will follow the considerations of the need to stop the animal at distances up to 300-350 meters when choose the caliber of the weapon and the cartridge. This distance it enough to predict the trajectory of the bullet, and the impact of the energy remaining at such a distance will be sufficient to ensure that the beast doesn't go far. I don’t want to speak about the manufacturers of weapons not to offend some and not advertise others. We’ll talk about calibers, bullet weight and energy. Everything starts from a cartridge with the specified characteristics that always developed first, and a carbine was made for it. It's easier to pick up the carbine when you have a clear idea of the characteristics of the cartridge. There are adherents of BLASER carbines, someone prefers MANNLICHER, someone goes hunting with SAKO carbines only, CZ carbines are very popular and have a good price/quality ratio. You can argue about the advantages and disadvantages of any of the carbines produced by the above and other companies, but we won’t do this. We have other goals to talk about the optimal weapon for hunting in the mountains. The starting point is the cartridge. We’ll focus on two main indicators when evaluate the cartridge and the bullet that are crucial for defeating and, most importantly, for stopping the beast. I talk about the flatness and the amount of energy delivered by a bullet at a distance of 300 meters.      It's not to note light mountain calibers. I would like to mention the 243 Winchester caliber cartridge. The one equipped with a Teilmantel-S bullet that weights 6.48 grams, produced by NORMA brings 1462j to 300 meters and has a deviation from the aiming line at the same 300 meters only-22.7 cm at the GEE or MRD point (the optimal shooting distance) of 200 meters. Such a cartridge will make it possible to hunt small animals, such as chamois and roe deer in the mountains and on flat terrain. The minimum caliber for hunting ibexes, turs and snow sheep is 6. 5X68 with a bullet weighing 8.16 g from RWS that bring 2049 joules to 300 meters. and fall only 20.4 cm from the aiming line. All the above-mentioned animals can become trophies in the hands of a well-aimed and experienced hunter with such energy and with accurate shooting.      I consider it necessary to highlight various variants of the 7mm cartridge. Why? It’ a very peculiar cartridge. Some cartridges of this caliber don’t have enough energy to confidently stop mountain animals despite their apparent power and strength. Here are some examples. The hunter made an accurate shot at a Siberian roe deer male from a 7 mm Rem.Ultra Mag carbine. The bullet passed through the animal at a distance of 100 meters. The hit was on the front part of its torso. The animal disappeared behind the ridge, and then into the dense bushes. We didn’t find it despite our long search. Later, the same hunter fired at the deer with the same carbine. He fired three times from the distance 120 meters. All three shots hit the target, but the animal stood, then disappeared into the thicket, and was found with great difficulty. The bullets went through the animal's body in both cases, but didn’t have enough energy to stop the beast confidently. My clients wounded several beautiful trophy male with the same caliber, and also with a Kieplauf carbine, when hunting ibexes in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. We even saw one wounded male’s insides, which fell out of the wound, but we managed to get it the next day only . And didn’t find the other two.      The use of these calibers in mountain hunting is negatively affected by such factors as: weak energy delivered by a bullet at a distance of 300 meters and further; a large deviation of the bullet trajectory from the aiming line at a distance of 300 meters (on average from 26 to 41 cm) at the GEE point, on average, from 165 to 180 meters. Only a few 7mm caliber cartridges can be distinguished on the positive side. They are: 7X64 SAKO with a Teilmantel-S bullet with the weight 11.02 g with energy of 2430j and a deviation from the aiming line by 32cm, with a GEE of 175 meters; 7MMREMINGTONMAGNUM with a Federalpremiumc Nosler10 bullet, 37gr that bring 2715j, with a deviation from the aiming line by only 26cm at a distance of 300 meters with a GEE of 179 meters.      If we talk about the 300-caliber, I would like, based on my personal experience, to give a restrained negative assessment of the cartridges of the caliber 30-06 Springfield; 308 Winchester; .30/30 Winchester and others of a similar category, including 7, 62X39; 7, 62X54. The only exceptions are the 308 Norma Magnum caliber with a TP bullet with the weight 11.66 g; an energy of 2914j and a deviation from the aiming line by 30 cm at a distance of 300 meters and the 30-06 Springfield caliber from Hirtenberger with a Nosler bullet the weight 9.72 g delivering 2258j and deviating from the aiming line at 300 meters by only 25.5 cm. Experienced Mountain hunters practically don’t use these cartridges on serious trophy hunts. There are obviously several reasons for this. The main reason is that the cartridges of this category deliver too little energy at a distance of 300 meters or more. The flatness characteristics of these cartridges also deteriorate sharply after 300 meters. I have never met serious mountain hunters who take carbines of the above calibers to the mountains. I would like to draw the readers ' attention to the most universal and common caliber among mountain hunters. We will talk about cartridges 300 Winchester Magnum; 300 Weatherby Magnum and identical to them. Why is so much attention paid to these calibers? First of all, they have worked vigilant and faithful and still work those inquisitive hunters who are looking for a worthy trophy when hunting in the mountains. These hunters want to know the intriguing mystery of the whole process of mountain hunting, which includes tracking, hiding the animal, taking the shooting position, getting ready for a shot, aiming and the shot itself. This category of people makes up the main backbone of mountain hunters. These people go to the mountains to see how an ibex or sheep behave in a herd among their relatives, how their relationships are built, how a proud leader who was tracked down by a hunter with a guide defends his status quo, how steam comes from its nostrils excited by natural passion. There were cases when a hunter, fascinated by its natural performance, forgot that he was hunting and came to get a trophy. This perception of the process is possible at distances from 10-15 to 300 meters. The world of wildlife is perceived as a kind of documentary film at more distant distance and the sharpness of sensations is not the same. This category of hunters prefers to use reliably proven 300-caliber guns on mountain hunts.      Why these calibers are so attractive for mountain hunting? First of all, almost all cartridges of these calibers are delivered with a bullet at a distance of 300 meters of about 3,000 joules and even more, which significantly affects the stopping effect of the bullet. The second thing is that their deviations from the line of sight are on average 20-30cm with a GEE of 180 to 200 meters with an average weight of about 11 grams of bullets. As we can see from the above data, the hunter has every chance to confidently get his trophy even at distances of 300 meters and a little further. There are cases when an ibex or a ram stands at a distance of 350-370, or even 400 meters. But the trophy is really worth it. It is these calibers that will allow you to make an accurate shot and stop the beast, using all your shooting skills. I consider it necessary to allocate some 300-caliber cartridges: a Winchester bullet with Teilmantel 11.66 grams; 300 Weatherby Magnum from the Federal Premium Safari with Nosler bullets, Trophybonded with a weight of 11.66 grams. The 300 Winchester Short Magnum cartridge also has good characteristics. I should have to make a reservation on the 300 Weatherby Magnum calibers. The cartridge is very hard and makes itself felt in the hunter's shoulder with each shot with very good shooting characteristics.       I would like to note two calibers that are similar in many parameters. They are 300 Remington Ultra Magnum and 8х68 S . These two calibers are characterized by super-high energy. The bullets carry more than 3000j even at a distance of about 300 meters. I know about cases when people hunted with carbines of such calibers and wounded animals due to the fact that the bullets simply went through the animal without having time to give energy. Once we hunted for the Dagestan tur and an 8x68 S caliber bullet pierced a good trophy tur through at a distance of 280 meters. The beast disappeared from sight. We lost plenty of time while looking for a wounded animal that fell on the opposite side of the mountain ridge. Approximately the same situation is obtained when firing a 300 Remington Ultra Magnum cartridge.      Another detail deserves attention when shooting in the mountains. You should carefully approach the choice of a bullet even giving priority to any caliber. You should always pay special attention to the ability of the bullet to give this energy in addition to the indicators of weight, delivered energy and flatness. The experience of hunting with a CDP (Controlled Deformationprocess) bullet of joint production of RWS and Blaser is indicative in this aspect. It delivers 2627j to a distance of 300 meters and deviates from the aiming line by only 20 cm at GEE 200 meters with a bullet weight of 10.7 grams. Many of the hunters confirm that this bullet is very effective on trophy hunts due to the fact that it begins to give off its energy immediately after touching the animal's skin. This is one of the most valuable qualities of a hunting bullet. I noticed a cartridge with such a bullet a few years ago at one of the hunting shows in Moscow. Then I received more detailed information about this bullet from a representative of the Blaser company at the Show in Salzburg. I learned there that the V-shaped partition located inside the bullet, due to its flexibility, makes the obturation of the bullet in the barrel channel optimal. The entire design of the bullet is designed to regulate the process of unfolding the upper part, that differs this bullet from the same type of bullet Swift A Frame, from Norma, which I shot before CDP.  A representative of the NORMA company told me that they did an experimental shot at a 50 cm thick piece of soap, then studied the bullet channel and it turned out that the bullet began to open immediately as soon as it touched the soft structure. This bullet always opens into four petals, which cut the flesh with their sharp edges of the petals, causing abundant blood loss in addition to the usual dynamic pressure. In all my practice of shooting in the mountains, I have never had to shoot at animals more than once when using this cartridge. Even such large animals as the Yakut and Kamchatka moose lay down after the first shot. I got with one shot many trophies such as snow sheep, ibex, marals with the same bullet.           It’s similar to the CDP bullet produced by the same NORMA Barnes Triple Shock bullet weighing 9.7 g. This light bullet brings 2802j to 300 meters and deviates by only 30 cm, and this is at the GEE point at 100 meters. It means that if a hunter wants to shoot a cartridge with this bullet at "zero" at 200 meters, then the sagging of the bullet will be within 20 cm. A characteristic feature of this bullet and its difference from the mentioned above CDP is that, unlike the lead body in the CDP, the Barnes Triple Shock bullet is completely made of a copper alloy without a lead core. This is a completely new approach to control expansiveness. It also opens into four petals, but the probability of loss of lead filler, and the energy dissipation is "zero". This gives it the greatest preferences in terms of the stopping effect.      Optics on mountain hunts plays a great role too. It allows the hunter to clearly see his target. I would like to describe briefly the requirements for an optical sight for mountain hunting. The choice of sights provided by modern companies is quite wide. Each hunter must determine for himself what he likes most and what suits for his method of hunting and his preferred shooting distance. The desired requirements for the sight can be defined as the following: multiplicity from 4.5 to 14 or 20. At the same time, you should keep in mind that the angle of the view decreases significantly with an increase in the multiplicity and it will be more difficult to catch the target in the crosshairs. The Paralax device will help a lot when shooting, especially for people with visual defects. It allows you to focus the target image at 50 or 100 meters and also at 300 meters and beyond. You can always clearly see your goal.      It’s necessary to have the illumination of the crosshairs or point in your chosen sight. The illuminated one will give you the opportunity to focus your attention on the place of aiming without losing sight of the target. Illumination is especially relevant in conditions of fog, dust haze, twilight. Bipods and additional equipment. You can absolutely do without bipods on mountain hunts, I made this conclusion from my practice of mountain hunting. The basis for this conclusion is as follows. A real mountain hunter knows the price of a good trophy perfectly well. The path that the hunter goes to a high-quality trophy is fraught with many difficulties. The main one is to get to these remote places where the trophy animal lives. It should be taken into account that males with high-quality trophy features are always stay higher than the main herd (with the exception of the rut period). You’ll feel every extra gram of your luggage when will climb to the sky-high heights. You’ll be happy if you just climb to the heights where the turs and sheep live. I talk about hunting Caucasian turs and Kamchatka and Yakut snow sheep. You are forced to carry the necessary equipment and food for survival in the mountains. Just believe me that the desire to carry equipment, which is impossible to do without, won't inspire you.  The local guides say that only a few out of a hundred hunters are able to pass the routes that we’ve taken in these mountains. Any additional equipment will make itself known to you immediately. Thus, there is no urgent need to carry an extra load, if there are very few such situations when you can safely use bipods. This is a common situation when you can’t appear from behind the ridge, behind which the animals are located, until the very last moment. You don’t have the opportunity to install bipods safely on stony ground. As soon as you want to take advantage of this opportunity, you risk being discovered by animals. The mountain ungulates have sharp eyes and they are able to notice the slightest movement at a great distance, that’s why your attempt to make an accurate shot is doomed.          You can always use your backpack or jacket instead of bipods.  I always carry my carbine in a soft cloth case.  This case is extremely light, but you are always sure that your carbine is in fully operational, the optics, as well as the shutter, are not clogged with dust or dirt. Another great advantage of such a cover is that it can always be placed under the carbine on any kind of surface, including sharp stones. You can achieve good stability of the carbine in any position and, most importantly, to minimize the possibility of being detected by an animal. The local guides never liked my cover because, they said that I wouldn’t have time to shoot when the beast suddenly appeared. Believe me, this is all nonsense. There had never been a single situation when I did not have time to remove my cover from the carbine and to fire a shot. But I am always confident in my carbine. One case is very indicative. We hunted in the Kyrgyzstan mountains at an altitude of 4,300 meters above sea level, we were extremely exhausted for 7 days of hiking and hunting. We actually had the worst luck of all time. We even spent one night in the mountains when the temperature was -20 degrees. We were already packing our camp for the return trip, when saw two ibexes on the slope of the ridge. It took us about 1 hours to approach them. I didn’t see animals all the way while we were going to them. I was led by our Kyrgyz guide, who looked cautiously from time to time out from behind the rocks and monitored the location of the animals. I didn't see any ibexes throughout the entire route. At the last moment, I folded my case, put it on the rocks, put the carbine already on the case and crawled out on a small elevation to take a firing position. I put my cheek to the stock and saw two ibexes on the slope of the ridge at a distance of 200 meters. The soft cover gave me the opportunity to place the carbine noiselessly and conveniently. Two shots and two males rolled down the slope. The reader may wonder what I shoot myself from? What kind of carbine and with what optics do I take with me to the mountains? I have the Finnish SAKO 75 HUNTER carbine in the performance of De Lux caliber 300 Winchester Magnum for several years. It has LEUPOLD VARI X 111 4.5x14x50 optics, parallax and crosshair illumination. Recently, I have been using CDP cartridges with a 10.7 g bullet produced by RWS in conjunction with Blaser. But currently, NORMA cartridges with the same Barnes Triple Shock bullet weighing 9.7 grams. I have bipods, but don't use them just because they are unnecessary.      I would like to say a few words about long-range shots on mountain hunting. In my opinion, such shots are absolutely justified in a situation where: 1. You have weapons and cartridges that allow you to make a shot at a distance of up to 1 km; 2. You have the experience of shooting at long distances; 3. There is no way to get closer to the animal, but there is an assumption that the animal with an outstanding trophy can disappear from sight. 4. Weather conditions allow!!! The shooters usually use special rifles designed for shots at a distance of 600 meters and up to 1.2 km when shooting at long distances.  I know that the shooter feels proud that he’s hit the beast from a distance of 800 meters or more, but...! Can we call it hunting? It's the rhetorical question. Yes, the target is hit. But what about soul? What about fluttering feeling of the proximity of a trophy, when the heart is pounding in the throat? Will you remember the animal when you watched it? The animal is noticeable as a small figure from a distance of 600 meters and beyond, and at longer distances it is just a small dot. You don’t see clearly the trophy horns nor the size of the animal. I’m not sure that I will have anything to remember from my feelings, except for the satisfaction of hitting the target after getting a trophy with such a long shot. It should be remembered that such specialized rifles will weigh at least 5-6kg, or even all 8-10kg. Are you ready to carry such weapons, plus bipods (when shooting at such distances, it will be difficult to do without bipods!), plus a good pair of binoculars, plus a rangefinder, not counting other necessary equipment in your backpack?  You can give all this to your guide, but ... can you consider yourself a real mountain hunter after that, who uses a sherpa to transport the most sacred for any hunter, your reliable friend, a part of yourself– a hunting carbine.       Hunting for me is to be as close to the beast as possible. It's not because of the fear to miss, but because of the sharpness of the sensations that I experience when I hear the breath of an animal and see every hair on its skin. This is precisely the high professionalism of a real mountain hunter, who enjoys both communication with the harsh nature of the mountains, and overcoming all sorts of difficulties that await him on mountain hunts.      But tastes differ. I've tried to present my vision of the problems of weapons for mountain hunting and how I treat to the hunting process in mountain conditions. Someone will agree with this, someone will not. It's up to everyone to choose what they like. I just tried to give information about the possibilities of using weapons and cartridges of different calibers on mountain hunts.      In conclusion, I’ll try to summarize what weapons are the most suitable for a hunter on mountain hunts, if the hunter is physically prepared and psychologically sustained. The last factor is also important. An example from a practical hunting in the mountains of Khakassia. The German hunter could not hit a large maral from a distance of 180 meters, which stood sideways to him. His teeth were chattering so much from excitement that I could not even determine what or who could make such a strange sound.      If I summarize all the above, we can conclude that the main goal of hunting in the mountains is to stop, not to wound an animal! Each hunter must choose a weapon and caliber based on his idea of hunting in the mountains. The analysis of calibers and bullets allows us to come to the following conclusion:  a 30-378 Weatherby carbine with a Nosler bullet weighing 12.96 grams that delivers 4483j at a distance of 300 meters and deviates from the aiming line by only 17.7 cm at GEE 201 meters can be close to ideal for all categories of trophy mountain hunting.      I would like to note that it is important not only the weapon with which you go to the mountains, but also a whole complex of factors that affect success. The main one is the state of health, physical fitness, psychological and volitional stability, a high moral and ethical level of the hunter. A real mountain hunter will pass where even some special forces soldiers do not pass. Real mountain hunting is a much more complicated process than a scholastic shot for the purpose of obtaining a trophy. Good luck to all of you. Dmitry Vstovsky.

My first mountain hunting took place more than half a century ago in Kamchatka. They took place in areas of active volcanoes, far from human settlements, where even local hunters didn’t climb. The main weapon was the expedition carbines based on the Mosin rifle. Several times they gave us carbines that had zero firing and a very decent accuracy. It's clear the main motive of hunting was a primitive passion, but in those conditions, it was supported by the sincere preference of the participants of the expedition for fresh meat to all types of canned food.   The head of one of these expeditions was Sasha Koloskov. We just got to the area of work, when I ask him, what will be do first hunting or work? He replied that as long as there was strength and courage, it was necessary to get meat, then it would be better to work We spent a dozen seasons in Kamchatka, then there were mountain hunts in the Altai and the Caucasus. All of them were conducted without transport support and most often alone. This is the base of all my recommendations. I got acquaintance with modern foreign rifled hunting weapons much later. I knew later that our European friends include grouse, capercaillie, marmot, wild boar, roe deer and deer as mountain hunting animals. The shooting conditions may be different, it depends on the hunting method. The most common situation is when the hunter approaches the animals. In these cases, the shooting distances range from a hundred meters to half a kilometer or more. This is probably the most typical case. The exploration can requires spending several days, but in the best case you can get animals at the feeding site or at a natural or artificial salt lick. You need to take into account the wind and the possibility of camouflage when choose a convenient distance. If you know the terrain and the habits of animals, you can organize a drive them to the hunter, even by one person. Goats or sheep disturbed during feeding will certainly try to go to the rocky tops. In this case, the shooting may be not long-range. In some regions, large corral hunts are arranged in the mountains covered with forest. In Siberia, we hunted goats and sheep with huskies, and the animals escaped from them on the rocky defenses. The different shooting situations may occur with different probability when hunting mountain ungulates. Our traditions require the hunter to do everything possible to reduce the shooting distance. Ideally, you should shoot only when there is a full guarantee of hitting the killing place. The Austrian manual for huntsmen recommends the following distances as the maximum when shooting with optimal cartridges: roe deer-150 meters, chamois-200 and red deer – 250 meters. De facto, these distances can be increased several times with careful selection of a cartridge for your rifle. Previously, the hunter must determine the maximum distance from which the bullets don’t leave the circle with a diameter of 150 mm by shooting. There are some situations when long-range shooting is the only chance to get the beast. The most difficult thing is long – range shooting at running or, even more difficult, jumping on the rocks goats or sheep. Occasionally there are situations when animals, have run away not far and pause for a few seconds to assess the situation. It is desirable to use this moment. I know about the situation but they are very rarely in the mountains when animals appear suddenly short. You need to prepare for such cases in advance, to practice the skill of shooting without aiming-offhand. At the same time, you should strive to increase the distance as you train, when a circle with a diameter of 150 mm will be hit without a miss. This skill can also be useful for corral hunting. The important question for any hunting is the choice of the optimal caliber. If you hunt on your own the question of the weight of your equipment becomes one of the most important. Hussein Golabchi, the undisputed authority in mountain hunting, says that he considers the 7mm RemMag cartridge to be optimal. It is difficult to disagree with him, since this cartridge provides good flatness and energy of the bullet. he 7mm RemMag has become the most popular in this caliber for the 55 years that it has produced. Three-hundredth calibers are even more popular today, at least in Russia. Moreover, some of the old ones are still in the top. First of all, it applies to the American veteran patron .30-06 Spring. Cartridges of old developments are more perfect than their progenitors in many ways. Modern cartridge companies use more reliable and stable primers, homogeneous and stable grades of gunpowder, new bullet designs and modern cartridge assembly technologies. 30 R Blaser is a fairly powerful cartridge among 300 calibers. It is assembled in a narrow and long welt sleeve, what makes it convenient for use in single-shot rifles and combined weapons. The cartridge .308 Win (7, 62x51) is quite suitable for mountain hunting, because it is one of the most accurate serial rifle cartridges. It is important that the mass of rifles turns out to be quite humane due to the relatively small cartridge. The listed three-hundredths belong to moderately long-range and we can talk about targeted shooting, only if we bear in mind a distance of up to three or four hundred meters. Many hunters today prefer to use rifles of stronger calibers-from three hundred magnums to three hundred and thirty-eighths when the transfer to the hunting area is provided by transport (aviation, automobile or horse-drawn), and the mass of equipment is not a limiting factor. I don't see any sense in large calibers, although adherents of hunting with caliber weapons .408 CheyTac can argue with me. An important question is what are the criteria for choosing a mountain weapon? The first criteria are reliability and high accuracy. Then you should pay attention to the mass of the rifle. It should be minimal, but provides accuracy not worse than one angular minute. Hunting is not shooting at a fixed target, that's why a rifle for mountains should be easily controlled as our grandfathers used to say. Modern technologies for the production of barrels guarantee the accuracy of shooting better than one angular minute. It is quite possible to get a barrel with a accuracy of 0.5 MOA with careful selection. A barrel, a bolt and a stamped receiver must be sufficiently rigid and viscous to absorb the vibrations that occur when fired. Rifles with automatic reloading have a worse fight than rifles with manual reloading. I can name two types of the light hunting rifles. These are rifles, all parts of which (except the barrel) are made of titanium alloys. Such weapons with sliding bolt have long been mass-produced by the Austrian company Rossler. Another Austrian company, Johann Fanzoj, which has a centuries-old history, makes titanium multi-shot rifles based on the Mauser 98 Magnum. The mass of such an 8x68S caliber rifle with a barrel length of 650 mm does not exceed 3 kg. The same company also produces custom-made single-barrel, single-shot, fracture titanium lancer fittings. In general, break barrel single-shot rifles are lighter than rifles with sliding bolts and are significantly better controlled. The second good weapon for mountains has barrels, the outer part of which is made of carbon fiber. Kristensen Arms is the leader here. The inner part of the barrels made of this company is always steel, and the thickness of this part is about 40% of the total thickness, and the outer layer is made of carbon fiber, in which the epoxy resin serves as a binder. The density of carbon fiber is determined by several parameters, but it is always lower than 1.5 g / cm3. If we take into account that the barrel steel has a density close to 8 g/cm3, it is clear that replacing steel with carbon fiber gives more than five times the weight savings. The weight of these carbines, even with the most powerful calibers (.338 LapuaMag), does not exceed 3 kg. Christensen produces carbines specially for mountain hunting for powerful 7.82 (.308) Lazzeroni Warbird cartridges, specially designed for long-range shooting. The troubles associated with the relatively strong recoil of light weapons are overcome by training optimal manufacturers and proper psychological training of the shooter. A strong recoil is undesirable when the hunter shoots in large series, and this usually doesn’t happen on mountain hunts. Rifles with block bolts are very good for hunting in the mountains. Unfortunately, they are unknown here in Russia but are very popular among mountain hunters in Europe. These rifles are light, maneuverable and reliable. European gunsmiths often reproduce the Hagna system one of the many known systems today. It reliably locks the cartridge of any power and provides high accuracy. If we talk about multi-shot hunting rifles, today they are produced by many European and American companies. Modern technologies allow to obtain even conveyor weapons of very high quality. Although almost all major weapons companies have custom-made processes of weapons manufacturing. However, there are the gunsmith, which don’t work otherwise than by pre-order. Today the best rifles on the Mauser 98 system in Europe are produced by the German company Waffen G. Prechtl. Quite decent hunting rifles in our country are produced by the company ORSIS. The attention of mountain hunters is often attracted by sniper or so-called tactical rifles. They have high ballistic performance but the price for it is a large mass and poor handling. Sniper rifles under the cartridge .308 Win with a sight have a mass of about 5.5 kg or more. They are convenient to shoot at stationary targets using good bipods. Tactical rifles for various purposes are produced at almost all weapons factories in technically developed countries. In Russia Orsis T-5000 tactical rifles are popular. High-quality weapons according to an individual order are produced by Vladislav Lobaev's company. It’s necessary to measure its barrel with a caliber when purchasing any rifle. It’s desirable that it passes as tightly and uniformly as possible along the entire barrel. It’s useful to check the correctness of the rifling if possible. After purchasing a new rifle, it must be fired at. The meaning of this operation is to remove possible burrs and smooth out the smallest irregularities of the barrel channel. The effect of this operation on new barrels is always positive, but its magnitude depends on the method of obtaining rifling and the entire sequence of technological operations for manufacturing a rifled barrel. The shooters agree that the "run-in" should be made completely with FMJ bullets without antifriction coats. The use of abrasive pastes for this process is unacceptable. It is clear that it is impossible to fix barrels that have lost their accuracy due to a large drill. The next necessary work for the owner of a new rifle is the selection of the optimal cartridge. It is clear that the caliber is determined by the barrel, so you should choose the manufacturer of cartridges and the type of bullet. This work is due to the fact that your barrel has a certain step of rifling. The bullets of different masses will have different initial or muzzle velocity on departure, and therefore different angular speeds of rotation. As a result, they will stabilize differently on the trajectory. In addition, the bullets differ in the shape of the head part. Therefore,they have different distances to the beginning of rifling when they are closed in the chamber. The greater this distance means the higher the probability of incorrect entry into the rifling, therefore, the accuracy will be lower. The final choice of the cartridge should be made based on the results of shooting at 500 meters. My experience in mountain hunting suggests that accuracy of shooting, is more important than the expansiveness of the bullet. It is quite obvious that a mountain hunter's rifle should be equipped with an optical sight. It should be reliable, resistant to the recoil of powerful cartridges. I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the sniper sights of army tactical rifles at the end of the last century had quite a moderate magnification and mass. The most common PU sight used for the Mosin three-line rifle during the Second World War had a magnification factor of only 3.5 and a mass of 270 g. The PSO-1 sight, which is still active today on the Dragunov rifle, has a magnification factor of 4. Over time, a 1 P59 optical sight of variable magnification (from 3 to 10) with a more high-speed lens was developed for the SSVD rifle. All these sights provide the ability to conduct targeted shooting at single targets up to 800 meters. This allows me to recommend relatively light sights with a multiplicity of no more than 12 to mountain hunters. The main problems with shooting in the mountains are related to the terrain features. One of them is the constant air movement, especially strongly manifested in the lower parts of the gorges. The dense and cold air of the peaks rolls down the gorges of the watercourses in the morning. From the mid of the day, the warmed air rises to the top in the form of quite powerful updrafts, their localizations associate with the nature of vegetation and relief. Therefore, there may be zones with different wind conditions on the trajectory of the shot. You should to observe vegetation and the movement of fog (clouds) can give the useful information when shooting at long distances in the mountains. Another regular mountain difficulty is the determination of the shooting distance. Its definition "by eye» inevitably leads to mistakes in the mountains, especially if there is at least a small fog. I advise to use a sighting grid that helps to avoid catastrophic errors. But it is more reliable to solve this problem with the help of a laser rangefinder. Its modern versions will also tell you the angle of the target location. It is necessary to reduce the aiming angle as the angle of the target position changes and it does not matter up or down. It must correspond to the projection of the firing distance on the horizontal plane (the horizon of the weapon) when shooting both up and down. In extreme cases – when shooting vertically up or down, the aiming angle should be zero regardless of the distance. In other words, the axis of the barrel bore should be directed at the target. You can practically not think about it at angles of less than 15 degrees. Then you should multiply the actual distance to the target by the cosine of the angle of the target location and set the aiming angle to the appropriate distance. Let's assume that we shoot 300 meters at a sheep male that is above (or below) us so that the angle of the target location is 35 degrees. In this case, we must set the aiming angle corresponding to the distance of 246 meters. If the angle was 45 degrees at the same distance, the sight should be set as for shooting at 214 meters. If the ram was at an angle of 60 degrees from us, the sight should be set at 150 meters. It is known that the temperature affects the rate of burning of powder. The cartridges must have a constant temperature before firing in order for the shooting to be stable. This is easy to make if you carry several cartridges or a loaded clip in an inner pocket. This rule is useful to follow both when shooting weapons, and when hunting. You should make 3-4 shots at the target after arriving in the hunting area, especially in the mountains, it is in order to make adjustments to the local barometric pressure and temperature in the sight. It’s useful to have a cartridge in the chamber in case of a sudden appearance of a close target when you are hunting on foot. The cartridge in the weapon must be changed to "thermostatic” for a long-range shot. A modern hunter must have a ballistic calculator, in which data about his weapon and cartridge are entered in advance. If, you have time to prepare a shot when a worthy trophy is detected, the calculator will tell you what corrections should be made related to the location of the beast. However, it knows nothing about atmospheric pressure, air temperature and wind strength. You should help it and use the so-called anemorumbometer, or a pocket weather station. It is very important to have stable manufacturers for accurate shooting at long distances. The bipods of tactical rifles should be high enough – this is almost a mandatory rule in the mountains. You can use a strong staff (alpenstock) instead of bipods with a relatively short shot. Or you can use a backpack as a front stop when shooting lying down. There is an unusual position for shooting down in the mountain The shooter lies on the slope on his back, with his feet in the direction of the target located lower down the slope. Then he bends his left leg at the knee so that he can put his left hand on it, which supports the fore end of the rifle. This position is extremely stable, but it needs to be trained to get good results, as, indeed, all other positions. You can master accurate shooting only by shooting.

Today, the guest of our magazine is Andrey Anatolyevich Zaika – one of the most famous trophy hunters in Russia and abroad. He is the member of the Moscow Safari Club, the International Safari Club SCI and the Club of Mountain Hunters. Last year he became the owner of a number of unique trophies: great Eastern Cape kudu, red (Natal) duiker, Cape bushbok, Limpopo bushbok, bontbok, Cape grisbok, as well as copper and white springbok, Vercors chamois, Mexican white-tailed deer of the Central Plateau, white-tailed deer Carminis, white-tailed deer Texanus and many others. Some of these species are very rare animals. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Andrey Anatolyevich! Our first traditional question is how did you become a hunter. How did it start? A.Z.: I went to it since my childhood, read books about hunting, about animals and it was interesting to me. My first hunt took place in Murmansk. I was already about 30 years old at that time. I got a partridge. It was the first time when I went to the forest on my own and got it. My first rifle was “Baikal”. In a half of an hour since I got a partridge I met a moose. I did not shoot although my gun was loaded with bullets – there are a lot of bears in those places. I have always been and remain a law-abiding hunter. But it was very interesting. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: When did you get carried away with trophy hunting? A.Z.: I became interested in trophy hunting in 2005, started to get the first trophies, slowly learned how to hunt. Since 2007, I started doing this actively. And very active from 2010. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What trophies do you have? A.Z.: About 200 species. I am a member of the international safari club SCI in addition to being a member of the Moscow Safari Club. It’s a very good club, they organize everything competently for the benefit of the development of trophy hunting all over the world. I liked what they do. It’s really interesting.   “ The Real Safari Magazine”: You are a member of the CMH. A.Z.: Yes, It’s true. I want to praise the Club of Mountain Hunters. Their points system is much more thoughtful, more democratic and more interesting than even the principles of SCI. It is easy to become a member of the CMH, you only need to hunt. And I recommend this club. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: How have you entered into this club? - How that started? A.Z.: Leonid Palko invited me. I went, looked, it turned out to be a really interesting club. The most important thing is their rating. In Safari or SCI, everything is mixed up, but here people are stimulated to compete. The first mountain trophy was Marco Polo's ram. I got in in Kyrgyzstan. It turned out later that this was Argali Severtsova. Then I took Marco Polo, which turned out to be the Tianshan argali. Unfortunately, such things happen often on mountain hunts. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What is the geography of your mountain hunts? A.Z.: I recommend Azerbaijan to all beginners. Hunts there are physically difficult, but they are a good school. The locals are very hospitable, they meet you like relatives and teach the behavior in the mountains – how to behave, how to breathe, how to relax, how to move depending on the slope, how to use a mountain poles. This is a really good school. And the mountains are beautiful there. They are not high – there is no mountain sickness, but they are rocky, there are a lot of stone screes and everything is interesting. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Do you prepare and train before hunting? A.Z.: It’s late to train just before the hunt. It is necessary to keep in shape all the time If you are engaged in mountain hunting. I go to the gym; I keep an active lifestyle. You have to train specially on the uphill climb. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: How do Western hunts benefit if you compare them with hunting in Russia? What is the difference between the hunting industry and the Russian one? A.Z.: If we compare our industry to the leading hunting countries – the United States, Hungary, Germany, It’s not organized in any way. Trophy hunting in Russia is at level zero. It hasn’t mass character in our country. There ara just several hundred people who are engaged in trophy hunting on the scale of our country. It’s nothing. There are many businesses in the west that connect with hunting – the production of weapons, ammunition, equipment, tourism, the sale of hunting, taxidermy, many works of art on hunting themes are being created. I would say this is a whole industry. All hunting trips are organized very competently abroad, only with the exception of Asia. What is very pleasant is that helps the wild nature.   “ The Real Safari Magazine”: I talked to many hunters on my duty, and I can say that most hunters have a negative attitude to trophy hunting based on our mentality. A.Z.: I think it's not about the mentality. This is rather from that situation – I haven't read Pasternak, but I condemn him. People have a negative attitude to what they do not know and do not understand. One of the reason is that we do not have hunting specialists. This is a huge problem in Russia. It becomes a shame – we have a huge potential for trophy hunting, we can earn a lot of money, can give people the opportunity to earn, but nothing is done, even more than that, everything is done to prevent it. Most of the legislative decisions in the industry are populist, not based on science. So everything is sad so far. Hunting needs to be developed, it’s a lot of money. The country can earn money by organizing hunts, both for Russian hunters and for foreigners. But it’s future. Trophy hunting causes minimal damage to the animal world. There is no need to build special bases for trophy hunting, we do not need any infrastructure – we are ready to walk, ride horses, etc. Ordinary tourist routes have a more negative impact on nature. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What trophy do you remember most of all? A.Z.: Not really. Once upon a time I was in a hunting castle in Europe. There were some quite nondescript trophies hanging on the walls. I asked them why? These trophies were of no value at all. I would never forget their answer that determined my whole attitude – there was no bad hunting, even a small trophy was still a trophy. Therefore, I can't single out which one is better. They all are valuable and I will not single out something. Of the latter, I can say thatI hunted for moose on Omolon in September. The dogs stopped it and started to bark, we didn't see the animal and came closer and it jumped out of the bushes and ran straight at us I shot it 5 steps away from me. I shot from a .375 caliber. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What weapons do you use? A.Z.: I was skeptical about small calibers before, and after this hunt I began to believe that there is a lot of caliber, only if it affects ballistics at a long shot. It is necessary to use as much maximum caliber as possible. I recommend everyone not to forget about our military 7.62 by 39 and the like. They say that it harms meat – colleagues, we live a civilized country, there is meat in the store. It is much more ethical not to leave a wounded animal. I am a supporter of maximum calibers. In the same way, I would prohibit hunting with hollow point bullets. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Many environmental organizations are against hunting and especially against trophy hunting. A.Z.: It's my personal opinion, I do not impose it on anyone that most environmental organizations, especially the large ones, are purely commercial projects. First of all, they are concerned about collecting money, and only then about nature protection. Take, for example, the ban on the trade of baby seals. This is the absurd decision, the most harmful to nature, completely unfounded biologically. The ban was made only on the basis of aesthetic considerations – a baby seal is beautiful, it's a pity. One more reason is that seal’s skins have ceased to be in demand. Nobody thought how many fish they would destroy later. The White Sea is a local, closed reservoir and there is nowhere for fish to come from, its reserves are limited. The fact that then most of the population will die either from hunger or from epizootics, and all these conservationists don’t care. They get their money, and they don't care about the state of nature. I don’t mention the social aspect – the natives already have nothing to live on, and they have been deprived of a serious income. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What weapons do you hunt with? What is your favorite? A.Z.: My favorite is the Sauer 202 with three interchangeable barrels. They cover the entire range, the main ones are 300 WMag. which I use for mountain hunting and .375 H&H Mag. I just bought a Blaser R8 .338 caliber for hunting in the mountains. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Do you use any devices for hunting? A.Z.: Of course. Binoculars, a rangefinder. I don't use the ballistic calculator. But always have a calculated table with me. I don't say that a calculator is bad, I just don't use it. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Where have you been? What is the geography of your trips? A.Z.: I have been everywhere – Russia, Europe, Asia, Africa, America. I prefer to hunt in Russia and in Europe, I have been to Africa a lot. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Will you tell us about the equipment? Do you have any personal recommendations? A.Z.: First of all, you need to make a list of what you need so that you don't forget something. I even have such list in my phone. As for the equipment, I have now simplified my clothes as much as possible – this is a shirt, two thin down jackets, a raincoat from the wind and rain. I don't wear warm clothes and use the cabbage principle: cold-dressed, hot-undressed. The development of clothing for outdoor activities has been simply revolutionary in recent years. The clothes and materials are very comfortable and comfortable. I can say the same about mountain hunting. It's still more relevant there. The sun come out – you sunbathe, when there are clouds or the wind blew – you put everything on yourself. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What do you put in the first-aid kit with you? A.Z.: The first-aid kit must always be with you and is quite extensive. It is the same for both mountains and plains. Anything can happen. Sometimes it’s difficult abroad to explain what you need if there is no highly professional translator. In some developed countries, such as Hungary, for example, they will not sell anything without a prescription at all. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Do you a trophy room? How do you keep your trophies? A.Z.: I have a large trophy room. It’s a very right question. Many hunters do not have trophy rooms and store their trophies anywhere – in basements, garages where they rot and deteriorate. I do not share the opinion of some of my colleagues and I regret that they do not register them and do not exhibit them. I think that if you have a good trophy, you need to show it to people. Everyone will like it and be interested. Unfortunately, I have seen unregistered trophies that would be included in the top ten SCI trophies. For example, I got a moose in the Kashinsky district of the Tver region, which took the 13th place in SCI. I think that I wasn't the only one who took such trophies. But many of Russian hunters keep them at home, and the prizes are taken by foreigners who fix everything. If we talk about mountain hunting, I have a good trophy of the Carpathian chamois. I also have a nice trophy of ibex – 126 cm. But I can't boast of something directly outstanding. The process itself is more important. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: What of hunting agency do you use? A.Z.: The main agent, and I really like to hunt with them, is the company Profi Hunt. In addition, Yulia Zvereva actively helps me a lot. “ The Real Safari Magazine”: Were there any extreme cases? A.Z.: As a rule, all extreme situations are caused by improper preparation of either yourself or the people who prepared the hunt. Once, we were in the Altai, the beginning of September is already a serious time. They said us not take tents because they had their own. We followed their advice, arrived and saw that their tents had more holes in than tents. Those three nights were like a feat. And we couldn't leave – because saw the ibex and had to sit. Once in Canada, I didn't want to sleep in a small cabin and asked for a tent. They looked at me very surprised, but set it down. In the morning we went hunting and when arrived, and the tent was taken away. The locals reacted to this with humor, they say-do you still need to set up a tent? S.G.: Andrey Anatolyevich, thank you for an interesting story and successful hunts.