<\/p>\n
In February 2023, 19-year-old Sergey Kyalundzyuga and his 23-year-old cousin Alexander Sigde set off for a fishing trip in the Russian taiga. At the end of the day, they settled into the rudimentary winter cabin where they planned to spend the night. Late in the evening, Sergey heard a noise outside. As soon as he turned to look out the window, an Amur tiger leapt through the door, knocking him to the ground. By the time Alexander grabbed his rifle and shot the animal, it had already torn off his cousin\u2019s arm. In the days that followed, police accused Alexander of provoking the attack by firing at the tiger earlier in the forest, and in May 2025, an appeals court convicted him of killing an endangered species. It wasn\u2019t the first time the state had taken a tiger\u2019s side over a human\u2019s in such a confrontation; on the contrary, Vladimir Putin has adopted tiger preservation as one of his pet causes. Meduza shares an abridged translation of a joint report<\/a> from the outlets Novaya Vkladka and Govorit NeMoskva on the tension between tiger conservation and human life in Russia\u2019s Far East.<\/p>\n \u2018They slipped me a piece of paper\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n For a long time after he was discharged from the hospital, Sergey Kyalundzyuga would tuck his empty left sleeve into his pocket to create the illusion of a full arm. He kept his face hidden under a hood so no one would recognize him. These days, he pays no mind to the sideways glances from passersby, and he even makes jokes about his missing limb.<\/p>\n Sergey is a short guy in black sneakers and a gray T-shirt with the left sleeve hanging loose. A friend laced up the shoes for Sergey about a year ago, and he hasn\u2019t untied them since; it\u2019s not easy to do with one hand. Explaining why his hand is rough to the touch, he says he\u2019s been lifting weights to build strength in his remaining arm.<\/p>\n Sergey lives in Luchegorsk, a coastal village in Russia\u2019s far-eastern Primorsky Krai. He moved here in September 2024 to \u201cget away from everyone\u201d \u2014\u00a0including the tigers.<\/p>\n Two years ago, in early 2023, Sergey, his cousin Alexander, and three other relatives rode snowmobiles from Arsenyevo, his home village in Russia\u2019s Far Eastern Khabarovsk Krai, to Anyuysky National Park, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) away. After a day of fishing, Sergey and Alexander packed their fish into bags, which their other relatives took home by snowmobile.<\/p>\n Sergey says he wasn\u2019t there just for the fishing. He wanted to distract himself from the death of his father, who had been killed the previous year in a tree-cutting accident. \u201cI thought I\u2019d find some peace in the taiga, make some money from the fish, and pull myself together,\u201d Sergey explains. He was studying welding at a local college and had started working part-time already. After his father\u2019s death, it fell to him to support his two younger sisters, younger brother, and disabled mother.<\/p>\n Sergey jokes that he once ran away from a reporter because \u201cmy lawyer banned me from talking to the press.\u201d Discussing the tiger attack is still hard for him. He says he had a bad feeling that day and hadn\u2019t wanted to go to the forest. \u201cBut on the other hand,\u201d he says, \u201cif it hadn\u2019t been me, someone else might have died.\u201d<\/p>\n Around 11:00 p.m. on February 12, Sergey heard a noise on the roof but assumed it was the cat they\u2019d brought from home to catch rats in the hut. On the attic floor lay their last sack of fish, which hadn\u2019t fit on their relatives\u2019 snowmobile. \u201cDid you hear that?\u201d he asked his cousin, who was lying on the bed. Sergey pulled back the curtain \u2014\u00a0\u201cand there it was, this huge head.\u201d A tiger had jumped right through the window, shattering the glass.<\/p>\n \u2018They found a foot and a bottle of vodka\u2019 Life in Russia\u2019s southern Kamchatka, where there\u2019s one increasingly hungry bear for every two people<\/a>\u2018They found a foot and a bottle of vodka\u2019 Life in Russia\u2019s southern Kamchatka, where there\u2019s one increasingly hungry bear for every two people<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI was lucky I managed to put my arm up. It bit into my shoulder \u2014\u00a0it was going for my neck \u2014\u00a0and clawed me across the back,\u201d Sergey says, pulling down his T-shirt collar to show the dent between his shoulder blades. \u201cAlexander ran out, grabbed the rifle hanging by the door, and shot the tiger point blank in the head.\u201d<\/p>\n Sergey\u2019s cousin tied a tourniquet around Sergey\u2019s upper arm, laid him on the bed, and turned on the TV to help distract him. There was no cell signal in the woods, so Alexander set off to find their uncle, Mikhail, who was staying in another hut 10 kilometers (six miles) away. Mikhail helped carry Sergey to his warmer cabin, then headed for the main road to find cell service. The snowmobile had broken down in the forest, so Mikhail had to ski nearly 45 kilometers (28 miles) through untouched snow to get help.<\/p>\n Sergey wasn\u2019t airlifted to the hospital in Khabarovsk until February 14. By then, he had multiple broken ribs and a collapsed lung. He\u2019d lost two liters of blood, and the wound where his arm had been torn off was badly infected.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I opened my eyes, I was already on a stretcher in the hospital. Photographers and journalists were flashing lights right in my face \u2014\u00a0it was awful. I blacked out again, and came to when my mom walked in. I could barely sit up, and that\u2019s when I realized my arm was gone. I cried for a week straight,\u201d Sergey recalls.<\/p>\n Later, he learned that before the attack, the tiger had ransacked several other cabins nearby, including one where it broke down a door, and another where it tore apart a foam mattress.<\/p>\n In March, a man and a woman in police uniforms came to visit Sergey in the hospital.<\/p>\n \u201cThey took advantage of a moment when my mom had stepped out to buy groceries,\u201d Sergey says.<\/p>\n They walked right into my room and started asking me what happened. I told them, but they didn\u2019t believe me. I thought they were writing down what I said, but then they slipped me a paper with the investigators\u2019 version of events. Stupid me didn\u2019t realize what it was, and I signed it.<\/p>\n The investigators claimed that Kyalundzyuga and Sigde had been poaching, and that Alexander had shot the tiger in the forest before the attack. Several days later, the wounded and enraged animal attacked Sergey, they alleged. The case files say that Alexander killed the attacking predator, but they don\u2019t clarify where the attack took place or how the tiger ended up in the cabin. Nor do they clarify whether the cousins, one of whom was by then missing an arm and bleeding heavily, dragged the dead animal there themselves. Nevertheless, the accusation of illegal hunting became the foundation of the case against Alexander and Sergey.<\/p>\n \u2018<\/strong>Tigger has to eat something\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n In Luchegorsk, where Sergey Kyalundzyuga now lives, images of tigers are everywhere: a bright green topiary shaped like a predator on the central square, a handmade bench with a stylized tiger on it, a display board reminding residents how important it is to protect the rare animal. The Amur tiger is a source of pride in the Russian Far East, but in recent years, it\u2019s also become a major danger to the region\u2019s residents. The endangered big cats have been killing<\/a> dogs, cows, and horses in villages. Occasionally, they also attack people.<\/p>\n Tigers are rare in Luchegorsk itself. The last time locals spotted one was this winter \u2014\u00a0about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from town, near an active coal mine where workers feed stray dogs. One of the dogs crawled under an excavator with its tail between its legs when a tiger and her cubs passed nearby.<\/p>\n Nearly everyone this story\u2019s authors talk to in the town has a story about what happens when people cross paths with these predators. And all the stories seem to have the same conclusion: that the state hasn\u2019t just failed to solve the problem, it\u2019s openly taken the tigers\u2019 side \u2014\u00a0even when the encounters turn deadly.<\/p>\n Sign up for\u00a0The\u00a0Beet<\/p>\n Underreported\u00a0stories. Fresh\u00a0perspectives. From\u00a0Budapest to\u00a0Bishkek.<\/p>\n \u201cIf someone defends themselves and kills an animal, not only do they get hit with a million-ruble fine, they also get taken to court. I know two guys whose cabin was attacked by a tiger \u2014 one of them died, and the other shot the tiger. He got fined one and a half million rubles ($19,000) and sentenced to a year and a half in prison,\u201d says a local man named Alexey. \u201cPoachers shoot at the tigers, sometimes just wounding them, and that\u2019s why they attack. Plus, they\u2019re starving \u2014 hunters have killed all the game, so there\u2019s nothing left to eat in the forest.\u201d<\/p>\n Tamara is a pensioner from the nearby village of Verkhniy Pereval. Like many in the Russian Far East, she refers to the striped predator as \u201cTigger.\u201d This year, she says, the big cats have snatched several dogs off their chains in her village.<\/p>\n \u201cOne Tigger settled near [the town of] Bikin, and another Tigger came from [the village of] Alchan. They split our village between them. And you\u2019re not allowed to kill them! They just drag off the dogs every winter like it\u2019s nothing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Tamara says the tiger problem in Verkhniy Pereval got much worse three or four years ago, after African swine fever (ASF) swept through Primorsky Krai and wiped out much of the wild boar population. \u201cPeople would go mushroom picking and come back saying the forest was littered with boar carcasses,\u201d she recalls. \u201cAnd Tigger has to eat something.\u201d<\/p>\n Tamara also remembers a man who hit a tiger with his car and called the police. \u201cThey fined him,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat was he supposed to do \u2014\u00a0drive into a ditch just to avoid hitting the tiger?\u201d<\/p>\n At a local cafeteria, a ruddy-faced coal miner named Andrey launches into a story about a tiger as he\u2019s sneaks what appears to be cognac into a glass of fruit compote. The moment the topic of tigers comes up, he launches into a story about how a friend of his had to stand guard at night with a rifle to protect his horse at a nearby dacha settlement \u2014\u00a0because \u201cTigger was prowling around.\u201d Another friend actually had to shoot one, he says:<\/p>\n He told me, \u201cIt\u2019s one thing that it ate all the dogs. But when it lunged at my wife, I shot it.\u201d They hit him with a multi-million-ruble fine and sent him to prison. I think he did the right thing. But [Primorsky Krai Governor Oleg] Kozhemyako says, \u201cYou can\u2019t touch the tigers!\u201d And God forbid you kill one \u2014 they\u2019ll throw you in jail.<\/p>\n In Andrey\u2019s view, the tigers have started venturing into villages because of deforestation.<\/p>\n \u201cPersonally, I blame Moscow,\u201d he says. \u201cThe people at the very top.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018<\/strong>It roared and my legs gave out\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n In the village of Arsenyevo in the Khabarovsk region, where Sergey and Alexander used to live, locals have had their own close calls with tigers. The most recent run-in happened in December 2024, when a big cat attacked two dogs belonging to a local Udege woman named Nadezhda Kyalundiga. Her house sits on the edge of the village, near the forest, and she works at the local grocery store. Standing behind the counter, she recounts the story with something close to a laugh.\u00a0Still, she says that for a while afterward, even the sound of passing cars would make her flinch.<\/p>\n \u201cMy husband was working the night shift, and around three in the morning, I hear footsteps. One of the dogs, Amur, suddenly barks, then goes quiet. Then the second one, Jackie, the little guy, starts howling \u2014\u00a0\u2018Woo-oo-oo!\u2019 And then nothing. Silence,\u201d Nadezhda says.<\/p>\n It was pitch black outside, and she was too scared to go out alone, so she went back to bed. In the morning, she found Amur\u2019s torn-up body in the yard. Jackie was nowhere to be seen. She headed to the shed to check on the cow and calf.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d almost made it to the shed when I heard this deep growl. I thought, am I imagining this? Then \u2014 it roared. My legs just gave out. I wanted to run, but I couldn\u2019t. I don\u2019t even remember how I crawled back to the house,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n Nadezhda called the Arsenyevo village administration. When wildlife inspectors arrived, the tiger was still in the hayloft, finishing off Jackie the dog. As soon as it noticed movement, the tiger leapt down and lunged at one of the inspectors. He managed to fire a flare, but it didn\u2019t scare the animal off. The second inspector hesitated to shoot, afraid he\u2019d hit his partner.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guy was screaming, just screaming. I had to cover my ears, I was so scared! He ended up firing six shots. He said if he\u2019d tried to use a tranquilizer, the tiger would\u2019ve mauled his partner before the drug kicked in. The thing\u2019s face was massive, but the body was skinny, mangy, just terrifying,\u201d Nadezhda says. She then recalls treating the injured inspector\u2019s wounds with hydrogen peroxide: his lips had turned blue, and his \u201cface was as white as chalk.\u201d<\/p>\n After the tiger attack, Nadezhda\u2019s husband walked her to work every day for a month.<\/p>\n According to locals, tigers have always lived near Arsenyevo, but before the winter of 2022\u20132023, they didn\u2019t go after dogs. Like people in Luchegorsk, residents here blame African swine fever, which wiped out<\/a> much of the wild boar population and left tigers with nothing to eat.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re weak, totally exhausted,\u201d says Nadezhda\u2019s husband Igor. \u201cThe one they killed,\u00a0its tail was chewed off. Other tigers must have attacked it and driven it off their territory.\u201d<\/p>\n He believes the tigers coming near settlements are connected to the logging of the taiga, which is being sold to China. \u201cWhat are they cutting down? Oak. And oak is what wild boars feed on. If the food base keeps shrinking every year, then why the hell are you breeding tigers? I\u2019ve told this to two, maybe three reporters already,\u201d Igor fumes.<\/p>\n Tiger territory<\/strong><\/p>\n Residents of small villages in the taiga of Primorsky Krai and Khabarovsk Krai have effectively become hostages to the tigers: killing the animals is prohibited, but what to do when a predator threatens a person is unclear. As the people of Arsenyevo have learned, even talking publicly about tiger attacks is frowned upon.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t even know how we\u2019re supposed to behave. These groups like the Amur Tiger Center,\u00a0they started pressuring us. They told us not to post anything online,\u201d says Nadezhda. \u201cWhen the police showed up, they asked about our social media photos, [saying,] \u2018Why did you share this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n At the Arsenyevo municipal council office, village head Igor Lonchakov is clearly not thrilled to see journalists.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you even doing this? We dealt with this two years ago \u2014\u00a0five reporters visited back then. What, are we seeing a sudden surge in tiger attacks?\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019m a biologist, and I know this: not a single woman or child has ever been attacked by a tiger. That case with the Kyalundzyuga and Sigde brothers? That happened out in the taiga. They were hunters, and that was tiger territory. But an attack on a person in a village? Name one. You won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n The Kremlin crushed Meduza\u2019s business model and wiped out our ad revenue. We\u2019ve been blocked and outlawed in Russia, where\u00a0donating to us or even sharing our posts is a crime. But we\u2019re still here \u2014 bringing independent journalism to millions of our readers inside Russia and around the world.<\/p>\n Meduza\u2019s survival is under threat \u2014\u00a0again. Donald Trump\u2019s foreign aid freeze has slashed funding for international groups backing press freedom. Meduza was hurt too. It\u2019s yet another blow in our ongoing struggle to survive.<\/p>\n You could be our lifeline. Please,\u00a0help Meduza survive<\/a>\u00a0with a small recurring donation.<\/p>\n So far, there have indeed been no recorded tiger attacks on people in Arsenyevo itself. But in the winter of 2023,\u00a0before a tiger bit off Sergey Kyalundzyuga\u2019s arm,\u00a0several predators were spotted prowling the village\u2019s outskirts. \u201cMy husband was heading to the bus stop \u2014\u00a0and a tiger ran right past him!\u201d says Nadezhda, the grocery store clerk.<\/p>\n That same year, a dog was mauled under the porch of a house in Arsenyevo. Another tiger was captured<\/a> at a beekeeping site near the village. A third \u2014\u00a0a young, starving female \u2014\u00a0found a pan with food scraps left by workers and got her tongue stuck to the frozen metal. By the time she tore herself free, the snow around her was spotted with blood. Later, when a snowmobile passed by and a seat cushion fell off, the emaciated animal tore that the shreds too. Game wardens tranquilized the tiger to move her deeper into the forest, but she was so weak that she never woke up, according to Dmitry Kyalundzyuga, Sergey\u2019s uncle and the local representative of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) in Arsenyevo.<\/p>\n Over the past year, tiger attacks in the Russian Far East have mostly occurred not in villages themselves, but just outside of them. In fall 2024, a tiger dragged<\/a> a logging worker into the taiga and mauled him near the Khabarovsk village of Solontsovy. In December, another tiger broke<\/a> a man\u2019s ribs while he was vacationing at a glamping site in Anyuysky National Park \u2014\u00a0his wife and children narrowly escaped. In spring 2025, a forester was killed<\/a> by a tiger in Primorsky Krai.<\/p>\n At a recent scientific conference in Moscow, Amur Tiger Center Director Sergey Aramilev emphasized<\/a> that fatal encounters with Amur tigers are extremely rare: from 2010 to 2024, there were only 20 recorded attacks, seven of which ended in death. In all cases, he said, humans were to blame:<\/p>\n Gunshot wounds or other injuries inflicted by people provoke aggression in tigers. Also, pursuing the animal \u2014\u00a0when it\u2019s defending itself, its cubs, or its kill \u2014\u00a0can lead to an attack. The two recent cases in 2025 fit the same pattern: both tigers had multiple gunshot wounds. So this idea that tigers show unprovoked aggression towards humans is a myth, found only in inaccurate online stories.<\/p>\n \u2018They wouldn\u2019t have let us go otherwise\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The Udege community in Arsenyevo doesn\u2019t believe the authorities\u2019 claim\u00a0that Sergey Sergey Kyalundzyuga and Alexander Sigde provoked the tiger attack by hunting it. Lyubov Odzhal, the head of RAIPON in Khabarovsk Krai, insists that the Udege don\u2019t engage in poaching at all: their traditions and beliefs don\u2019t allow it. Then there\u2019s the fact that Sigde and his cousin were both young and inexperienced hunters who had been taken into the taiga by older relatives.<\/p>\n Odzhal says Sigde\u2019s relatives told her that from March 11 to 13, 2023, nearly everyone who\u2019d gone into the forest with him was taken in for police questioning and released only late at night for a few hours,\u00a0then brought back in early the next morning. According to Sigde\u2019s defense attorney, Alexander Zasukhin, there was indeed a long interrogation from 9:00 a.m. until 2:00 a.m., but it only happened once. Odzhal believes this is why Sigde\u2019s uncle, Mikhail, told his nephew to go along with the investigators\u2019 account and take the blame: \u201cOtherwise they wouldn\u2019t have let us go.\u201d<\/p>\n Sigde declined to comment for this story, and his uncle Mikhail didn\u2019t respond to requests.<\/p>\n Sigde now faces two criminal charges: illegal hunting of a protected species and illegal possession of a firearm. According to Sergey Kyalundzyuga, the gun his cousin used to shoot the tiger had been left in the winter cabin by Uncle Mikhail, in case of a bear attack.<\/p>\n \u2018We\u2019ve been living in fear, dreading nightfall\u2019 In Russia\u2019s Far East, villagers are asking Putin and soldiers fighting in Ukraine to save them from tigers<\/a>\u2018We\u2019ve been living in fear, dreading nightfall\u2019 In Russia\u2019s Far East, villagers are asking Putin and soldiers fighting in Ukraine to save them from tigers<\/a><\/p>\n Both Odzhal and Zasukhin point to inconsistencies in the prosecution\u2019s version of events \u2014\u00a0particularly the confusion over how many bullets were found in the tiger, and the fact that no blood traces were found at the site in the forest where Alexander and Sergey had been. Zasukhin also argues that a licensed veterinarian should have conducted the forensics on the tiger, which were instead done by Sergey Aramilev, the director of the Amur Tiger Center, who\u2019s a biologist by training. In court, Zasukhin called Aramilev a \u201cparty with a conflict of interest,\u201d arguing that the tiger was starving, and the lack of food in the forest is the center\u2019s responsibility. When Zasukhin attempted to bring in an independent expert from Irkutsk, the court rejected the motion.<\/p>\n According to Aramilev\u2019s report, Alexander Sigde had fired at the tiger several days before the attack on his brother. On the day of the attack, he reportedly shot the animal from about 10 meters away, hitting its neck, then shot it in the head at least twice during the ensuing struggle. After a polygraph test, Sigde told<\/a> police he had fired at the tiger earlier because he was frightened and wanted to scare it off. But people in the village believe this testimony was coerced.<\/p>\n Regardless of whether Sigde fired at the tiger before the attack or not, Zasukhin stresses that the poaching allegations were never proven. \u201cThey\u2019re saying [Sigde] was hunting. But to prove that somebody was poaching, you need evidence that they intentionally searched for, tracked, and pursued the animal with the goal of capturing it for personal use. There was none of that,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n In January 2025, a court in Khabarovsk Krai sentenced Alexander Sigde to two years and two months of community service, with 10 percent of his wages withheld for the state, and a fine of 2.6 million rubles ($33,000). He was also banned from leaving the Nanai district for a year. On May 20, the Khabarovsk regional court reviewed<\/a> his appeal and slightly reduced the sentence, cutting the term of community service to one year. The ruling has not yet taken effect, as Sigde\u2019s lawyer plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n Not Russians\u2019 \u2018little brother\u2019 anymore\u00a0 Russia\u2019s decolonial movement banks on interethnic solidarity in its fight against the Kremlin<\/a>Not Russians\u2019 \u2018little brother\u2019 anymore\u00a0 Russia\u2019s decolonial movement banks on interethnic solidarity in its fight against the Kremlin<\/a>\u2018It\u2019s like a tiger\u2019s life matters more than a human\u2019s\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Lyubov Odzyal believes the prosecution\u2019s bias in the case against Alexander Sigde is the result of the Amur Tiger Center\u2019s lobbying. The Russian Geographical Society founded<\/a> the center in 2013 at Vladimir Putin\u2019 initiative, with the mission of protecting and growing the population of the endangered predator.<\/p>\n Dmitry Kyalundzyuga from Arsenyevo shares this view, arguing that the case is politically motivated:<\/p>\n Look at who sits on the board<\/a> of the Russian Geographical Society. A regular Udege guy like Alexander could never win in court, because the state doesn\u2019t lose court cases. Especially not now, when even a hint of dissent isn\u2019t tolerated. It used to be different \u2014 there was international recourse, people could take things to court outside the country.<\/p>\n When asked to comment on the RAIPON representatives\u2019 criticism and the inconsistencies in the forensic report he authored, the Amur Tiger Center\u2019s director, Sergey Aramilev, responded: \u201cThe court has determined who is responsible. If anyone disagrees with the actions of law enforcement or others, there are legal avenues to pursue.\u201d<\/p>\n Dmitry Kyalundzyuga suspects that reports sent to Vladimir Putin about Amur tigers present a distorted view that always blames humans for attacks, though he acknowledges that \u201cmaybe the president genuinely has good intentions when it comes to protecting the tiger.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCan they really not figure out why the tigers are coming out [of the forest]?\u201d he asks. \u201cEveryone wants to save the tiger, but Indigenous people shouldn\u2019t be turned into scapegoats.\u201d<\/p>\n Zoologist Viktor Lukarevsky agrees. He\u2019s been studying big cats since 1984 and now serves as a scientific secretary at the Perm Zoo. He believes the tiger population in the Russian Far East is severely weakened by food shortages \u2014\u00a0and that within a few years, up to 90 percent of the endangered cats in the region could disappear.<\/p>\n The 2021\u20132022 outbreak of African swine fever, he says, only worsened an already dire situation. The real damage comes from deforestation in the Ussuri Taiga and increasing hunting quotas for wild boar and red deer, both of which are key food sources for tigers. Reintroducing boars to the forest hasn\u2019t worked, Lukarevsky says, because most of them lack immunity to swine fever. Without a vaccine, another outbreak is likely. In some parts of Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krai, red deer are now the only food tigers have left.<\/p>\n \u2018Nature doesn\u2019t wait\u2019 In the Caucasus Mountains, rare Persian leopards know no borders<\/a>\u2018Nature doesn\u2019t wait\u2019 In the Caucasus Mountains, rare Persian leopards know no borders<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cHow are we \u2018protecting\u2019 tigers when we\u2019re destroying their habitat?\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019d like to see how you\u2019d survive if your home was destroyed, if you couldn\u2019t work, couldn\u2019t earn a living, couldn\u2019t find food. How would you reproduce, how would you feel? And yet, everywhere we\u2019re told that the tiger is doing just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, Russian media regularly reports<\/a> that Amur tigers are \u201cunder solid protection,\u201d that their population is growing<\/a>, including in Khabarovsk Krai, and that Vladimir Putin has personally thanked the Amur Tiger Center for its efforts.<\/p>\n But according to Lukarevsky, tigers are naturally cautious animals. If there were enough prey in the forest, they wouldn\u2019t come near human settlements. Hunger, he says, changes their behavior. And the center\u2019s refusal to acknowledge the problem only fuels public anger \u2014\u00a0anger that often turns not against the officials, but against the animals themselves. \u201cIt\u2019s like a tiger\u2019s life matters more to the state than a human\u2019s,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u2018A person wakes up, steps outside to use the toilet, and he\u2019s gone\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Sergey Kyalundzyaga still flinches at the slightest rustle when walking through the forest at dusk. \u201cAt first, I kept dreaming about the tiger. I couldn\u2019t sleep at night \u2014\u00a0I had to take sedatives,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Like many locals, Sergey still has no clue how to defend himself from tigers without breaking the law. \u201cA person wakes up, steps outside to use the toilet, and that\u2019s it, he\u2019s gone,\u201d he laments.<\/p>\n When phantom pain kicks in, he stands in front of the mirror to remind his brain that his arm is gone. He\u2019s already learned to cook and dress himself with one hand, but some everyday tasks remain a struggle. \u201cThe hardest part is tying a hat on my kid. The saddest part is, I can\u2019t fish anymore,\u201d Sergey explains.<\/p>\n \u2018A Bashkir-style mosh pit\u2019 Outdoor dance parties with no fees, no alcohol, and no politics are trending in Russia\u2019s Bashkortostan<\/a>\u2018A Bashkir-style mosh pit\u2019 Outdoor dance parties with no fees, no alcohol, and no politics are trending in Russia\u2019s Bashkortostan<\/a><\/p>\n Sergey lives with his girlfriend and their two children,\u00a0two-year-old Katya and seven-month-old Zakhar, who was named after a friend killed in the war in Ukraine.\u00a0The family makes do with his disability pension of 20,000 rubles (about $220) and child benefits. He hasn\u2019t been able to find a job. \u201cAs soon as they see I\u2019ve only got one arm, they\u2019re like, \u2018Nope, we don\u2019t hire people like that. No disabled workers,\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Alexander Sigde left Arsenyevo for a while but later returned. In May, he and his wife had their second child. Whether he\u2019s currently employed is unclear; his relatives mention only the occasional odd job. Alexander\u2019s mother, Irina Sigde, says her son can\u2019t sleep properly. \u201cHe can\u2019t fall asleep next to the forest. He tosses and turns all night. His psychiatrist prescribed him pills, but he says they don\u2019t help,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n Lyubov Odzhal says bitterly that for many Indigenous people, this story hits close to home, since it suggests that in the eyes of the state, they have fewer rights than animals:<\/p>\n Everyone understands that today it was those two boys, and tomorrow it could be me or anyone else. Someone heads out to the winter hut, and a tiger attacks and kills them. And then the media will report that the person shot at the tiger first, so they don\u2019t count as a victim.<\/p>\n According to the 2021 census, there were just 1,325 Udege people left in the Russian Far East, and their numbers have been steadily declining<\/a> over the past 30 years. At the same time, the Amur tiger population stood at just over 750 and had been growing<\/a> consistently for three decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In February 2023, 19-year-old Sergey Kyalundzyuga and his 23-year-old cousin Alexander Sigde set off for a fishing trip…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[728,70,16,15,7888,7883,7886,7875,7868,7880,7870,7881,7887,7876,7864,7871,7865,7873,7874,7866,7869,7867,7885,7879,7872,7884,7882,7878,7877],"class_list":{"0":"post-233329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-7888","13":"tag-7883","14":"tag-7886","15":"tag-7875","16":"tag-7868","17":"tag-7880","18":"tag-7870","19":"tag-7881","20":"tag-7887","21":"tag-7876","22":"tag-7864","23":"tag-7871","24":"tag-7865","25":"tag-7873","26":"tag-7874","27":"tag-7866","28":"tag-7869","29":"tag-7867","30":"tag-7885","31":"tag-7879","32":"tag-7872","33":"tag-7884","34":"tag-7882","35":"tag-7878","36":"tag-7877"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114786458924950004","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}