This Fragile World of Aurochs

Vladimir S. PRASSOLOV

It’s six o’clock in the morning. Day is breaking. The sky is growing pale but the sun is still hiding behind the ridge. The Venus twinkles in the south-east. The fog is so dense that you cannot see a birch tree 20 steps away. The silence is only broken by the brook rustling somewhere deep down…

Trampling down the rusty ferns, I roll out of the tent anticipating a happy day: I’ll see aurochs today and, if lucky, will come close to them and make some exciting pictures.

In the Shebalinsky region of the Republic of Gorny Altai, not far from the settlement of Cherga, a pilot farm of the RAS Siberian Branch is situated. Grazing free-range here is the only herd of the aurochs to the east of the Urals. All the animals are Belovezh thoroughbreds — it’s the only such herb in Russia. The Cherga reserve now counts almost 40 animals which have descended from the eleven aurochs brought here 25 years ago.

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