How Leo Tolstoy was almost mauled by a female bear
When the writer was 30 years old, he almost died during a hunt at the hands of an enraged female bear. The future classic writer was an avid hunter for a considerable part of his then young life. His father had instilled in him a love for this activity. He was an accurate shot, knew a lot about hunting dogs and often hunted in the company of his brothers, as well as with two other famous writers – Ivan Turgenev and Afanasy Fet. During the hunts, he often received injuries and treated them carelessly. However, one bear hunt almost cost Tolstoy his life.
On December 22, 1858, not far from the town of Vyshny Volochok, the writer went off to hunt a bear. Upon encountering one, the peasant who was leading the hunt and driving the animal advised Tolstoy to trample the snow around him. Tolstoy resisted, saying that he intended to shoot, not fight. When the bear came out to Tolstoy, the shot not only did not stop the animal, but made it even more angry. The bear then charged at the hunter.
Because of the deep snow, the writer fell and the only thing he could do was to fight off the fangs with his large fur hat. The peasant, however, saved Tolstoy – he managed to drive the enraged animal away. But, the bear did manage to tear off a flap of skin on Tolstoy's forehead. Despite the accident and the injury received, the hunters returned to the forest the next day and killed the very same bear.
Tolstoy took the bear's skin as a trophy. It now lies in the main hall of the Tolstoy house in Khamovniki (Moscow) under the Becker piano, on which Rimsky-Korsakov, Taneyev and Rachmaninov all once played. The hunting incident, meanwhile, is described in the story ‘Hunting is Worse than Bondage’.
