5 Russian writers who passionately loved… hunting!

Ivan Turgenev

As can be seen from ‘A Hunter's Sketches’, Turgenev spent a lot of time in the forest with his gun and dog. He was a hunter "by feather", that is, of birds. Even as a boy, he would catch quail, thrushes and corncrakes with snares. As an adult, he explored many Russian provinces and was familiar with the hunting lands of England, France and Germany. According to the story ‘Quail’, his love of hunting was instilled in him by his father, who often shot partridges and quail, however, neglecting hares. Those who hunted with hounds were dubbed ‘borzyatniki’ (‘greyhound hunters’) in the family and were generally disliked. However, for a bird hunter, Turgenev had a great advantage: he was a tireless walker.

Nevertheless, Ivan Sergeyevich kept dogs throughout his life. Poet Afanasy Fet recounted that a pointer named ‘Bubulka’ always slept on a mattress in Turgenev's bedroom, covered with a flannel blanket to protect her from flies and the cold. The dog was exceptionally agile in hunting. Her portrait hangs in the Turgenev House Museum in Spasskoye-Lutovinovo to this day.

Sergei Aksakov

Turgenev wrote of Aksakov: "If a black grouse could tell us about itself, I am sure it would not add a word to what Aksakov has told us about it." The writer didn't exaggerate his colleague's competence. The author of ‘The Scarlet Flower’ (a Russian version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’) was born on his father's Orenburg estate, fished from an early age and picked up a gun at age 12. From then on, he never abandoned hunting or fishing.

Moreover, he meticulously counted all his shots and misses (as well as the fish he caught): "…In 1817, 1,758 shots were fired, 863 game were killed." His books ‘Notes on Fishing’ and ‘Notes of a Rifle Hunter of the Orenburg Province’ are not just memoirs, but veritable encyclopedias of hunting life, written with incredible love for every detail. Both became true bestsellers in their time and are still beloved by hunters and fishermen alike today.

Leo Tolstoy

The future writer also inherited his passion for hunting from his father. Nikolai Tolstoy's estate included a vast kennel that primarily housed greyhounds and hounds.

For several decades (until the writer became a vegetarian), hunting was an important part of life at his Yasnaya Polyana Estate. The scenes in ‘War and Peace’ and ‘Anna Karenina’ could only have been written by someone who knew the process down to the smallest details. The story ‘Hunting Is Worse Than Bondage’ describes the dangerous hunt of a she-bear, whose pelt now rests in Tolstoy's Moscow home in Khamovniki.

Tolstoy also taught his own children to hunt. His son later recalled: "From early childhood, we were passionate about hunting. Sometimes Papa was a good shot, although he often got carried away and then he’d shoot like crazy." 

Nikolai Nekrasov

This poet's passion for hunting was so great that he even got into debt because of it. And it, too, began in his childhood. His sister recalled: "At the age of 10, he killed a duck on Lake Pchelskoye. It was October; the edges of the lake were already frozen over; the dog wouldn't go into the water, so he swam after the duck himself and retrieved it. It cost him a fever, but it didn't deter him from hunting." Suffice it to say that the landowner, the hero of ‘Hunting with Hounds’, is based on Nekrasov's father.

The poet himself also became a first-class hunter and was particularly fond of hunting bears and wolves with hounds. In the reception room of his St. Petersburg apartment, between the windows, stood a huge mother bear with two cubs – a trophy from one of his risky hunting exploits. Another of his passions was collecting hunting equipment. In 1857, Nekrasov wrote to Ivan Turgenev in Paris: "I'm sending you 1,000 francs for a gun… and another 100 francs, please don't be lazy and look for any new and good hunting equipment, both with guns and especially with hounds (hounds and greyhounds), specifically: horns, leashes, whips, daggers for pinning game and the like."

Afanasy Fet

Fet was not only a great Russian poet, but also a passionate, avid hunter. And a great friend of Turgenev and Tolstoy. The origins of his passion also lie in his childhood and youth. Fet grew up in a village near Oryol, on the Novosyolki Estate. It was there, surrounded by the Central Russian countryside, that he became immersed in the rural way of life, which included hunting. However, his passion truly blossomed later, when Fet, already a renowned poet, retired from military service and, in 1860, acquired the Stepanovka Estate in the Oryol Province.

Stepanovka became not only his poetry, but also his hunting nest. He immersed himself in the household chores and life of a landowner and hunting became his main recreation, a source of energy and inspiration. Fet was a hunter in the style of Turgenev: he preferred marsh, field and forest game.

His passion was hunting common snipe, great snipe, black grouse and partridge. He valued not so much the game as the process itself: the oneness with nature, the aesthetics of the dog's work, the joy of a well-aimed shot at a flying bird.

Like Nekrasov, Fet was a great connoisseur and admirer of fine weapons and purebred dogs. His Stepanovka Estate housed guns from renowned English manufacturers and he kept a kennel with gundogs (setters and pointers).

And, like Nekrasov, Fet wrote a poem called ‘Hound Hunting’.