The other day I decided to distract myself from everything and everyone and indulge in childhood a little - to play a simple computer game "Red Alert" ("Red Alert"). For those who do not know, this is a strategy that does not require, however, special mental abilities, especially military knowledge. You just need to have superiority (if not numerical, then technical) in the direction of the main strike.
Moreover, one of the belligerents in the game is the USSR. Well, what could be nicer than grinding the decaying West with the tracks of Soviet tanks?
Of course, I'm not going to describe the game itself to you here, but one of its details at first made me laugh, and then interested. The fact is that under the terms of the game, the Soviet army has … STORM BEARS. Yes, such ordinary brown bears in helmets and bulletproof vests, who, moreover, are able to swim, unlike ordinary infantry.
Well, it is clear that in the case of the game, this is another mockery of its developers (and you probably guess that you did not create it here) over us, "stupid Ivans", who recruited bears into the army.
However, natural curiosity, for which, I will not hide, I got pissed off more than once, prompted me to take up this issue and find out, and what the hell is not joking, it may turn out that a bear in a war is not such nonsense.
Fortunately, in order to find out something, nowadays it is not at all necessary to sit in the reading room of libraries, it is enough to correctly compose a query in the search engine of the world wide web. Which I did with success.
And I came across an article by a certain V. T. Ponomarev "Fighting animals: Secret weapons of all times and peoples." The job, I tell you, is very interesting.
Of course, most of it is devoted to such traditional animals in war as horses, dogs, in more ancient times - war elephants. But there were also many surprising and even, I would say, incredible.
However, whoever wants to can easily find this material and get acquainted with it. I was interested in bears. Well, as the old song says: "He who seeks will always find!" It came down to the "clubfoot". It was nice to know that it was our ancestors who succeeded in taming them. But the beginning of the chapter on bears was not impressive. The author wrote about "bear fun" (a fight between a man and a bear), about the baiting of teddy bears with packs of dogs, and finally, about purely bear fights and training (very cruel).
It was getting boring, because all of the above (except for the ancient methods of training), one way or another, is known to any student. I wanted to give up, until I got to the lines:
- With trained bears from village to village, from city to city, funny buffoons went. Amusing the people gathering in the square, the bear, at the behest of the counselor, amusingly portrayed various scenes: "how a priest goes to mass", "how a man comes back from a tavern", "how women rinse their clothes" and so on. Russian tsars willingly invited masters of the "bear comedy" to their service.
Few people knew that the masters of the "bear comedy" not only entertained the public, but also were in the tsar's secret service. Many such artists with bears roamed the cities of Western Europe, carrying out important secret missions.
The Novgorod Chronicle writes that in 1572, according to the decree of Ivan the Terrible "in Novgorod and in all cities and volosts, merry people and bears were taken over the sovereign …". There were also all sorts of various incidents. The official who was in charge of this case did not like one of the bears brought to the review. Then the buffoon, in order to prove the dignity of his pupil, let a bear on the intractable clerk. The chronicle says: "Subota Sturgeon clerk Danil Bartenev beat him and tore him with a bear." Danila tried to hide in the zemstvo hut, but the bear burst into it after him.
Here's your time! What is it, the bears did not just "pull the strap", but served in intelligence ?!
I have the courage to assume that the duties they performed there were not only distracting and entertaining. For some reason, I have no doubt that if such a "buffoon" was taken out into the open, the bear, at least, would have helped the owner to leave by taking the blow. Although, to be honest, Ponomarev does not write about this.
And then - more:
- Over time, the experience of guides, buffoons led to the improvement of training methods for "toptygins" … The army also did not disregard the "scientists" bears. There were cases when trained bears, together with archers, stormed enemy fortresses. At the same time, the bears also worked with their front paws, keeping their bodies in an upright position.
During the time of Peter I, the Moscow house of Prince Fyodor Yuryevich Romodanovsky (by the way, one of the few representatives of the ancient boyar families who unconditionally supported the beginnings of the young tsar), the formidable head of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz, who was in charge of secret political investigations, was famous for its trained bears. The arrested, who were brought to Romodanovsky for interrogation, were assigned a polar bear instead of watchmen. While Romodanovsky was interrogating one prisoner, the bear kept watch over the others, not causing them any harm, but not allowing them to make unnecessary movement. When, at the request of Peter I, Romodanovsky sent the leaders of the Astrakhan riot to him for interrogation, a polar bear was also sent with them. Most likely, the tsar wanted to see how such an unusual "bailiff" was serving.
And here I ask readers to pay special attention: the WHITE bear and the WHITE bear! Unlike brown bears, modern trainers prefer not to mess with these polar cousins. For reference: in the Moscow Circus on Vernadsky Street there are spouses Yuri Khokhlov and Yulia Denisenko, who work with polar bears. In 2012, they were one of a kind throughout our vast Russia.
In general, after reading this, I was already seriously interested in the question and decided to look, is it possible to develop any special skills in the bear that would allow it to be used for military purposes and in modern conditions.
Having easily found the Bear World website, I read there:
“In truth, bears are a lot like humans. They can be trained in almost anything, it all depends on the skill and professional skills of the trainer himself. Circus bears can also act as equilibrists, cyclists, riders, motorcyclists, boxers, acrobats, and musicians.
Bears are in control of everything, from ballet to walking on a wire, to fashion shows. A bear named Stepan Mikhailovich deserves special respect, who became the first animal in the world to receive a real driver's license and was able to drive a Niva car. Driving school "Strela" issues the license not only to bears, but also to ordinary citizens. Stepan Mikhailovich became the real pride of the entire USSR, as well as of its leaders Olga and Viktor Kudryavtsev.
To this I will add that people of the older generation probably still remember the two hockey teams of bears. These "ice squads" were trained by the legendary Soviet trainer Valentin Ivanovich Filatov.
Imagine what it would be like to put, in general, a wild animal on skates. But you still need to teach at least a stick to hit the puck.
From my own childhood I remember how once my father and I were in a circus, and there, bears, like real horsemen, crawled under the belly of a horse when it was galloping.
In general, what the “toptygins” managed to teach could not be done even by animals that are close to humans in structure, like monkeys.
Well, well, why would a bear be needed in a war? The first thing that comes to mind offhand is melee. After all, it still happens that, for various reasons, it is impossible to use firearms. I hope no one will argue that the enemy simply has no chance against such "attack aircraft"? Especially if the fight is in a tight space. By the way, with proper training, a bear can be weaned from roaring and roaring loudly.
Second. Having fixed the same video camera on the bear's head or back, it is quite possible to use it in reconnaissance. Here he will have some advantages over, say, a dog. Imagine, this is happening in the forest, and you will agree that the "clubfoot", getting out of the thicket, will look much less suspicious.
Another question, is it safe to hire such "soldiers"? Will the clubfoot "warrior" not turn around in the most decisive moments of the assault around its own axis, going to destroy its own? - In fairness, we note that many trainers consider the bear more insidious and unpredictable than a lion or a tiger.
But let's remember the archers, who took the "toptygin" on the attack, when they needed a really striking power. Were the ancestors really that stupid? Hardly, rather, on the contrary, they did not sit for hours at computers and knew much more about the surrounding nature than we do. Probably, they also knew how to teach animals how to distinguish between friends and foes.
And here's a contemporary story about bearish devotion. So to speak, as circumstantial evidence.
American naturalist Casey Anderson picked up a little grizzly bear (the cub was only two weeks old) and left him to live at home. Anderson named his pet Brutus, and since then they have been inseparable.
Brutus lives in a special sanctuary that Casey built specifically for the beast. Thanks to this, it can live like a wild grizzly bear in a world of nature and comfort. Living next to Brutus, according to the naturalist, is not at all dangerous, because he loves people very much.
Today Brutus weighs 362 kg and has a height of 2.4 m. Nevertheless, his large dimensions do not prevent him from happily spending time in human society. He is never alone and even dines at the table with the Anderson family. Moreover, at the wedding of the naturalist with the Hollywood actress Missy Pyle, the bear was invited as "best man."
For many years, Anderson and his associates have been trying to debunk the stereotypical opinion of people about bears. The opinion has taken root in human minds that the grizzly is a dangerous and bloodthirsty man-eating predator (by the way, he is considered angrier than the Russian brown bear). In fact, according to the scientist, bears always try to avoid meeting humans.
- They are afraid of us. They are afraid because many members of the human race are much more bloodthirsty and merciless than bears, - explains Casey.
In other words, "the bear is not as scary as it is painted." And I want to draw special attention to the fact that this story took place in the homeland of the game developers, making fun of the "Russian bears". The one who laughs last always laughs well (and preferably also without consequences).
In conclusion, I want to say that I wrote the article out of curiosity and in order to prove that nothing is impossible in this world. But, frankly, I am categorically opposed to animals (and even more so, such beautiful and proud as bears) used by people for fun or, even worse, killed and maimed in war. Therefore, unlike all previous articles, I beg you not to take this one as a guide to action.
The brown bear is the beauty and pride of the Russian forest. May God grant him health, let him live!
