At
the time of the bondages up to 1861 was hardly found a manor
house in Russia without a breeding of borzois for hunting or
Greyhounds as well as hounds for hunting on horseback because
this time created a lot of cheap assistants, helpers and
workers. The book "die Perchinojagd" of Dimitri
Walzoff published in 1912 (Publisher Ursula Brendel, Hamburg)
tells the story of the world – famous Borzoi breed of the
Russian Grand Sovereign Nikolai Nikolaijewitsch in the village
Perchino at the bank of river Upa, approx. 20
miles distance to Tula.
The
dimension of his kennel is hardly conceivable for today's
conditions. 365 dogs (100 hounds for hunting on horseback, 130
borzois and 15 Greyhounds trained for hunting as well as old
dogs and whelps) and 87 horses (20 for beaters, 50 for the
borzoi pack and 17 horses for carriage) were part of his
kennel. The number of staff was 78 persons (administrators,
coachmen, beaters, hunters with borzois, attendants for whelps
and veterinarians for the dogs etc.), but there were also
bigger kennels for instance that of the landlord Samsonoffs at
Smolensk with approx. 1.000 dogs. On the other side there were
some rich hunters, which owned only a few packs of borzois.
They participated in the hunting meetings of her landlords.
For
practical reasons dogs and orderly lived in the same building
during the time of the Perchino hunting. The rooms for dogs
had walls inside covered with wood. At that walls stood sleep
benches covered with very much straw so that the greyhounds
could deeply dig themselves in. To clean the running out this
area was ploughed and sewed with oats. The oat was cut
regularly. The whelps were gathered in age – groups because
whelps of different ages had mobbing problems between young
and older dogs. Also the number of the adult dogs was also
limited on max.12 per cage compartment. The approval for
breeding was given only for 2 year old rude which were already
proved in the hunting field. An interesting explanation was
done in behalf of hounds for hunting on horseback. Walzloff
said “they were much stronger and primarily more robust than
the greyhounds: The whelps live there in an overgrown garden
like in the woods. They live in simple tents with roof out of
straw and they have permanent open doors (also in winter)
".
The
wolves hunting started in the beginning of September. So an
intensive dog training started in August (daily approx. 17 km
trotting with the horse). The borzoi pack consisted of two
young dogs (in general a male and a bitch) and an experienced
wolves hunter (rude)
Up
to 24 great hunting were organized during the one-month
presence of the Grand Sovereign
Nikolai
Nikolaijewitsch at the manor. In addition it was a social event. The
Grand Sovereign planned the whole management of this hunting
with embarrassing precision - mostly directly. It is
astonishing and from today's view strange to understand how
much hate was involved in this hunting of wolves. Older
literature (e.g. the German hunter newspaper, 1912) talks - so
far probably exaggerated – “about a big plague of wolves
and an extremely dangerous game". So the hunting of
wolves was done with a corresponding dedication. The Russian
hunting technique run in the following way: An area was
partitioned in hunting departments and for each part the
hunters with dogs were placed surround in a wide circle.
Because it wasn't to cope completely, additional nets were
pulled and many horsemen as gamekeeper were placed. A gigantic
chain was formed. The hunting horn started the hunting. The
so-called trace rider rode with her hounds for hunting on
horseback (up to 60) down into the woods to drive the game
towards the open field. At the hunting on fox and rabbit no
"mixed work" was carried out i.e. only the packs of
one and the same owner were allowed to hound the game while
the others had to wait until the row was up to them. Not in
case of the hunting of wolves. All hunters had to release all
her dogs at the same time. For wolves it was fundamentally
more heavily than for other game. All wolves captured livingly
were gagged and shortly replaced into the field, so that the
young dogs (these weren't trained for the hunting yet) could
"get used" to the wolves.
Hunting
in autumn wasn’t of interest, because the young wolves were
still too little, clumsy and no strong fighter. The winter
hunting was regarded as the more thrilling. In autumn the
wolves were fed with baits and lured about into the later
shooting area. If the hunters found the footprints of wolves
in winter, the area was immediately encircled. The dogs became
driven on several freight sledges close to wolves. Since the
wolves weren't afraid of the sledges unlike the riders, it was
possibly rather thick to approach the packs of wolves. Not
seldom they catched or killed up to 10 wolves in only 1 ½
hours. Walzoff enthusiastically writes in his book: " ...
what a splendid guy. A gigantic wolf lay in the sledge, which
pressed the ears tightly to the head and looked with his green
shimmering eyes to the hands stroking his broad forehead. The
gag tightly fastened between his teeth and his paws tied up
don't allow him to express his hate in an other way".
After
completion of the Grand Sovereign hunting the whole party
looked like a picturesque painting of people, horses and dogs.
Then within a tenth a lunch and the best of wines were served
on a dinner table covered with a white tablecloth. Later on
the hunting horn signalised for returning home.
Now
dear readers - if you should feel more than the perhaps only
easy discomfort in reading this article, please don't forget:
also in our country the hate was stirred up on wolves at all
times. Also we wiped out all wolves in Central Europe. And
today, it is still the same: when a lonely wolf is going
astray from the Carpathians into the German woods –we will
have a mass hysteria in all mediums and our hunters will not
get tired before they have cut down the pitiable creature.
