Every autumn the fanciers of Borzoi go hunting at their friends’ region. Those places are charming: endless fields are all around like a sea – it’s Russia!

The place is right next to the Bolshoe Boldino village where the great Russian poet A. Pushkin used to live and write. At those times there was an estate of Yermolovs whose name was well-known all around Russia. One of them N. P. Yermolov was a good hunter of the second half of the nineteenth century. He contributed a lot to making the Borzoi being the author of the first standard for the breed. Which is still called “Yermolovsky”.

In the village where we usually stay there is a horse-breeding farm with many horses bred there. So, those who can ride a horse hunt on horses. Hunters from the whole region come to the field testing that the Borzoi section of the Nizhny Novgorod hunting breeding club organises every year. The local hunters also have Borzois. They are mostly young, Though experienced in working with dogs. All dogs are well-trained by always being in a field. Our good friend Petr Polyachkov, at whose place we stayed there, works at the horse-breeding farm and when he goes in the fields for training horses he also takes his four Borzois with him.

Different people come hunting there: doctors and entrepreneurs, journalists and artists. Yuri Adrianov, a poet from Nizhny Novgorod is a frequent guest there. These travels often inspire him for writing poetry.

Sunny weather, fields full of feather, well-trained dogs, exciting hare-hunting, - all that makes good mood for all the participants of the tests. Nobody feels tired even having walked a couple tens kilometres.

Hares jump one after another. Jump! And dogs already follow him, he goes to the bushes, they don’t let him hide, make him return to the field and after a two or three tries they catch him. Such a great hunt! Not only the owners of the dogs that caught the hare are happy but everyone. Such things you’ll never forget.

After two days of hunting three hares have been caught though about twenty jumped – that is greycing …    Only a well-trained and experienced dog can catch a hare. There are no wounded games in this kind of hunting - either the dogs catch the hare or he escapes.

But finally the days of hunting are over. The hunters go home, but soon they again will come to this hospitable corner of the world, to this picturesque place where hares grow and where Russian people breed excellent Borzois. Good bye, friends!….

Natalia Adrianova

Judge, Chairperson of the Novgorod hunting breeding club

Photos: Nikolay Moshkov

Winterhunting 2000

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