Rena sent me a photo telling me with natural "ice cream" that it was snowing in front of their house.
In November, Russia's Winter General began to threaten, where the snow was measured in meters. I remember reading "The Adventures of Baron Minchhausen" as a child, and the bragging king described that his trip to Russia encountered heavy snow, so he tied his horse to a cross exposed on the ground and slept in a tent next to it. When I woke up, I saw that I was sleeping in the church doorway, and the horse was hanging on the top of the church bell tower!
It turned out to be snow, and there was a cross on the top of the bell tower of each church...
While certainly an exaggeration, it is impressive to describe how much snow is in Russia.
There are always some people in the world who are called "bragging kings", and there is also one of Rena's neighbors, such as Uncle Victor Nikifolov.
Speaking of which, this uncle is a celebrity. He is the head of the Russian chapter of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and is constantly on the move between the Far East and The European region of the country. In 2015, the Petrov weather station on Varyag Island near the Arctic Circle was besieged by polar bears, and it was this uncle who exerted the power of public opinion and mobilized support from all walks of life to save scientists from danger.
The photographs provided to the BBC by Nikifolov show the scene after the polar bear attack on the observatory of the weather station.
The Russian winter is lonely and boring, and getting together to drink a little vodka will be a rare and lively moment, at this time, the uncle with such a fascinating experience will naturally be the central person, and the so-called "bragging king" only means that people are well-informed. But when the uncle said that he had taken Prince Philip to chase a tiger in Siberia, it was too much to blow.
How could Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II of England, Duke of Edinburgh, hero of the Battle of Cape Matapán, run to Russia and chase tigers?
Besides, how come this matter doesn't seem to have been reported? Such a heavyweight to visit, at least the Russian side must be accompanied by a speaker-level official, in the lonely Far East, should not his appearance become local news?
Who said uncle Nikifolov bragged, look, this is the picture he took inside the landline where Prince Philip visited, note that there is also the coat of arms of the British royal family on the pillow towel of the seat!
It turned out that Prince Philip had secretly visited the Russian Far East in 1997, and indeed chased tigers accompanied by local staff such as Nikifolov.
On March 19, 1997, the special plane of Prince Philip (center row) landed at the airport in Bury (Khabarovsk) and was welcomed by officials such as the governor of the Russian Far Eastern Frontier Region, with Nikifolov, then director of the Moscow office of the World Wide Fund for Nature, in the back row on the right.
According to ecologist Yuri Dahlman, an adviser to WWF Russia, the prince's arrival was not widely reported because it was not a formal state visit, but an informal visit he made as honorary chairman of the World Wide Fund (who had just stepped down as chairman) to express support for conservation efforts in the Russian Far East and to participate in an investigation into tiger hunting, when an official presented a tiger skin to a dignitary. It was found by the media and became the object of criticism by animal protection activists.
It is said that the official who became the hot spot was Yenazdrakenko, the administrator of the Russian Far Eastern Frontier Oblast at the time, a well-known "advocate of the yellow peril theory".
Prince Philip learned of this and decided to fly to the Far East on an ad hoc basis during his visit to Japan, and he flew the plane himself — he had an international aviation license, so even during his visit to Russia, Nikifolov had seen the prince walk from the cabin to the cockpit after boarding the plane, sitting in the co-pilot's seat, and taking turns driving with the pilot.
At the time, Russia was emphasizing openness and transparency, so the visit was endorsed by the Russian government (it took just over a week from application to consent) and successfully promoted the investigation of the case. However, the prince's identity is sensitive, and the intention is not very honorable for Russia, so the two sides agreed not to carry out official reports. The prince was also granted good-faith approval, allowing him to make hands-on field trips to several nature reserves in Russia in the Far East.
This, as a foreign political figure, should be said to be a very rare thing. Therefore, the prince hoped to go a little deeper and farther, preferably... You can look at the Tigers of Russia. Uncle Nikifolov, on the other hand, was the guide sent to the prince at that time.
Nikifolov recalled that among the instructions they had received at that time was a rule that it was not allowed to take pictures of the prince at will. Since there were no digital cameras and mobile phones at that time, the cameras that took pictures were very eye-catching, so this rule was easily enforced. Changing today is certainly not an easy task.
However, the Russians soon discovered that the prince was a casual person (Meghan certainly didn't think so!). He brought a case of sake from Japan to WWF members in Russia, stayed at the same hotel as his guide, and ate at the same table. Nikifolov used the title "His Highness" when he first spoke to him, but quickly forgot about it—Russians apparently preferred such informal guests.
Of course, the rules of not allowing group photos were also X, and the staff all had a lot of photos with the prince, but they did not publish them publicly, and most of them kept their promises until the death of the prince, and these photos were not made public.
By the way, who is this woman in the middle, does the queen know?
According to Nikifolov, they also worked with a tourism official, and his real identity was the FSB (the successor of the KGB), could it be this one?
According to the staff's recollection, although he was 76 years old at the time, the prince was in good health and keen to go out into the wild to track tigers - which led to the legend that the prince once escaped from the staff's surveillance and lost it, and was later retrieved.
This is, of course, just a rumor, but... The staff of the reserve actually knew in their hearts that the prince could not find the tiger.
The Russian tiger is the largest tiger in the world, that is, what our country calls the Siberian tiger.
They are a very sensitive and hidden animal, think about it, a tiger hiding in a hundred square kilometers of mountain forest, the last century of technology, how can you find it? In fact, the staff of the kamchatka nature reserve recalled that he had worked for 20 years and had only seen tigers once or twice. Poachers often resort to patient booby-trapping tactics, and the protectors can certainly lure the prince to see the tiger, but this takes time, and the prince cannot wait that long.
However, the prince was satisfied, although he did not see the tiger, but he did find the tiger's footprints during the inspection! This is also very rare.
How could the prince be so lucky? It was many years before Uncle Nikifov revealed the secret — it turned out that when they learned that the prince was coming, the staff of the reserve also happened to find two rows of tiger footprints in the snow in the forest, so they were given a strict order to protect the footprints and wait for the prince's arrival!
As a result, the prince successfully "found" the tiger's footprints.
"Those two lines of footprints are less than a thousand steps from the camp," said Nikifolov with a smile, "and he will not be unable to find them!" ”
Prince Philip was an excellent hunter in his early years, and personally hunted a huge tiger in India when tigers were still considered pests.
However, since becoming president of the World Wide Fund for Nature, the prince has put down his shotgun and has made many contributions to causes including the conservation of China's giant pandas.
Lo and behold, people can change.
Uncle Nikifov, a Russian, may have to add a sentence: Look, people can be fooled.
【End】
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