"The bear was put in a cage and taken to the place of hunting. Afterwards, the party made him drunk with vodka mixed with honey, and pushed him out to the field," the letter to Vologda Governor reads.
Photo: Yury Martyanov
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Vologda Officials Say Spanish King Hasn’t Killed Bear
Vologda Region Governor has dismissed reports that King of Spain Juan Carlos I killed a domesticated drunken bear during hunting in Russia. Vyacheslav Pozgalev has set up a special commission to probe the incident.
Governor Pozgalev called these reports an informational campaign against the local administration. “They have lied against the respected man [King of Spain] who is so devoted to Russia,” Vyacheslav Pozgalev said in an interview with Kommersant. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the King of Spain confirmed in an interview with Associated Press that the King “has visited Russia but he has not killed any bear, let alone one drunken with vodka.”
A scandal rocked Vologda ten days ago with reports that King of Spain Juan Carlos I had killed a domesticated bear during hunting in Vologda Region. Sergey Starostin, Vologda Region’s hunting grounds top official, sent a letter to Governor Vyacheslav Pozgalev reporting the incident. “An abominable performance accompanied the hunting of King of Spain Juan Carlos,” Starostin wrote, describing the killing. “The party ‘sacrificed’ a good-humored and jolly bear called Mitrofan who had been kept at a farm in the village of Novlenskoye. The bear was put in a cage and taken to the place of hunting. Afterwards, the party made him drunk with vodka mixed with honey, and pushed him out to the field.” Starostin reported that the organization of the hunting was masterminded by Andrey Filatov, head of the Russian agricultural watchdog’s Vologda branch, and the region’s Deputy Governor Sergey Gromov.
Vologda Governor Vyacheslav Pozgalev denies receiving the letter. The governor set up a special commission earlier this week to verify this information. “The king visited our region in August, went sightseeing, met the people but he did not hunt or even shoot,” Pozgalev told Kommersant.
The governor believes that the scandal was created to spoil his reputation.
Starostin would not comment the situation so far but said he was happy that the prosecutor’s office had finally paid attention to the facts he had mentioned in the letter.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 28, 2006
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