City That Roared: Tiger Day in Vladivostok
15:19 30.09.2026 (Updated: 15:20 05.10.2026)
© Photo : Press Service of the Primorsky Krai Administration
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A bout of orange madness has shaken the Russian city of Vladivostok on the last Sunday of September.
There was a full hour of mass marching there, along the boulevard facing the Pacific Ocean, with music and games. You might have heard that the world has been celebrating the Tiger Day every July 29, ever since 2008. Oh, no, my friends, the world may do what it likes, but Vladivostok Tiger Day has been established in the year 2000, well before the convention of all kind of global summits dedicated to that beast.
That festival has been proposed by a local celebrity, Vladivostok writer Vladimir Troinin. It was modest at the start, but then became a regional attraction, and later has been proclaimed an official event by the regional administration.
And that says a lot about Russia, spanning from the Baltics to the Pacific, with its peculiar form of federalism. The Far East is, simply speaking, is very far and very special. The people there love to show it off, and, among other things, the Far East is proud to demonstrate its special status now, when its Tiger Day attracts guests from at least the Eastern part of Russia. Not to mention the television crews transmitting everything all over the country.
So what do we see on our screens? There are mostly schoolkids marching there, together with their parents. There was music by two local rock groups, singing tiger songs. There were face-painting contests, costume contests, and black stripe contests. And do not forget roaring contests, too. Teachers have been prodding their pupils into these competitions since springtime. And now the families and small communities do local celebrations without bothering to go to the center of the city.
Tigers, to remind, is an international issue. Let us get back to the year of 1947, when independent India had been haunted by about 40 thousand of these beasts. But, at the same time, these numbers began to decline rapidly, not only because of hunting, but because the population went up, taking up the territories. It was same all over the world.
The next year is officially listed as the one when a Russian ban on killing tigers had been proclaimed. While the truly global effort to save the animal has started, as mentioned above, only in around 2008, with international programs proposed to conserve the existence of these rare creatures.
And Russia, immediately, went to the front of that effort. It’s enough to remember the 2012 St. Petersburg summit of 13 world leaders, representing the nations where these animals still live in natural habitat.
One memorable episode happened before that, in 2008: Vladimir Putin, at the time the Prime Minister in between his presidential terms, kissed a lady tiger. That happened when he visited the Far East and heard that a tigress has got herself in a trap near a natural preserve. A whole delegation went to the area, with local biologists shooting a tranquilizer dart into the animal, before starting to release it. The second dart has been shot by Putin, who then kissed the semi-sleeping lady in the forehead.
Naturally, a lot of jokes have been circulating about that episode. But look at the state of things now, eighteen years after. The media reports from the Tiger Day in Vladivostok are flooding the audience with additional fact to be proud of. Vast territories have been converted into natural preserves, that is 1.16 million of hectares of virgin forest. Attached to it is another preserve, a kind of a corridor allowing Russian tigers to visit China if they feel like it. And, finally, this year, a hi-class animal clinic has been opened near Vladivostok, wholly devoted to treating only one kind of animal, and you know which one. Russia seems to be the only nation of the world able to provide medical care to the striped monsters, cub care included, with subsequent pushing of patients out into the wild, again.
India stays the world leader in tiger population. Speaking generally, the almost-extinct animal started its path to recovery, to 4700, er, persons around the world. You can monitor these figures today, at least the Russian Far East can do it, since the pattern of the stripes is as unique to every tiger as fingerprints are. So they live in a kind of a global police state now, under constant surveillance.
At the bottom moment of the tiger crisis it was rumored that only 200-300 of these animals were roaming the borders between Russia and China. Russia, now, have reached their stable number of 750 and hopes for more, China – much fewer, maybe 20 if they are lucky. Biologist say that, at last, such figures give the animal plenty of choice of family partners, so now they may go forth and multiply without artificial insemination (which has never even been discussed).
What’s important, we are talking about a totally unique creature, called Amur Tiger and living only in one area of the world. It’s a giant among it brothers and sisters, weighing up to 320 kilos. An Amur Tiger is bigger and probably stronger than an African lion. It is the only one among its relatives able to live in extreme colds. Its fur is twice as thick as one of a Bengali tiger (sorry, folks). Its wide paws lets that creature step in the deep snow and survive temperatures up to minus 40 by Celcius.
Finally, it is a freedom-loving beast, always looking for a vast territory to dominate and able to travel up to 1000 kilometers in search of its kingdom. Also, they swim, against all possible currents, one such swimmer once had crossed a sea harbor, covering 12 kilometers of choppy water.
All in all, it’s something Russians would love dearly: big and impressive. So it’s small wonder that the people of Vladivostok are proud to support that living miracle and boast about it to all the rest of Russians.
But, still, there is one big wonder here. After all, tigers have eaten a lot of people in their (tiger’s, that is) better days. Why should we prevent their extinction? Why, also, not rejoice over extinction of poisonous creatures like snakes, too? What is that irrational, un-robotic feeling that prods human beings into conserving all kind of living things and their natural habitats? Maybe it’s because we are animals, too, and do not feel well when something living is missing in the world. Have to look up some of the ideas of Hinduism and Sikhism on that matter, probably.
Speaking about Russians who love their tigers, there is one more mysterious motive for such emotions. To remind, a couple of years ago I wrote a column here, describing Russia’s love for cats. That pervasive AI tells us, today, that it’s official: there are almost twice more cat-lovers in the land than those who prefer dogs (23 per cent of all the population to 14 per cent in real ownership, although it’s only 58 per cent against 42 per cent in general attitude). So, we are rather a cat country. And a tiger is, surely, a cat in an extreme form.
Why so? Nobody knows, but I keep on remembering my dispute with an American friend on that matter. We more or less agreed that dog-lovers cherish total blind loyalty, while cat-lovers respect and admire other creatures’ independence. So now we have one more clue to that mysterious Russian character.
Dmitry Kosyrev is a Russian writer, author of spy novels and short stories. He also did columns for the Pioneer and Firstpost.com
