Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to Southern Siberia to a province in the Russian Federation called Tuva. This area is poverty stricken and is renown for its crime and drug abuse. The temperature here can drop to -80 degrees in the winter and over 100 degrees in the summer. The Siberian Larch, Laurel leaf Poplar and the Scots Pine are among the tallest trees here and Kites and Kestrels hunt the Chee and tufted hair grasses. A few of the common animals here are wolves, snow leopards, mountain sheep, antelope, reindeer and brown bears. It is in this wilderness setting that our episode takes place.

On June 1st of 2019, twenty nine year old Nikolay Irgit was headed out to the wilderness near his hometown of Khut, with several of his friends to gather horns and antlers that were shed by animals in the winter. Some of the animals that died in the winter would leave behind their horns that could be sold on the black market for money. This activity required a permit issued by the local government but Nokolay and his friends declined to purchase theirs as it bit into their profits.

In his everyday life, Nikolay was a school caretaker and happy father of two sons and one daughter he was raising with his twenty five year old wife, Aida. Given the condition of the local economy, Nikolay and his friends couldn’t afford firearms, nor bear spray. They didn’t even bother bringing knives along with them. They weren’t planning for any confrontations in which they may need them and wouldn’t be long in the woods. They had planned a quick trip and to return to their families by nightfall with their haul.

Shortly after arriving at the area they planned to search in, they began to spread out and looked in their own spots for antlers and horns. As Nikolay walked around for a few hours he began to push his way through some dense brush. He emerged on the far side of the bushes and glanced up. His eyes widened as a massive brown bear filled his vision, glaring at him. The bear was just a few yards away and Nikolay had walked nearly right up beside the giant bear, which was estimated to weigh around 1,000 pounds.

As soon as their eyes met, the bear flung itself toward the man letting out an ear shattering roar as it came. Nikolay clenched his fists and yelled at the bear as it advanced, hoping the bear would bluff charge him, then run away. But, if bears operated on our hopes or expectations of them, we would all be safe when we encountered them. The bear didn’t bluff charge him but opened its mouth wide and reached out for his arm. Nikolay instinctively punched the bear in the head but this didn’t even make the bear flinch, as it immediately bit onto his forearm and lept on top of him.

The bear immediately bit into his abdomen and tore at his flesh, then moved up to his chest and ripped flesh there. He was careful to point out whenever he relayed his story that the bear never clawed him, but exclusively used its powerful jaws. It apparently wanted to devour him immediately.

While being savaged by the angry bear, Nikolay didn’t smell anything. He didn’t feel anything during the attack. He began to lose any regard for his own life but thoughts of his children and wife flashed through his mind. He loved them so much and didn’t want them to be without him.

After the bear bit at his chest, it changed its savage focus to his head. It clamped its massive jaws onto his skull and began tearing his scalp just above his left forehead. One of its canines punched into his left eye orbit tearing his flesh from the middle of his eyelid back a few inches toward his temple.

At that point, Nikolay opened his eyes and his entire visual field was filled with the enormous maw of the bear gleaming with huge teeth closing over the width of his face. As the bear bit into his face he felt enormous pain shoot through his body like electricity.