Bigfoot: legends and truth - 10 September, 2002

Russian writer Ivan Turgenev met someone that looked like a troglodyte. The horror of the encounter remained in his mind throughout his whole life. It happened, when Turgenev was a young man. Years after,  he told the story to his French friends. Here is what Guy de Maupassant wrote about it: “I remember a story that Turgenev told us. He was hunting in a Russian forest.  He was wandering the whole day and in the evening he went out to a bank of a quiet river. The river was flowing in the shadow of trees, the water there was crystal pure and cold. Turgenev was gripped with a desire to swim in that water. He took his clothes off and jumped in the river. He was a tall, strong, well-built man, and he was a very good swimmer too. He was enjoying the current of the river with his body and soul. Grass and aquatic plants were caressing him.  Suddenly, someone’s hand touched his shoulder.  He looked around quickly and saw a strange creature.  The creature was gazing at him with great curiosity. It looked like something in between a woman and a monkey. The creature had a wrinkled face of a monkey’s mimicry. Messy red hair was framing the face and blowing behind the back. Turgenev was flabbergasted. Horror chilled him to the bone. He started swimming to a bank of the river, even not trying to understand, what he just saw. However, the creature was swimming beside him, touching his neck and back and feet.  Finally, the young man  reached the ground and ran as fast as he could.  He did not care about either his clothes, or rifle.  He forgot about everything and was guided only by the immense uncontrollable wish to stay alive. The monster was following him. It was running very fast too, uttering some squealing sounds. The young man could hardly catch his breath. He was about to fall down on the ground, but he suddenly saw a boy with a whip in his hands. The boy started whipping  the creature and it ran away, yelling with pain.” The courage of the little shepherd is explained with the fact that it was not the first time that he saw it. 

Later, someone of local residents told Turgenev that the monster was a crazy woman  that was living alone in the forest and went completely insane. Turgenev made himself believe in such an explanation. Yet, it was known in the 19th century that people do not get covered with thick hair all over their bodies, even if they lived alone in the woods.”

According to eyewitness’s stories, a bigfoot looks something like a big monkey. Most likely, it is not quite true. There are always a lot of people in front of monkey cages in zoos. Adults and children laugh and smile, when they see the mocking similarity. Yet, a troglodyte never brings a smile on your face. It brings horror.

The newspaper Literature Kyrgyzstan wrote in 1990:  “Shepherd Omush’s wife once said that she saw a bigfoot not far from the pasture. The bigfoot was standing on a high rock. She started pleading her husband to leave that horrid place and go to another pasture. The man did not agree, although he got anxious about that too.  He started searching for bigfoots, he saw their tracks, but never saw a living one. One evening he heard his wife screaming very loudly.  He grabbed his rifle and  rushed outside. The wife was lying on the ground, almost unconscious.  She was speechless and could not say a word. She could only point her finger in the direction of the rocks. The shepherd gazed in the direction that she was pointing  and saw the silhouette of a running man. He did not hesitate and fired his rifle. In he morning the shepherd found blood spots on the rocks. Omush thought that those creatures would not come back to their pasture anymore. He was so wrong.

Omush’s life turned to a nightmare.  Several days after he found his little son dead. There was no trace of violence on the boy’s body, only a little wound on his neck. Omush was sure that his boy was killed by a bigfoot. He went mad and swore to himself that he would take revenge for his son. He was spending days and nights sitting outside his house, waiting for a bigfoot to come back. But it was all in vain. One night he fell asleep and when he entered his house in the morning, he found the dead body of his wife. Again, there was only a small red wound on her neck.

Omush let out a scream of grief and desperation. He started  wandering in the woods, having forgotten about his sheep and house and food. He was desperately gripped with anger. The only thing that was on his mind was to kill a bigfoot for the death of his family.

Shepherd Shapak took care of Omush’s sheep. One day he suddenly saw the sheep getting very troubled and excited. They were bleating and rushing from one side to another. The animals were apparently frightened with something. Shapak could only see a silhouette  of a man covered with thick fur disappearing amid bushes and trees. Then he saw another man on the ground. Shapak ran up to him and recognized Omush. The shepherd was already dead, blood was leaking from a small wound on his neck.

Who knows, maybe nothing would have happened, if the shepherd had not fired his rifle first.”