আমার পশু বন্ধুরা

by Boris Eder, Georgy Nikolsky (Illustrator), ফল্গু কর (Translator)

Hundreds of people, old and young, gasp as a group of fearless acrobats turn somersaults high above the circus ring. Merry laughter accompanies the antics of the clown. And then the spectators hold on to their seats and brace themselves as the roar of a lion, or a tiger, announces the beginning of the greatest act of them all . . . This book is a personal account by one of the best Soviet trainers of wild animals, a book of courage, stamina, and daring. It is a warm and straightforward story told by a man who devoted his life to a dangerous but highly exciting occupation. Lions, tigers, leopards, zebras, ostriches, brown bears and polar bears - these were some of the animal friends of Boris Eder, People's Artiste of the Russian Federation. Boris Eder owes his fame as a trainer to his love and understanding of wild animals, his courage, his high sense of showmanship, his constant striving to do better and better in his chosen field. Boris Eder sums up the experiences of his life with these "My life has been eventful and happy, though not easy. If I had to begin all over again, I would still choose the life of a trainer of wild animals."

115 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1959

About the author

Boris Afanasevich Eder [Russian: Борис Афанасьевич Эдер] ws a circus artist, trainer (tamer) of predatory animals, founder of the Soviet school of working with circus predators.

Born into a circus family, during his parents' tour in the city of Batumi. From the age of fourteen (1908) he performed in the arena: as an acrobat, voltiger, then as an aerialist.

In 1932, he accepted a group of lions purchased from the German tamer Karl Zembach, in record time, without a mentor (according to other sources, after several weeks of lessons from a foreign tamer) and no preliminary special training, mastered working with them and already in the same year started performing at the arena. Subsequently, he worked mainly with lions and tigers, as well as - leopards, polar and brown bears, fragmentary - with elephants and ostriches. He developed an original method of training predators and the style of the number in a cage, which formed the basis of the Soviet school of circus training, which spread after the 1950s. abroad and continuing to apply up to the present time.