🇷🇺Russia·National Animal (informal)
🐻Eurasian Brown Bear
Russia's bear has no official status — and never needed one.
Russia has no legally-designated national animal, but the brown bear has been associated with Russia in art and politics for centuries, both inside and outside the country. About 100,000 brown bears live in Russia — over half the world's wild population.
Why this animal?
The bear became a Russian symbol partly through Western caricature — European cartoonists drew Russia as a bear from the 17th century onward. Russians embraced it: it appeared as the mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympics ('Misha') and remains a powerful folk symbol.
Things to know
- ·Brown bears can run 50 km/h, faster than any human sprinter.
- ·They hibernate for up to 6 months in Russian winters, losing nearly a third of their body weight.
- ·A bear's sense of smell is 7 times more sensitive than a bloodhound's.
- ·Cubs are born tiny — only 500 grams — during hibernation, and nurse while the mother is still asleep.
- ·Kamchatka, in Russia's Far East, has one of the densest brown bear populations on Earth.