- Eric, camel - Rare Guest of the Playa. In the circus on the color boulevard over the past years, five camels did not protrude. Why?
- First, camels are not easy to contain. A camel requires very big attention. Although in terms of food, they are unpretentious (their menu: vegetables, bran, hay; love to nibble a rough food of the birch brooms), they eat quite a lot. Secondly, they are very difficult to train them: there are enough rooms with camels, but there are few quality. Therefore, not every artist has a chance to get into the circus on color.
- Tell us about your camel team.
- Now I have seven animals, six on the Manege work. I am preparing one camel to replace the younger. This is a rather complicated process, because the group has already developed. Camels get used to a certain order. Once the assistants set the third camel to the spot of the fifth. I first did not pay attention, and when the animals ran, I look, some kind of luck began, one camel rifles somewhere and pushes. So, while he did not take his usual place, he could not calm down.
- How did your wards get to you?
"I went to the steppe, a month over the month bypassed 15 tabunov." Total visited 12 animals, gathered them in one pen, and then selected his six. It was in 2002. In Soviet times, I was easier to pick up animals, the state farms were firmly on their feet, and now camels in two and a half or three years old are allowed under the knife. I try to take adult individuals, because up to two years camels drink maternal milk, and after at least a year they need to run along the steppe, eat minerals, wormwood and so on. This creates the foundation of camel health.
- How long does training and preparation for the performance take?
- Not less than a year. This is a huge work of very many people. Camels to us from the steppes come wild, do not let me up, spits, bite. But quietly, on bait, I approach and establish a relationship. And first they are carrots, cabbage, crackers do not eat. Just do not understand what it is. They have only bitter wormwood in nature. That's how it was embarrassed, they became friends, and then we start also a quietly to bring to the playpen ...
- Your camels make various tricks. And what trick is the most difficult?
- The most complex - synchronous construction and movement on Maneja. When a group, for example, is going to fan or rebuilding into a pair, it is very difficult, it is much easier to work statook. Although there are exceptions. I have one camel that does everything, but I can not put it on the barrier. He is so so stupid, or a tricky. One foot puts on the barrier, and we pull up the second ropes, but it immediately fluts on the side. I have been struggling with him for half a year.
Photo: Alexander Slavutsky
- What are the relationship between you and camels?
- It can be understood if you look at a stable with me. Hearing my voice, camels turn. Because I always bring them something delicious. In our relationship and love, and the rigor is perfectly combined.
- Often, trainers turn out to be coatd by their wards. Did you have such incidents?
- Of course, and more than once. For example, in the very first group there was a camel of PUD, weighing more than 1,200 kilograms. So this empty literally hunted me, and once, when I got rooted for something, I grabbed my head like a kochan of the cabbage, and began to slowly tear off from the ground. I brought to the tiptoe and jumped up, as if he got into his mouth, and he spat me literally. And if I began to resist, leave his teeth, he would take me well. And so I have small scratches on your head. The group with which I work is now quite calm, only among myself fighting during the Gon period, and if during this period they will be released without supervision, they can embarrass each other.
- What are their relationships inside the group?
- Very different. Someone is friends with someone, plays, rub the face. And others are just looking for the moment to grab the opponent, biting to the blood. Although in principle these are good-natured animals.
- With you in the room in the image of an excellent East princess, Elena's assistant works. How do camels react to her?
- Very messenger, like a woman. For example, a camel on which she leaves on a playpen, perceives Lena as his property, he jealines her to other camels. If it fit and begins to feed some other camel, he raises a cry.
- On the Manege, you even avoid whip, but still look much more severe than in life. Why?
- Yes, I specifically impart seriousness. The camels are very sensitive to intonation - if only you cry on a camel and slightly touch the tip of the whip, it's already all, it's already a panic: "I did something wrong, I did something ..." On the other hand, if you turn to It is gentle, he will think that everything did well and stop. So I praise very dosage, and for them it is always a holiday.
- How long have you been driving camels?
- In the circus, from 16 years old, I worked as an air gymnast, and when it was time to leave this genre, I could not part with the circus and decided to do something of myself or a similar one. So I came up with this attraction with camels. I started to speak in 1981 in Alma-Ata. Over the years, about 50 camels passed through my hands. I also helped other trainers. For example, somehow I was invited to Freiburg to the Zoo for a month, where there were completely launched animals. I gave advice on the content, and also put a child performance.
- During these years, a camel remembered especially remembered?
- The very first, he walked behind me like a dog, on the streets, on the stairs. And there there were many stairs to the circus in Alma-Ata, and it looked so touching. Unfortunately, this camel worked for only five years and fell in Kislovodsk, where I left for business. They brought a damaged hay, and the assistants did not look. Typically camels work 15-16 years.