Battle Him, the Tiger Minister

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Prime Minister

“He is strong, powerful, quick and beautiful. The leopard species vanished here in the Caucasus, and now it is being reintroduced. If going through with the Olympic project is in the least bit somehow connected with reviving a part of nature that was lost due to human impact, then this is symbolic.”

Vladimir Putin speaking in favor
of the Leopard as the Sochi mascot

In the spirit of making the Olympic Games in Sochi a truly national event to unite the Russian people, the Sochi organizers last year launched a contest where artists could submit entries to be chosen as the official Olympic mascot, followed by internet voting and a final jury selection that was supposed to take into account the internet voting.

The Sochi 2014 logo

During months of internet polling, the top rated mascot was the dazed and hairy looking blue frog nicknamed Zoich, designed by Yegor Zhgun (“zoich” has become an internet meme, because the 2014 in the Sochi logo looks a lot like the Cyrillic зойч). But Zoich vanished from the rankings and did not make it onto the shortlist. Instead, the jury picked three rather banal looking fluffy mammals: a Leopard, a Polar Bear, and Zaika, a female white hare.

Zoich

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has a penchant for big cats, voiced his support early on for the leopard. President Dmitry Medvedev was naturally associated with the bear by virtue of his last name (“medved” is Russian for “bear”), and as to Zaika... well, she must have been thrown in for good measure. The media dubbed the “winning” selections “The Triumvirate.” None of the images were in the top ranks of internet voting.

Ironically, both of the mascots with “leadership approval” were the subject of mini scandals. The pudgy polar bear was accused of being a rip-off of the beloved 1980 Moscow Olympic Games mascot, Misha, who dramatically flew away at the games’ closing ceremony. “This Polar Bear, everything about him is ripped off from mine,” said Viktor Chizhikov, who created Misha, “the eyes, nose, mouth, smile, although everything is made perverse. I don’t like it when people steal.”

The polar bear does seem to have Misha’s smile, and the animal’s posture is remarkably similar to his Olympic predecessor.

Meanwhile the World Wildlife Fund said the Leopard is not a Caucasian leopard as Putin claimed, that he looks more like a snow leopard (or snow “bars” in Russian), an animal which of course never inhabited the Sochi area. The games’ organizers have described the Leopard as a “mountain rescuer and great snowboarder, who lives in a huge tree on the highest mountain of the snowy Caucasian peaks.” But snow leopards hate trees, and Caucasian leopards hate snow. “A strange animal will become the Olympic mascot,”
WWF said.

For his part, Putin said that “snow leopards and all leopards that we know in our Far East and the Caucasus are panthers, as we know from their genetic information... it’s a collective image that tells us that Russia is very diverse... It’s a symbol of modern Russia.” Not according to Russians. A poll conducted in early February by the All-Russian Center for Public Opinion Research found that average Russians considered the Leopard to be one of the worst mascots in the running (20 percent said they definitely did not want to see him as a mascot).

Perhaps gazeta.ru best summarized the situation in the subtitle of an editorial about the supposedly “democratic” process for choosing the mascot: “Russia has one person choosing – Vladimir Putin. He is also the real mascot of the Sochi Games.”

One month after coming out in support of the leopard, Putin met the actual animal in person, in Khakassia. A snow leopard caught in Krasnoyarsk region was helicoptered to Khakassia, kept in a cage for five days and then released after meeting the Russian leader.

Scientists said the capture and caging was necessary, due to the animal’s wounds. Independent experts fumed, objecting that the wild leopard had to suffer for such political theater. State-owned media said the snow leopard will be tagged and his whereabouts will be visible on Putin’s personal website. At press time the reports
started to appear at premier.gov.ru/leopard

Prime Minister Putin has proclaimed himself patron of the following animals: the Amur tiger, the Beluga whale, the Polar bear.