A man in the forest asked a bear for a cigarette, mistaking it for a human.
The tired man thought he saw someone, caught up with him and patted his backpack, but felt fur under his hand. They were both startled.
While foraging for cedar cones, a resident of Transbaikalia mistook a bear for a human and asked the predator for a cigarette. His son Vladimir shared this with RIA Novosti. According to the agency's interlocutor, the father went into the forest with friends to gather pine cones and was tired by the evening.
"Through the clouds of mosquitoes, I saw: ahead, there seemed to be a short man with a backpack walking slowly, grunting slightly. My father caught up with him and asked for a cigarette, patting the backpack. But instead of fabric, he felt fur under his hand. Both of them screamed, and the bear also roared loudly,” Vladimir recounted.
He added that his father rushed to the camp to get his rifle, but when he returned, the animal was already gone. At the meeting point, together with his friends, they found only a torn backpack and traces left by the bear after eating the nuts.
"The bear had apparently been struggling for a long time to get rid of undigested food, which is why it was walking around and grunting," said the agency's source, clarifying that the encounter had occurred a long time ago.
Photo: pixabay, used for illustrative purposes
