‘Killing for sport is a great sin’: Businessmen from Russia’s Yakutia region face backlash after boasting about a lion hunt in South Africa

Yakut businesspeople Alexei and Galina Yakovlev, along with Yuri Bolshakov, have drawn sharp criticism on social media for organizing a trophy lion hunt in South Africa.

Galina Yakovleva boasted about the hunt on July 5, posting a video on Instagram that showed her husband shooting a resting lion at close range while a backup hunter and Yakovleva herself stood nearby. “I went with my husband to see firsthand how he hunts. It turns out it’s hard for a woman to be there in the moment. I thought you have to have spirit to go after a predator. I’m proud of my husband!” she said.

Yuri Bolshakov described his own lion hunt in South Africa in even greater detail. He wrote on social media that he had applied for a hunting permit a year in advance, traveled to a private game ranch near the Botswana border, tracked a lioness for several days, and fired carefully to avoid damaging the animal’s hide. He ended the post with the words: “This was not a battle. It was a dialogue between two worlds, in which each kept what was its own.”

South Africa has an industry built around hunting lions and other large predators bred in captivity and kept in fenced enclosures. Because these animals are accustomed to humans, they pose much less danger to people and are far less likely to escape death than wild animals do. Hunters frequently kill such predators for trophies — hides, fangs, skulls, and similar items — and hundreds of trophies from captive-bred lions are exported from South Africa every year.

Although both Yakovleva and Bolshakov described their hunts with evident pride, social media users accused them of killing animals for sport. “No, you are not Sakha. And you never were. Every Sakha person knows that Baianai does not give prey to a person who is already full. And you are certainly full, having flown to another continent. Every Sakha person knows that killing an animal for something other than food is a great sin. […] Every Sakha person knows that the strength of our people lies in preserving the balance between nature and humanity,” wrote Dayiyna, a blogger and photographer from Yakutia.

The backlash forced Galina Yakovleva and Yuri Bolshakov to delete their posts with photos from Africa and set their Instagram accounts to private. Outraged users then turned to the page of the Uchur hunting supply stores owned by Bolshakov, where the most recent posts are now flooded with comments containing the word “shame” and calls to cancel the brand.

“In Yakutia, Baianai is held sacred. We ask the taiga for prey to feed our families, and we give thanks for it. To kill for sport, for the hide of an animal that poses no threat to you and that you will not eat, is a great sin. By our laws, such boasting strips a person of their luck. Yuri [Bolshakov, through his Uchur stores] sells clothing for local tourists and promotes the culture of Yakutia, but he has trampled its central principle — respect for the living,” an unnamed Yakut hunter told the Russian news outlet SakhaLife.