A Russian mother lost her teenage daughter and her husband in an attack by brown bears by a river in the east of Siberia, Russia. The 19-year-old phoned her mother three times across the prolonged attack, leaving the mother shocked and horrified for her daughter.
This article contains descriptions of a graphic nature.
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The tragedy took place in 2011
Igor Tsyganenkov and his teenage stepdaughter, Olga Moskalyova, had gone down to the village of Termalniy, near Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy in east Siberia, on a trip together.
The two were there to fetch a fishing rod that Igor had left behind on a previous trip.
They regularly took trips together
The trip was not out of the ordinary for the pair, so it gave no reason for the 19-year-old’s mother, Tatiana, to worry.
However, the regularity of the trip intensified her shock when her daughter called her in distress.
The bears attacked Igor first
It was reported that the brown bears attacked the girl’s stepfather in front of her first, breaking his neck and smashing his skull by the river.
This prompted Olga to run for about 70 yards, but tragically the bears managed to grab hold of her.
Olga suffered a worse fate
The bears chose to toy with Olga, who was a trainee psychologist at the time. According to the Daily Star, she managed to call her mother three times during the attack.
Initially, Tatiana thought the call was a joke
Olga called her mother on the phone the first time saying, “Mom, the bear is eating me! Mom, it’s such agony. Mom, help!”
Tatiana, the mother, admitted that she thought it was a joke at first, but quickly became horrified when she realized the attack was indeed real.
She heard the fear in her daughter’s voice
The mother said, “I heard the real horror and pain in Olga’s voice, and the sounds of a bear growling and chewing,” before adding, “I could have died then and there from shock.”
Tatiana was also unaware that her husband had already been attacked at this point.
Olga called repeatedly
Because the attack on 19-year-old Olga by the mother bear and her cubs happened slowly, the teenager managed to call her mother more than once.
In the second call she pleaded, “Mum, the bears are back. She came back and brought her three babies. They’re…eating me.”
By the end, she was able to say goodbye to her mother
Tatiana had to listen to her daughter’s suffering over the phone one last time.
In a final and weaker call, Olga said, “Mum, it’s not hurting any more. I don’t feel the pain. Forgive me for everything, I love you so much.”
Rescue arrived too late
The bears would come back to attack Olga over an extended period of time, with her third and last call to her mother being almost an hour after the first.
The mother then informed the police and people of the village, but help arrived far too late.
Tatiana paid tribute to her daughter
In a last message at her daughter’s wake the woman said, “My daughter was such fun. She was so cheerful, friendly, and warm. She had graduated from music school, and just days before the bear attack she got her driving license.”
May both Olga and Igor rest in peace.
