I do not know the name of the church, probably Peter and Paul, but behind it is a park with a lake and two small islands. On any given night you can find any given type of person there. The typical crowd, however, are young people walking around the lake along the path or sitting on benches along the path, and then there are the fall down drunks that try to walk around the lake seeking a shot of vodka, a couple rubles to buy some vodka, or some kind of not-understandable conversation; they usually make it a few meters before falling down along the shore line, although some manage to make it to a park bench before face planting or actually getting to sit down before passing out. Of course, depending upon who you ask, that is the typical crowd anywhere in Russia. Either road, going further south there are couple apartment buildings and then it is no man's land, literally, until you reach the town of Sashino. Plenty of room to hide, if you wanted to.

A few weeks back the cops received a report from a young couple bobbing around the lake of something "dragging off one of the drunks". The cops did not take them seriously saying they were just making it up. And that was the end of it.

A few nights ago another report came in of something dragging off a drunk. But this time it was reported by three witnesses, a couple and a lonely man looking for a friend for the night. The cops checked out the scene and, of course, come up with nothing. Case closed. Until one of Natasha's contacts rang her up telling her about it. And then she called me.

The descriptions provided by the eye witnesses are not very detailed. Of course, it is dark there. The park has no lighting and just some residual lighting from the street and city go into the park. Some portions are so dark that you cannot even see the path you are walking upon. So it is not very surprising that they not have a lot of details. However, they do have something in common: a sound. It is a kind of growling sound, a low growl "as if you dragged a big dog's growl across gravel" one of them put it. Another described it as "like a big cat you see at the zoo". It was also low and seemed to travel on all fours. The reported incidents were claimed to have happened after midnight and before one in the morning. The exact timing was never claimed, but the time frame is known.

That is all for this story. We are not officially invovled in this... yet. Still not sure if we will be called to investigate the matter. My gut says it's only a matter of days before we do get involved, however.

In the meantime, anyone care to speculate on the various possibilties going on here?

Zoos are clean.

The zoologists are ripping their hair at the eye witness reports dismissing them as "utterly useless". Go figure.

That's why I'm thinking some exotic pet. And by exotic I mean supernastural.

Kolya said drunks, not hobos. Some drunks may be missed. A natural predator *will* go after anything it views as good prey if the prey is inebriated/ill, handicapped, injured, or sleeping... Basically, a good predator will go after the easiest kill.

So a tiger isn't necessarily out of the loop of very real possibilities. I do believe there is a specie of Siberian tiger, is there not?

If times are desperate, creatures will do anything for food. I dunno about Russia, but we've had one helluva winter here in Chicago. We share a common hemisphere, and Russia's a teeeeency tiny bit further north than we are [/sarcasm]... What's more, maybe I'm misreading, which I'm fond of doing when I'm tired as I have been for a while now, but it seems like this area is...well, it pry has less than a "human dominated" feeling about it.

I'm not saying I'm right, I'm just pointing out a possibility as I see it. If I'm misreading the facts, or if you know more about the situation than I do, please tell me, so I can get my ankle out of my throat... Otherwise, I'm just proposing an alternate possibility.

You know, this does remind me of that story about the two lions that started eating humans. It turns out that one of them had some kind of tooth problem, and couldn't eat anything that was really tough without being in pain. Turns out humans are very soft for a lion to bite. Anyway, apparently, the lion had a brother that decided to sympathize with him, so they both ended up prowling around human settlements and eating what they could.

I never said WHERE they were. It's actually a really famous case, and I think one of the lions is stuffed and on display in a museum.

Damn convincing, then. They looked like lions to me.

Most male lions don't have manes, and not all maned males become leaders, but a lot of them do. These two had no family of their own.

I've been to the museum and seen them a number of times.

Our investigation is going on over in Community Outreach in Heather's Russia Visit thread.

Appreciate all the input so far.

The lateset incident, however, has convinced me it's more than some escaped pet but an actual supernasty predator.

Me, too.

My hunch hasn't let me down yet.
Now I just need to find this damn thing to know for sure.

And she'd probably go for the "random wild cat" theory more than anyone else you've got.