November 11: Siberian Yeti Day
Posted by: Loren Coleman on November 10th, 2010
Russia’s Western Siberia will celebrate Yeti Day on November 11, the head of the regional culture and national policy department, Larisa Zauervayn announced.
In February 2009, the Kemerovo regional administration released a report that local hunters had spotted “some hairy humanoid creatures with a height of 1.5-2 meters [5’6″-6′] near the Azass Cave in Mount Shoriya,” near Siberia’s renowned ski resort, Sheregesh.
The report was illustrated with a photograph from inside the cave showing the footprint of an unidentified creature.
Several advertising and PR experts said that Bigfoot reports were probably teasers for attracting tourists to the region. Three months after the sensational news tourism agencies had introduced excursions to “Yeti’s Cave.”
“This creature is extraordinary and deserves, in our opinion, its own holiday. On Mount Shoriya Yeti has sparked a total mania,” the head of Kuzbass’s Tashtagol District, Vladimir Makuta, said.
“Every year Yeti Day celebrations will mark the start of the ski season with thousands of ski lovers from all over Russia gathering on Mount Shoriya,” Zauervayn said, adding that Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev is likely to take part in the Yeti-dedicated festivities.
According to the head of the department of anthropology at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow, anthropologists have never seen or studied the body of a Bigfoot or Yeti, although there are numerous reports of their sightings throughout the world. Source: Kemerovo, Russia, RIA Novosti.
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Loren Coleman comments:
Of course, technically, the Yeti is a specific name for the unknown hominoids of northern South Asia, the Abominable Snowmen of the Himalayas, Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, Mustang, and associated areas.
The so-called “Siberian Snowmen” are more correctly known by the locals as the Chuchunaa, Abas, Abasy, Chuchuna, Kuchena, Kuchuna, Mulen, Tungu, and a few other names. Almas and Almasti are said to range into Siberia. The “Siberian Snowmen” have only been called “Yeti” in the last few years by the Russian media and tourism officials.
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
