Amur Tiger Day, an annual festival of Russia’s largest feline, has been marked in Vladivostok for the 17th time. Preparations for the festival began long in advance. A photo exhibition of the living symbols of the Far East – the Amur tiger and the Far Eastern leopard – opened in the airport. A monument to Vasily Oshchepkov, a legendary Russian judoka and a co-founder of sambo who invented martial arts techniques based on tiger steps, was unveiled on Korabelnaya Embankment. The Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre staged ballet performances about animals for children with a new main character, the Amur tiger.

The environmental festival included a carnival that gathered over 10,000 people in the central streets of Vladivostok. The carnival participants were dressed in black-and-orange tiger and spotted leopard costumes and held posters in support of the rare wild cats. After the march, they took part in numerous quizzes and contests.

A double-deck Tigerplane of Rossiya Airlines with a tiger painted on the front fuselage section arrived in Vladivostok on Tiger Day. Also, a wild cat train with paintings of tigers and leopards arrived from Moscow.

The festivities ended with a night music show in Vladivostok’s Central Square that featured Zveri, a Russian pop rock band, and British rock musician Ken Hensley, who wrote the song Free (The Song of Amur) specially for this festival.