Movie star lions who grew up in a city apartment, or the sad story of the Soviet Berberov family

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

40 years ago, the history of this family shocked the entire Union. The family of the architect Berberov raised a lion in an ordinary city apartment! They wrote about them in all Soviet newspapers, published photos of children in an embrace with King, filmed TV programs about them. And when the movie "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia" was released, Lion King became a real movie star. But he himself did not live up to the end of the filming because of an absurd accident … The Berberovs were so grieved that they decided to take a rash step - to start King II. But this lion was not as docile and harmless as its predecessor, and the decision to shelter him in an apartment cost the life of the Berberovs' son …

King was born in the late 1960s. at the zoo in Baku. From the very birth, the lion cub was sickly and weak, his mother did not feed him, his front legs refused, and they were going to put him to sleep. When the Berberovs found out about this, they begged the director of the zoo to give the lion cub to them. They were not trainers - the head of the family, Lev Lvovich (!), Worked as an architect. But both he and his wife Nina, and the children Roma and Eva were very fond of animals, before King appeared, dogs, cats, hedgehogs, turtles and parrots lived in their apartment.

King became everyone's favorite, he was nursed by the whole family - fed from the nipple, massaged his paws until he began to walk. And the Berberovs managed to save him! King seemed to understand this and was very grateful to them for it. Leo was docile, very kind and peaceful. Children dragged him by the mustache, rode him, fell asleep next to him, while King never snapped. The only one who received injuries because of him is the head of the family: at night, the lion often climbed into their bed, fell apart with his stomach up and pushed the owner to the floor. So Lev Lvovich got more than one bump. He annoyed the guests only by the fact that he constantly strove to lick them, but when they pushed him aside, he obediently jumped onto the mezzanine - his favorite place in the apartment.

This unusual family was soon learned all over the USSR. The Berberovs were often visited by journalists, they were filmed on TV and wrote in the newspapers. The public's reaction was mixed. Many, of course, admired this family and were moved by the fact that the lion behaves like a large domestic cat. But some, most notably scientists and trainers, have expressed concerns that this story could end sadly. There were also those who were indignant: how can a predator be kept in an apartment! The Berberovs' neighbors were most unhappy - when the lion was walking, the whole courtyard froze, people pressed themselves into the walls when they collided with a 200-kilogram animal on the landing, besides, an unpleasant smell came from the apartment, and at night King woke them up with his growl.

When the lion grew up and got stronger, the Berberovs tried to return it to the zoo, but King protested so much that he almost turned the car over. The family was told that he would no longer be able to live either in the zoo or in the wild, and the lion went back to the apartment. It was very difficult for an ordinary family to feed a huge adult lion, and in order to obtain funds for this, they agreed to King's participation in the filming of the feature film "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia." Moreover, the offer came from Eldar Ryazanov himself! Unfortunately, this decision turned out to be fatal both for the lion and for the entire Berberov family.

The shooting took place in a very nervous atmosphere. Still, training and home education are not the same thing. Leo refused to obey commands and did only what he himself wanted. The filming process dragged on, the director lost his temper, the actors were terrified of the lion. The most desperate and fearless turned out to be Andrei Mironov, who was the first to come into contact with King and set an example to his Italian colleagues. After that, Eldar Ryazanov said: "".

For the period of filming in the summer of 1973, the Berberovs, along with a lion, were settled in an empty school. All security measures were taken: a car with a loudspeaker drove around the city and notified passers-by that shooting with a predator was taking place in this area, and that it was impossible to approach this school, the schoolyard was surrounded by a fence. But once King was left unattended in the gym for several minutes. At that moment, a freshman student appeared in the school garden - either his dog climbed through a hole in the fence, or he himself jumped over the fence.

It is no longer possible to reconstruct further events and determine the culprits. According to Nina Berberova, the student went to the window and began to tease King. Others said he just ran after his dog. The lion squeezed out the glass with its paws, jumped out and knocked the student to the ground. He did not harm him - the Berberovs claimed that he took this as a signal to play. At this time a policeman was passing by. Seeing that the lion pounced on the man, he immediately discharged the entire clip into him.

The Berberovs grieved as if they had lost a family member. Children screamed and cried at night, because King became their best friend. Having learned about this tragedy, the artists decided to help the Berberov family and give them a lion cub. They were looking for a lion cub throughout the Union. King the Second was brought from the Kazan zoo. Nina Berberova recalled: "".

King II also became the star of the screen: in 1975, director Konstantin Bromberg, based on real facts from the life of the Berberov family, shot the film I Have a Lion, which starred a spouse with children and their pet. The main roles went to Roma, Eva and King. On the set, the lion showed his cool temper: he obeyed Roma unquestioningly, and reacted aggressively to strangers. When the director tried to get King to jump into the river, he bit his leg. And the assistant to the operator of the picture was completely left without half a finger due to the fact that with a sharp movement he brought a tape measure to the lion, measuring the distance from his nose to the movie camera.

And then something happened that the skeptics had warned about. After the head of the family passed away in 1978, it became difficult for Nina and her children to cope with the lion, because he considered Lev Lvovich "the leader of the pack" and obeyed him. At the same time, he never showed any aggression towards the rest of the family, and they had no reason for fear. Nina Berberova herself later could not explain why this tragedy happened. Once King the Second climbed onto the mezzanine, hung from them, fell off, fell and hit his back hard. At that moment, the woman entered the room. The lion pounced on her, hit her on the head with his paw and pushed her onto her back. 14-year-old Roma tried to drag him away, and the beast tore him to pieces. Nina woke up from the shots of the policemen who were called by the neighbors. It was only after she was discharged from the hospital that she found out that her son was no more …

Subsequently, Nina Berberova married a second time, gave birth to a daughter and a son. They still had dogs, cats and a parrot, but they, of course, no longer experimented with wild predatory animals. Later, Nina admitted: "".

Behind the scenes of this film, there are still several sad events: How did the fate of the actors of "The Incredible Adventures of Italians in Russia".