В 1844 г. родился ученый Леонид Сабанеев

According to Vladimir Gilyarovsky, once a rogue was going to sell a stray dog puppet to a dog breeder claiming it was a hunting dog. However, the breeder noticed the deception and exposed it to the rogue. The cue was the tail of the dog. This led Leonid Sabaneev to make a joke addressing the rogue: “In case you want to sell a dog, remember, the tail will show you’re a rogue.”

Anyone slightly familiar with popular literature on zoology will not be surprised at all as Leonid P. Sabaneev was a very famous biologist and popular science communicator.

He was under 30 when he decided to issue The Priroda (Nature) magazine. He published the first 17 volumes with his own money and then he combined it with The Okhota (Hunting) magazine where he was an editor, too and he turned them into The Nature and Hunting publication. Sabaneev’s works include articles on ornithology and destruction of predatory animals, a manual for rifle and dog hunters, however, his main publication was titled Fishes of Russia. Life and catching of fresh-water fishes in Russia in 2 volumes. By the end of his rather short life Leonid Sabaneev published the first volume of the work devoted to pointing dogs. This was unprecedented in both Russian and Western science. Wonderful books by Sabaneev allow to learn a lot about the history and daily life of the nation. For example, we can learn from his book about the fishes of Russia that as there was practically no connection to the Far Eastern regions of Russia in the late 19th century, those living in the European part of the country had no idea of red caviar.

Thus, if you come across “red caviar” in some books, you should bear in mind that this was cheap bream caviar worth 5 kopecks a pound. A pound of fresh sturgeon cost 40 kopecks in those times.