Saturn (born 1936) is a Mississippi alligator contained in the Moscow Zoo . Best known as a character in an urban legend , according to which he was Adolf Hitler's personal alligator.
| Saturn | |
|---|---|
| View | Mississippi alligator |
| Floor | male |
| Date of Birth | 1936 |
| Place of Birth | Mississippi , USA |
| A country |  Russia |
| Occupation | The animal from the zoo. |
Born in 1936 in the state of Mississippi in the USA, Saturn was soon transferred to the Berlin Zoo . It was here that his connection with Adolf Hitler arose, since Hitler allegedly loved visiting the zoo, where he especially liked the alligator. However, when Hitler could consider Saturn at the zoo, he was not his personal pet. During the Second World War, the Berlin Zoo was destroyed, and Saturn was discovered by British soldiers, who in 1946 transferred it to the USSR. Since then, he lived in the Moscow Zoo and has become one of its most famous and popular attractions.
Content
- 1 Physical Description
- 2 Biography
- 3 References
- 4 External links
Physical Description
Saturn is described as having 2 [1] to 3.5 [2] m in length and 200 kg of weight. He has green scales, a wide mouth and yellow eyes.
Biography
Saturn was born outside in Mississippi , USA , in 1936. In the same year he was caught and sent to Berlin, where he was taken to the Berlin Zoo . [3] [4] It was during this period that a popular rumor arose that he was the “favorite” of Adolf Hitler . [5] [6] [7] [8] The author of this rumor could be Boris Akunin , who made such an assumption in the article. [9] [10] In reality, he was not Hitler's personal pet, as he was on display at the zoo. [11] However, some sources report that he was exposed at the zoo as part of Hitler’s personal menagerie, [12] and Dmitry Vasilyev, a veterinarian of the Moscow zoo, claims that although Saturn was not Hitler’s animal, they came into contact, so like Hitler, as you know, sometimes visited the Berlin Zoo.
During World War II, most of the Berlin Zoo was destroyed. Of the 16 thousand inhabitants, only 96 survived. When the aquarium building was destroyed as a result of a bomb explosion on November 23, 1943 , from 20 to 30 alligators and crocodiles were killed. The press reported that the streets near the aquarium were littered with the bodies of alligators and crocodiles, but some, including Saturn, survived and roamed the city in search of food.
At the end of the war, the area where the Berlin Zoo is located came under the jurisdiction of the British zone of occupation . In 1946, British soldiers discovered Saturn and brought it to Leipzig , then part of the Soviet zone of occupation , where they transferred it to the USSR. [13] Although the details of how Saturn came to Russia are unknown (since a tourist office burned down in Moscow in the 1950s), it is known that Red Army fighters transported Saturn with a tiger python to Moscow in July 1946 and delivered to Moscow Zoo . [14] When the alligator got there, it immediately became a popular attraction, since the zoo had only two crocodiles and no other alligator. Due to his German origin, he received the nickname Hitler, but he was later named Saturn. In 1993, when tanks moved along the Garden Ring , Saturn cried due to the vibration, which the zoo officials believed reminded him of the battle for Berlin .
In the 1950s The United States gave the Soviet Union a younger female alligator. They called her Shipka and began to mate with Saturn, but they did not produce offspring, since all Shipka's eggs were barren. Shipka, who was thirty years younger than Saturn, died before him, and Saturn was so upset by her death that for some time he refused food. By 2005, Saturn had a new girlfriend, who was then thirty years old.
In his time at the Moscow Zoo, Saturn nearly died several times. In the 1980s, a concrete slab fell off the ceiling of the aquarium. She fell into the office with an alligator, but, fortunately for Saturn, he took refuge in a protective niche in advance. In 1990, a new aquarium building was built, but Saturn resisted the transition, refused to eat food for four months, and was close to death. One day, wanting to wake him, a drunken visitor threw a cobblestone in his head, after which the zoo veterinarians fought for his life for several months. Once again, another group of tourists threw glass bottles at him, injuring him. After these incidents, the Saturn site was secured by adding a thick glass wall. In the 2010s, Saturn once again refused food, this time for almost a year. Zoo employees took blood samples for analysis and injected vitamins to save life. He eventually resumed eating.
Today, Saturn sleeps most of its time and eats fish, rabbits and rats twice a week. Vladimir Kudryavtsev, head of the Moscow Zoo's amphibian department, says that not many visitors today know its rich history. Today, zoo employees talk about the “German origin” of Saturn only for groups of schoolchildren. Ministers allow schoolchildren to poke a broomstick in Saturn’s department, because he’s usually peaceful. The only case of cruelty occurred in 1970, when he tried to bite an inexperienced caretaker who tried to feed him by hand.
In 2015, the French company Lacoste became the sponsor of Saturn.
Links
- ↑ RUSSIA: MOSCOW ZOO: ALLIGATOR | AP Archive . www.aparchive.com (December 24, 2000). Date of treatment February 27, 2017.
- ↑ Albes, Andreas . Kinder dürfen ihn auch schon mal piesacken (de-DE), stern.de (May 9, 2005).
- ↑ Akunin, Boris Boris Akunin "Saturn is almost invisible" (Inaccessible link) . www.moscowzoo.ru . Date of treatment June 28, 2017. Archived February 19, 2015.
- ↑ Kannte er Hitler? Zoo Moskau weiß nichts von brauner Vergangenheit seines Alligatoren (German) . de.sputniknews.com (January 27, 2017). Date of treatment February 27, 2017.
- ↑ Der letzte deutsche Kriegsgefangene: Alligator "Saturn" im Moskauer Zoo (German) , RT Deutsch .
- ↑ Egan, James. 1000 Facts about Animals Vol. 1 : [ eng. ] . - Lulu.com. - ISBN 9781326785079 .
- ↑ Egan, James. 3000 Facts About Animals : [ eng. ] . - Lulu.com. - ISBN 9781326723729 .
- ↑ Hitler's pet alligator is 85 and living in Moscow - Nearly First , archive.is (March 5, 2016). Archived March 5, 2016.
- ↑ Alligator from the Moscow zoo were suspected of having links with Hitler .
- ↑ Advertising and PR-campaign of the Moscow Zoo . Naewu.com . Date of appeal February 26, 2017. (unavailable link)
- ↑ Levkovich, Yevgeny . Legends of the Moscow Zoo: Reptilian rumors and killer crocs (English) , Russia Beyond The Headlines (February 24, 2017).
- ↑ Hitler's captured trophy crocodile can again be seen in the Moscow Zoo (Russian) , 360 Channel .
- ↑ The last prisoner - Adolf Hitler's pet ... - Ultimate moscow guide | Facebook . www.facebook.com . Date of treatment February 27, 2017.
- ↑ Dukess, Karen . 130 Years of History at the City Zoo , The Moscow Times (February 15, 1994).