State Bol­sh­erechen­sky Zoo named after V.D. Solo­mati­na is the only rur­al zoo in Rus­sia. Its area is 9 hectares and it is locat­ed in the pic­turesque flood­plain of the Bol­shaya Riv­er, not far from its con­flu­ence with the Irtysh. Usu­al­ly, zoos appear first in cities, but in the Omsk region the only zoo is locat­ed in a region­al vil­lage, 200 km from the region­al cen­ter. Despite the dis­tance from the region­al cen­ter, more than 100 thou­sand peo­ple vis­it it annu­al­ly. The Bol­sh­erechen­sky Zoo is still young; in 1982, it was start­ed by a school zoo, locat­ed in the court­yard of an ordi­nary sec­ondary school No. 2. You can still see the remains of cages for preda­to­ry ani­mals here. The col­lec­tion was col­lect­ed grad­u­al­ly, and these were main­ly local ani­mals brought by vil­lage res­i­dents. A wound­ed roe deer, a duck caught in a net, a lit­tle fox, an orphaned bear cub, even a tiger cub. Swans hatched from eggs at a poul­try farm splashed in a small pond; neigh­bor­ing state farms donat­ed don­keys, ponies, and camel cubs. The chil­dren eager­ly looked after the zoo’s pets, con­duct­ed excur­sions for the kids them­selves, and rode ponies.