The lion tamer Irina Bugrimova with a lion in the early 1960s

The lion tamer Irina Bugrimova with a lion in the early 1960s. Photograph by Semyon Mishin-Morgenstern.

Irina Bugrimova was the first woman lion tamer in the USSR and a People's Artist of the Soviet Union.

She was born on 13 March 1910 in Kharkiv, into the family of a professor of veterinary medicine. In her youth Bugrimova took up sport seriously, and in 1927 she became champion of the Ukrainian SSR in the shot put.

She began her circus career in 1931, together with her husband Alexander Buslayev, in the act The Sleigh Flight. She moved on to working with predators at the end of the 1930s, at the suggestion of the management of Gostsirk, the state circus administration. Her first charges were the lion cubs Gaius, Julius and Caesar, and Caesar became her favourite and devoted partner for 23 years.

Over a career that lasted until 1976, the tamer trained some 80 lions. Under her direction the beasts performed unique tricks: they walked a rope at a height of four metres, leapt through a ring of fire, rode a horse and a motorcycle, and swung together with their mistress on a swing beneath the circus dome. In the finale of her acts Bugrimova lay down upon a carpet of lions' backs and fearlessly placed her head in the jaws of the predators. Every performance was built as a staged drama with a plot, in which the animals played their parts according to their characters: from lazy comedians to formidable adversaries.

The work was bound up with constant risk: the performer repeatedly suffered serious injuries during rehearsals and performances. In 1976, after a grave incident in which the beasts rebelled in the ring, Bugrimova decided to end her career, having realised that the pride no longer saw in her an unquestioned leader.

In 1979, for outstanding services, Irina Bugrimova was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labour. After the end of her appearances in the ring she devoted herself to public work in the Society for the Protection of Animals and the Council of Veterans of Rosgostsirk. She died on 20 February 2001 in Moscow.