Dancing Bears

Book Review: Award-winning journalist Witold Szabłowski collects oral histories of Eastern Europe in Dancing Bears

For hundreds of years, Bulgarian Gypsies trained bears to perform. In the early 2000’s the practice was outlawed following the fall of communism, and the bears, who had only ever known their human family, were released into a reserve. Even now, years later, the bears still stand on their hind legs to dance whenever they…

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