The Altai Mountain breed of goat was bred in 1944 after crossing local goats with Don and Angora goats. As a result, there appeared a specimen with thick hair and sharply curved horns, unpretentious, with high quality meat and giving more milk than an ordinary goat.

But it turned out that over time the descendants of the Gorno-Altai goats began to very much resemble ordinary Altai bleating creatures. The new breed could not displace the old inhabitants of Altai, and today is absorbed by the local goat species, whose genes have proved to be stronger.

Text and photo: Dmitriy Strakhov