Ran across this company today that has resurrected some older sled models.

https://youtu.be/NyUbrKrqQOo

https://stelsoffroad.com/snowmobiles-stels/

The first youtube will get Sharon's attention at 19 minutes
Those must be stone marten s. foina around Lake Baikal valued at 1 Euro to the trapper
upon further review looks like S. zibeline Marten since there is no throat patch.

Those are very typical-looking Barguzin sables (Martes zibellina princeps) you are talking about. They are the dominant subspecies around the lake Baikal. A few years ago they cost up to 8000 roubles ($250 back then), but this year, local buyers offer around RUR 1500-2000 (~$20, because the rouble devalued).

(long-time lurker, first-time poster here on Trapperman. Greetings from Siberia!)

Interesting, that Viking has a 155x24 track which makes it a super wide track. Not a lot of info on the two motor options, curious as to who makes the motors they are using, I note that both the 2-stroke and the 4-stroke specify 92 octane fuel. I've never ran one of the old single ski skidoos so I'm not sure what advantage that design would be, but always assumed with the dual tracks in the rear it wouldn't steer very good at all.

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It's about time !!

Thanks for posting and shedding some light on the sleds and marten Tatiana.

Are the sable of a shorter, wider build than American marten, or are they similar but stretched shorter and wider?

Thanks for the up-date and filler Tatiana.
My only experience was my friend went to Lake Baikal but most of his month was after shorebirds.
They are a lot heavier than our marten 30/06
1.8 kg some males get to. The heaviest that I have weighed is 1.35kg with our marten. those form to a full 3xl on our forming boards.
I have done 10 or so from the taiga around Gilliam MB and those went 1.25 kg average

Just like here in North America, Siberia is a huge place and the sable differ in size depending on the section.

Several year ago I had the opportunity to look at several thousand Russian Sable skins, they were from all the different sections of Siberia. The variety of colors and sizes depending upon the section was remarkable. If I recall some of them from along one of the big rivers in central Siberia were relatively pale compared to the sable in the video posted above, they were nearly identical to many of the marten I've seen from parts of Alaska.

Regarding how they are stretched. A Russian friend of mine here in the States showed me how to do it several years ago. Essentially take a fairly large size marten board, pull the inside-out skin down the board but instead of hooking the nose of the marten over the end of the board you pull board up completely through the mouth hole of the marten. Pull the skin about half way down the board or maybe a little more, you then pleat the skin just like we used to pleat otter tails. You have to be careful that you don't pleat it so tight that the skin taints between the pleats. The object is to get it so the length of the skin is about equal to the length of the tail.

I did three marten like this once and sent them to auction, they sold right along with the rest of my marten just fine; not quite sure how they sized them though, maybe just by feel.

Russian sable have a very pleasant smell, like marten, but it is a little different than marten.

Tatiana, is "Yugra" your town?

Sables are actually very similar to North American martens, and most weigh around 900 g - 1300 g skinned. I've heard of bigger sables, but they are very rare. A zoologist friend who has studied the sable his whole life says the biggest he's seen was around 1.8 kg. The largest sables are said to live on the Kamchatka peninsula (and they have amazing dark, thick, glossy fur). There are also very big sables to the north from where I live, in the Yamal peninsula (they tend to be very light-colored and fuzzy).

In our area (Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a.k.a. Yugra, a region in the middle of the river Ob basin in West Siberia), sables are relatively large, light- and dull-colored (i.e. grayish rather than reddish). Their fur is less silky than in Barguzin's but the underfur is thicker and longer. They belong to the type subspecies (M. zibellina zibellina), and the area around our village is one of the few places with aboriginal population, unaffected by the massive reintroduction program when they released dark sables from East Siberia, Yakutia and Kamchatka to repopulate areas where the sables had been wiped out or to "improve" the local population.

As for the shape of the pelts in the video, it's because of the stretchers they use, so it's not just the pleating. There used to be strict state-regulated rules (nowadays, it's just guidelines) about the size and shape of stretchers for sables of a particular "kryazh". Kryazh (an old word meaning "mountain range") is a technical term of the fur industry that is parallel to "subspecies" in zoology, but focuses on pelt properties. Around the lake Baikal, they use wide 3-part stretchers - originally, they were intended to minimize cuts on the pelt. This way, you can skin the sable with just one cut along the gums and four small cuts on the paws:



Further East (in the Far East of Russia and on Kamchatka) they use even shorter, rounder stretchers so that the final product looks like a frying pan with a tail. Here is a link to a forum with good pictures: https://amur-bereg.ru/threads/promysel-sobolja.4716/page-127#post-526142

In our area, we use simple long stretchers similar to those for North American martens. The same stretchers are used for the Pine marten (Martes martes) in European Russia and for marten-sable hybrids (kidases).
Here's an example of what we catch here:


Sorry, I've gone off topic

Sorry ,I've gone off topic; hyet.... (no)...education from another prospective is all important
This last thread should be moved over to ' the marten die off thread "

Tatiana,
Very interesting information, thanks so much.
When I I was looking at all those Sable skins many years ago I was wondering why some were stretched longer and very similar to our marten, and some were like you said, like little frying pans. I believe those little frying pan shape ones we're from Primorsky region??
They also had some skins that were apparently farm-raised. I remember they were huge and very uniformly dark, they were stretched long, but seemd to lack some character though.

Tatiana,
I would like to hear about your trapping methods; traps, bait, lure, etc..

Northof50,
Good idea, maybe "international sable" or something like that.

Pretty difficult to split or splice different treads

^^^^^
Yes, not really a big deal, we all know where this discussion is taking place.
If anything, I suppose the OP could retitle this thread.

Yes

Tatiana I don't mind the thread hijack one bit. Like everyone else has said thank you for your explanations and insight, its very informative.

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