Some of the world’s rarest animals – white lions – have travelled all the way from Africa to a new home in the Russian city of Saratov. They are being trained to join one of the country’s most renowned entertainment troupes, the Zapa

“It will take a whole year to prepare them so that they become accustomed to human beings and the human world and life in a closed space. After that we will start physical training, the real work. They'll get used to the idea that a human is a friend and at work he is master, he is the leader of the pride,” Askold Zapashny says.

It’s a role that head trainer Vasily Balyuk has fulfilled for almost 20 years.  He has raised many of the Zapashny circus animals from birth and they treat him as one of their own.

The white lions are a special project for him.

“We won’t train them in the full meaning of the word. Because what we want to do is show the animal off, not our training skills. The animals are very graceful and beautiful in the wild. And we want to show that in the ring,” Vasily Balyuk stresses. 

But it’ll be many more months before the lions make their debut in the Big Top.