(Historic) Alexandra Burtseva,

Alexandra Burtseva with Dr Dmitry Donskoy and researcher Dmitri Bayanov. 1972

Alya with a local enthuziast Asadulla and other seekers on the ancient stone made "sofa" in Talysh. 1970

Rene Dahinden? Jeanne Koffmann, Dmitri Bayanov with me in our home than. December, 1971

Drawing by Alexandra Burtseva on the PGFilm.

One of the small sculptures by Alexandra.

This is Igor Burtsev's ex-wife who had her own impact upon Alma research. This is in Igor's words so it may not be grammatically correct.

This June 16, there is 14 years since Alexandra Burtseva, my ex–ex-wife, passed away being about 70 years old (her BD was June 21, 1940). In this regard, I would like to tell a little about her role in researching the topic of bigfoot.

I began my search and research with her: together we went on a search expedition by Jeanna Kofmann to the Caucasus in the summer of 1965. There we were convinced of the reality of the creature, we were looking for, from the stories of local residents. Later, after my long illness and the birth of our son and later daughter, Alya and I went on an expedition again – this time on our own, in Talysh, in southern Azerbaijan, in the summer of 1970. There we met with many eyewitnesses, and Alya recorded about three dozen of their messages. (A couple of them were later illustrated by the artist Lydia Burtseva, the wife of our son, with her drawings.)

At the end of 1971, Canadian Rene Dahinden came to us, brought with him a copy of a movie made by Roger Patterson in 1967, and we dug into its research. Alexandra did a lot of work in this direction, since later in 1972-74 I went to work in Yemen twice for a half of a year. Alya met with specialists, for example, found a biomechanic Dr Dmitry Donskoy, and many others. And she attracted sculptors - Nikita Lavinsky and others (he was the chairman of the association of sculptors in Moscow). Moreover, she herself took up the creation of a life-size sculpture of Patty in clay, in Lavinsky’s workshop. (Then it had to be destroyed, but small copies remained).) Alexandra was in Chukotka and Kamchatka (which are across the strait from Alaska). And there she collected interesting reports. She flew also to Western Siberia in search of the missing Yeti seeker Vladimir Pushkarev…

Well, then life divorced us… But she continued both expeditions and other research. And in 1997, she participated in an international conference with attended by American anthropologist Grover Krantz and Canadian John Green, and Russian seekers from various locations…