During his professional career, Adrian Konstantinovitch Jefticheff was known by a variety of monikers, "the Man-Dog", "the Human Dog of the Caucausus", the Lion Man", "the Siberian Dog-Man",
"Monsieur Lion", among many others. He was born in a village outside the city of Tbilisi (Tiflis), in the Caucauses region of Czarist occupied Georgia (also later the birthplace of Josef Stalin). Jefticheff was one of nine siblings. The family was descended from early Greek settlers to the area. His name, ironically, was the Russified derivative of a Greek word meaning 'Good Fortune'. Early on, during his teens, Jefticheff worked as a labourer and house builder's wagon driver in Tbilisi. He later settled for the colourful Carnival life, eventually becoming a major attraction in Moscow and Saint Petersbourg, before being imported to the West by the Finland based Saarlaiinen family of promoters. He would also be under contract with "Lord" George Sanger and be routinely exhibited in Circuses, Menageries, and Sideshows in Germany (Casten), England, Finland, and France, where he is said to have died of lung disease, and was buried by the Eastern Orthodox Christian Synod of Paris. Jefticheff had traveled in the company of a woman named Galina Petrova, with whom he had two sons. One of the boys, Feodor, likewise afflicted with Hypertrichosis, would grow up to become that most Legendary World Renown Freak, "Jo-Jo the Dog Faced Boy". |
