Blogger who befriended raven Gosha dies at 29
Aleksandr and Gosha appeared to be inseparable companions.
Late last week, residents of the Perm region (PriKamye, in the Urals) said farewell to 29-year-old blogger Aleksandr Chugaynov. Several years ago he rescued and took in a tiny raven chick, then decided to share the bird«s growth and achievements on his social media — today Gosha is a grown and very intelligent raven. Thanks to the bond between Aleksandr and Gosha and the bird»s abilities, their blog grew quickly, and they gained fans across Russia and even beyond its borders: on TikTok alone they have more than a million subscribers. In this article we look back at the story of this duo and at the kind of man Aleksandr was.
A young Aleksandr smiles in a black jacket in a school-era photo.
“I«ve always had either mice or lizards living with me”
Gosha nuzzles his owner in what looks like a kiss.
Aleksandr Chugaynov was born in Lysva (Perm region, Russia) in 1996, grew up there, and in 2003 gained a younger brother, Aleksey. Nature interested Aleksandr from early childhood, and from a young age he was drawn to naturalism — the Lysva native recounted this himself in a 2024 interview with Elena Pogrebizhskaya. As a teenager, however, he decided to tie his life to economics: it seemed a far more lucrative field.
Aleksandr devoted long hours each day to the raven«s care.
“I collected beetles, spiders, lizards,” Aleksandr shared. “I«ve always had either mice or lizards living with me. I collected grasshoppers. But when I was in school, biology as an education didn»t appeal to me. So I thought economists earn more. I studied in Yekaterinburg, but fate still brought me together with nature.”
A short video recounts the bond between Aleksandr and Gosha.
In the end, after school Aleksandr enrolled at Ural State Mining University in Yekaterinburg — the second-oldest university in Russia specializing in training mining engineers. There he completed a program for engineer-economists, but he worked in the profession only briefly, as the scale and rhythm of Yekaterinburg did not sit well with him, Aleksandr shared in the interview.
Gosha was only two weeks old when Aleksandr found him.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the young man returned home to the settlement of Kalinino near Lysva. Aleksandr realized this was what he had been missing in the concrete jungle — forests, fields, life on the land, and open space. So he began living with his mother and younger brother in a private house. This played right into his hands: the young man loved the forest and hiking. Aleksandr began working remotely as an SMM manager and also took up gathering forest and mountain herbs and selling fermented teas made from them.
One of the most widely shared videos featuring the raven.
“I found Gosha in the forest. Purely by chance”
Aleksey explains in a video message how his brother died.
In 2020, while walking in the forest, Aleksandr noticed a spruce felled by a storm, and beside it a little raven chick, covered by a branch. The bird was two weeks old — it could not have survived on its own. So without much hesitation Aleksandr decided to take the raven chick for himself and named him Gosha. The young man had no experience raising birds at all; before that, only dogs and cats had lived in his home. Despite this, he began caring for little Gosha: for instance, at first he fed him live mice and cottage cheese every 15 minutes. He started filming the chick«s growth on camera and then posting the progress on social media.
The raven appears forlorn after losing his longtime companion.
“I found Gosha in the forest,” Chugaynov shared. “Purely by chance. I love going on hikes — I loved it before and I still do. And on one such hike I saw several ravens flying over one spot and cawing loudly. I went over to see what was there. Maybe they had found some carcass. I look: a fir tree is lying there, clearly it fell during the night. I walked all around it and found a chick there. I took this chick home, because it would have died there, like all its other siblings. And literally a few days later I started recording video purely for myself, for the archive. I uploaded it to YouTube, showed how he was growing. That«s how ‘Voron TV’ (Raven TV) came about.”
Aleksandr took Gosha seriously. The raven grew, and his owner began teaching him commands: Gosha turned out to be incredibly clever. He learned to distinguish colors and quickly understood which color, for example, was called red and which was blue, grasped the names of various objects, learned to perform commands, crack nuts, and even help his owner around the house. In an interview with Elena Pogrebizhskaya, Aleksandr said that Gosha could sort shapes into a children«s sorter: a star into the star-shaped hole, a cube into the cube-shaped hole, and so on.
“And if he can«t do it for a long time, he starts getting nervous and scattering everything,” Aleksandr said with a smile.
A very clever Gosha drew attention from people around the world
Later Gosha began solving more complex puzzles and playing tic-tac-toe with Chugaynov — videos of these tricks quickly spread across the internet. Over the course of his life Gosha has learned about 37 commands.
Videos of how Aleksandr and Gosha live together, and of the clever bird performing tricks, made the pair recognizable across the country. TikTok videos began racking up millions of views, and after a while Chugaynov became a winner of the all-Russian ‘Videli Video’ (We Saw Video) contest. People followed Gosha«s achievements and his adventures with his owner for years. Together they went out into nature, into the forest, on various trips — every outing became a separate story on the blog. And once Gosha and Aleksandr were even written about in the American outlet the Daily Mail.
Subscribers came to see Gosha not merely as an exotic pet but as a genuine personality with character: people noticed his habits, behavioral quirks, remembered his favorite games and the way he communicates with Aleksandr himself. For example, Gosha always loved bathing in the snow.
In 2024 Aleksandr was dating a girl he had met when Gosha was already living with him, but before their blog took off. In the same interview with Elena Pogrebizhskaya, Chugaynov admitted sheepishly that he was not yet planning to marry and start a family, although his girlfriend had thoughts of moving to a more serious stage in their relationship.
“For now I somehow don«t have the desire for it,” Aleksandr shared, as if reluctantly. “What»s happening now suits me. If I understand that I need a family, then I«ll think based on that.”
“I don«t even get that kind of checkup myself”
Aleksandr spent about four hours a day on Gosha: training, care, and communicating with him. The owner«s acquaintances, however, often did not appeal to the pet — the exception was the owner of a female raven, whom Aleksandr and Gosha visited. At the same time, Gosha did not pay much attention to the female herself, and when they ended up in the same enclosure, they would start quarreling and fighting. Aleksandr explained this by saying that a raven raised by a human does not see other birds as members of its own species. Only Aleksandr did Gosha perceive as like himself.
Popularity brought its perks: thanks to donations from subscribers, Aleksandr could provide Gosha with quality food — lean meat, such as chicken, partridge, and beef. The bird was also fed cottage cheese, vegetables, and insects — so Gosha received a complete diet. About 82,000 rubles a year (roughly $900 at current rates) went on Gosha«s medical checkups.
“I don«t even get that kind of checkup myself,” Aleksandr joked. “It»s a big part of the expenses. But birds burn out from illness very quickly. You can«t visually determine whether it»s sick or not. Thanks to the support of subscribers, we managed to beat his pneumonia and intestinal inflammation. If we hadn«t detected it, he would most likely have died.”
With proper care, a domestic raven can live up to 75 years. Aleksandr confirmed that in that case Gosha could be called his ‘companion for life.’
On 13 August, Aleksandr made his last post on Telegram, uploading a video of himself improving his plot of land. The young man spoke about his plans to build a house in the forest.
“After the 19th, Gosha and I will head into the forest — I think on 20 or 21 August. And we«ll stay there for a week,” the blogger shared. “I think he»ll really enjoy flying free out there.”
“He and his bird are a true treasure of our country”
Aleksandr«s death became known on 21 August: a post appeared in the ‘Nekrolog — Lysva’ (Obituary — Lysva) community on VKontakte saying that he had died on 19 August. The author of the post was the blogger»s brother, Aleksey Chugaynov, who confirmed the tragic news to 59.RU but declined to say more.
On 22 August, Aleksandr was buried.
“He was a great guy, he helped raise my bird too,” acquaintances wrote under the post. “He and his bird are a true treasure of our country.”
Later, a video address from his brother Aleksey appeared on all of Aleksandr«s social media. In it, the young man spoke about how he had died. Many did not believe that Aleksandr was gone.
“For many of us he was in fact an incredibly good, responsive person with the kindest soul,” Aleksey says in the video. “Many wrote that the information was fake. No, unfortunately, it«s not fake. Sasha made this choice, it was only his choice. We could not influence his decision in any way, unfortunately. It all happened in an instant.”
The young man addressed Aleksandr and Gosha«s subscribers and thanked them for their attention and support of the blog.
“Thank you all for being with us throughout the whole time Gosha was growing, when we did livestreams, watched films, when Sasha and Slava walked through the forest, all the hikes and trips to the forest… Thank you for being with us,” Aleksey told subscribers.
“He sits on this perch and looks toward the forest”
Subscribers flooded the channel and the group with words of sympathy and condoled with Aleksey over his loss. Most people asked what would become of Gosha himself and how he was coping with the loss of his owner. So a couple of days after the funeral, Aleksey shared a video of the raven: the bird in his enclosure looks lost.
“I wanted to come out [online] and say that he«s all right, everything»s fine. He sits, runs, jumps, he«s fine,” Aleksandr»s brother says in the clip. “Yes, he misses Sasha — it«s really noticeable that he sits on this perch and looks toward the vegetable garden, toward the forest.”
Aleksey and other relatives of Aleksandr are looking after Gosha: feeding him, caring for him, trying to establish contact with the bird. The raven is not being moved anywhere, however — he lives at home. At the end of the video, Aleksandr«s brother promised to tell subscribers of the ‘Voron TV’ blog about further changes in Gosha»s fate.
Even TV presenter Viktoriya Bonya reacted to Aleksandr«s death. She wrote several comments under a video about Aleksandr on Instagram*. She lamented that very many young people are dying this year.
“I follow Gosha. May Aleksandr rest in peace,” the TV presenter wrote. “What is going on? So many young people have died this year.”
* Instagram is owned by Meta, which is designated an extremist organization and banned in Russia.
