Ivan Chepurnyi

“I remember celebrating a birthday there. We were invited to a birthday party. We came over, congratulated the guy, all nice and fine, just as it should be, and they gave us some meat to try. We tried it and asked, “Where did you get the chicken?” And they said, “It’s no chicken, it’s a snake.” It was tasty. Something to gnaw on, it’ll do.

When we found ourselves surrounded, we tightened our belts, we had to be smarter than that. That’s how I first tried snake meat in the army. We even had three species. I don’t know how they are actually called – one was long, we called it “python” because it was over two meters long with a reddish tint. That’s what I tried [the first time]. Snakes were everywhere – we were catching them at checkpoints, the guys from the 80th Brigade as well. They all tasted the same, one or the other. I don’t even know what it can be compared to, for someone who never tried it. It had a bit of an oily taste.”