The Almas are purportedly a race of wild men said to haunt the forrests of the Siberian wastelands of northern Russia. Unlike the more notable Yeti and Meteh of the Himalayan mountains, the Almas are more closely matched to humans in stature and are regarded with little more than indifference by the local natives. Perhaps the most plausible and well documented sighting of an Alma was reported in August of 1957 by a Russian scientist and hydrologist, Alexander G. Pronin. Pronin described the creature as '... a being of unusual aspect - reminiscent of a man's figure, but with a strongly hunched back - his arms are longer than in the ordinary man (and) covered in with reddish gray hair.'
N.M. Pzewalski and the noted zoologist Khaklov both came across tales of the Almas from the Kazakh herdsmen in the Dzungaria, a region bordered by the Altai Mountains to the north and the Tien Shan Mountains to the south. Even though there are occasional reports of Almas having raided farms in search of food, the beings are treated with tolerance, beign considered an inferior form of humans and therefore more pitied than feared.
Several expeditions into Alma territory has been fielded by Professor Jeanne J. Kofman, resulting in numerous stories but no tangible proof of the creatures existence.
