Six o'clock on a June morning in western Russia, sunshine spills across a farm yard as a woman carrying a pail approaches a milking barn. This classic rural scene is still common in parts of Russia today, but inside the barn the scene changes from common to bizarre. For there, standing in a milking stall is not a cow, a goat, or even a sheep, but Nella, a six foot tall 500kg moose.

Five year old Nella is one of the 58 moose at the Sumarokova moose farm. Although moose have also been domesticated in Scandinavia and Alaska, primarily as tourist attractions, what makes the farm at Sumarokova so unique is that it is the only farm in the world where moose are reared exclusively for their milk. Although highly nutritious, the milk is produced not primarily as a food, but for its therapeutic properties in the treatment of patients suffering from stomach ulcers, leukemia and radiation sickness.