Tragic story of a family that had three massive lions as pet (Part 1)

In the 1970s, there was a family in Soviet Union which kept real lions as home pets in their small apartment in Baku city (now Azerbaijan). The head of the family – his name, ironically, was Leo (or Lion in Russian) was a normal Soviet architect. One day, he got a lion cub from the zoo. The little lion had been rejected by his mom-lioness and people of the zoo lost hope to bring him up. So Leo kept a cub for himself. This was the beginning of a long happy story with a really tragic ending. And this is not what you probably think happened.
He had succeeded in feeding a lion. The animal started to grow, right in the family apartment of Leo. It was a normal family of four – Leo, his wife, and two their kids.The lion was growing and was totally peaceful towards people. In less than one year, it turned to a full grown animal with a huge hair mane. They called him “King” and they were saying that his temper was of a noble one.
Leo’s wife, Nina, always buttressed: “The young lion loved her husband a lot. And was treating me gently, as a woman. But at a time, some other feelings towards me arouse in the animal. He started to sleep between us on our bed and was often pushing my husband out of the bed. He probably was jealous.
Their family friend who visited them often said: “King was a really kind animal. They took him as a very little one, and his front paws were paralyzed. The family was massaging his paws non-stop until he started walking. And he behaved like a normal cat. The only problem – he was fond of licking guests. And his tongue was like a real sand paper. But if you hush him a little he would run away into the corner or on the top shelf which was his nest.”
Their neighbors however were not so happy about the lion living in their apartment block. They complained at the smell and also were irritated at the roar from the lion, sometimes even at night. Also meeting a 400 pound lion in the hallway or in the elevator was not too exciting for them, obviously.The woman also told that they were putting the stainless steel nets on the balcony so that the lion couldn’t escape from their second floor apartment and then they were letting it walk freely around the place. “If he was too bored he just arrived to our bed, climbed on it, pushed out of the bed me or my husband and went to sleep till the next morning. Also kids were doing everything they wanted with him – rode him as a pony, were pulling his whiskers off etc – he never replied with anger”.
After some time as more and more people were learning about such an exotic pet, they started getting offers from the movie makers to use their pet for filming. So they started bring the animal to the set and soon it participated in a few very popular Soviet flicks. This allowed the family to travel a lot, to get acquainted with some famous people such as movie stars and famous directors and of course to earn some extra income which helped them keeping an animal. However this business had a tragical ending.