An 80-year-old Russian man is alive and eating victory pies after fighting off a bear with his bare hands. A stock image of a Eurasian brown bear is pictured. (Photo : Wikimedia Commons )

An 80-year-old Russian man is alive and eating victory pies after fighting off a bear with his bare hands.

Yusuf Alchagirov, a shepherd in the southerly Kabardino-Balkaria region of Russia, was in a raspberry field when the bear approached him, according to the RIA Novosti news agency.

The octogenarian pulled a knife on the encroaching bear, but the ursine juggernaut quickly knocked it out of his hands.

Alchagirov and the bear tussled in the field, the man fought the animal with kicks, but the bear became enraged when Alchagirov struck it with a headbutt.

"The ensuing tussle culminated in the bear, enraged by the headbutt, throwing Alchagirov off a cliff and walking away," RIA said, citing a local television report. Alchagirov suffered bite wounds and four broken ribs, but he survived without a mauling. His family baked him several traditional pies to celebrate his survival, the Guardian reported.

"I got off easy. It would have killed me if I'd chickened out," Alchagirov said. It was unclear whether the bear suffered any lasting injuries.

Bears typically do not approach humans unless provoked or hungry, the Guardian reported, citing Russian experts. But severe flooding in Russia this year has destroyed much of the bear's natural feeding grounds and reports of hungry bears approaching villages in far eastern Russia are on the rise.

"In the region of Yakutia, one town witnessed six bear incursions in a month, and local authorities reported hungry animals breaking into people's houses and emptying the fridges," the Guardian reported. "The bears became such a nuisance that a programme was put in place to shoot the scavenging animals."