In Russia, the reform of local self-government is being prepared by Senator Klishas and Deputy Krasheninnikov, satellite Internet from Elon Musk will be banned in January, the finalization of the law on QR codes is deleted from the President's orders … but Siberia and the Far East are not up to all this. Cities beyond the Ural Mountains are united in a crusade against the «dog law». The mayors assure that stray dogs eat people (and this, alas, is not a metaphor) in the “territory entrusted to them”, because the Federal Law-498 “On the responsible treatment of animals” does not allow to effectively deal with the threat.
On November 12, in Langepas, a pack of dogs gnawed at a 43-year-old woman, attacking her in a deserted place. The unfortunate woman died in the hands of doctors. A criminal case has been initiated.
On December 29, 2021, Sardana Sleptsova, a scientist and teacher, associate professor of the North-Eastern Federal University, head of the laboratory «Technologies of polymer nanocomposites», candidate of technical sciences, died in Yakutsk. She was also attacked by a pack of stray dogs. But this time a man died practically in the center of the city, in a place where dogs repeatedly attacked people, and this death received a great response throughout the country.
Frightened Yakut officials at first tried to pass off the death of a person as death from natural causes. reasons — the dogs allegedly already tormented the deceased, but the investigating authorities did not cover them up.
Perhaps — for the reason that a video from surveillance cameras almost immediately spread on social networks, which shows how a woman was attacked by dogs.< /p>
Currently, the Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Yakutia has initiated two criminal cases against unnamed «officials» under the article «negligence». The prosecutor's office of the republic, in turn, conducted inspections in all municipalities. According to the results, «355 violations of the law were revealed, in order to eliminate them, more than 220 acts of response were adopted.» But this will not return a person.
The tragedy in Yakutsk was preceded by repeated animal attacks on people in the same area — the vicinity of the city hippodrome. Moreover, the video recording of one of these attacks, committed on November 30 — a flock knocks a woman down and is already preparing to tear her, but the victim miraculously manages to get up and leave, fighting off with a bag — made a noise throughout the country. She bypassed many federal news agencies. The mayor's office of Yakutsk then announced the strengthening of measures to trap dogs, but the attacks did not stop, and ultimately ended in the death of a person.
While law enforcement agencies are investigating, the public and politicians of Yakutia have declared the main culprit of the tragedy to be a man who was not even in Yakutsk, a well-known Russian «scientist» with a beautiful dissertation and certificate, former head of the department of political science and sociology at Plekhanovka, former deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Education Vladimir Burmatov , deputy of the State Duma, author of the law «On the responsible treatment of animals.»
According to this law, the killing (even humane) of stray animals is prohibited. Regional authorities have the right only to catch the same dogs, sterilize them, treat them and return them to their usual habitats. That is, back to the streets.
Only aggressive individuals dangerous to humans are not subject to return. For their maintenance, it is necessary to build shelters where dogs should be kept for life.
There were no federal funds for financing or at least co-financing of such shelters — Mr. Burmatov introduced a bill with a zero FEF (financial and economic justification). The regional authorities are responsible for the dogs, but almost everywhere they have delegated authority to the municipalities, which are getting out in all sorts of ways. The allocated subventions are clearly not sufficient to fulfill the obligations.
Lack of funds is further facilitated by postscripts and shamelessly inflated estimates. For example, in Yakutsk, the cost of delivering a dog to the place of capture is almost 1.5 thousand rubles. This cost is equivalent to a three-hour rental of a local comfort class taxi.
In the capital of Yakutia, there is no shelter with life-long maintenance of animals, there is only PPBZH — a point of overexposure of neglected animals, which the former mayor of Yakutsk Sardana Avksentyeva (now a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation), in turn, shoved onto the public organization «Help Survive».
< p>December 8, 2021 — a little over two weeks before the tragedy — PPBZH announced that its enclosures were overcrowded and overexposure would begin releasing captured animals back into the streets, giving preference to the strongest and strongest individuals that can survive the harsh (up to -50 degrees ) Yakut winter.
“Dogs need to be let out, we have fewer and fewer places. The strongest, most well-fed and ready for the harsh winter will be selected for release. We kindly ask you not to pass them on the streets of the city, if possible, feed them.After the death of Sardana Sleptsova, the prosecutor's office of Yakutia introduced interim measures through the court — the PPBZH was forbidden to let dogs go outside, and the city administration began to prohibit feeding stray dogs and even organize raids on trade depots and wholesalers in order to check whether a «food base» was being created for neglected animals …
Yakutsk Mayor Yevgeny Grigoriev said that the city will receive a subvention of 31 million rubles in 2022 for the “dog issue”, which is almost 3 million rubles more than in the past year. According to municipal officials, this amount is still insufficient, at least three times more is needed.
State Duma deputy Vladimir Burmatov, unofficially appointed «public enemy No. 1» in Yakutia, does not recognize his responsibility for what happened, in turn emotionally (he is not used to it) blaming local municipal officials:
Vladimir Burmatov. Photo: Artem Geodakyan/TASS
Vladimir Burmatov,
Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation:
— [In Russia there is] sabotage of the implementation of the Federal Law on the Responsible Treatment of Animals by a number of regions and municipalities. Some regions openly advocate the return of the practice of euthanizing stray dogs, which is contrary to federal law and the Russian Constitution.
This comes from those regions where they have not tried to solve the problem for several years. And now they say: the law does not work here, give us back the right to euthanize.
The loudest example was Yakutia — on December 29, a woman died there … Applications began to come in from the region — to change [the federal law]. How does this fit in with the Russian Constitution? They didn't work all this time. Not a single shelter has been built in Yakutia!..
Mr. Burmatov is actively supported by animal activists from all over Russia.
Worrying about dogs, they actively condemn any attempts to restore the practice of their euthanasia, and fellow countrymen of the deceased Sardana Sleptsova, who demand to exterminate at least aggressive dogs, are called non-humans, cursed to the seventh knee. Some in their emotions reach calls to drop an atomic bomb on Yakutsk or feed the entire population to dogs alive:
“You have already shown the whole world what kind of people you are [obscene], you don’t feel sorry for such nonhumans, let them eat you all alive.”
Even insults based on nationality are used, which has already led to the initiation of an administrative case against one of the activists and a fine under Art. 20.3.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation — «for actions aimed at inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliating the dignity of a person or a group of persons on the basis of gender, race, nationality.» The Yakutsk City Court recently made the corresponding decision.
The population of Yakutia responds to accusations and insults with a response to hate, calling the activists «zooshiz» and demanding that they be equated with an extremist organization. General indignation ricocheted off local animal lovers, community organization volunteers trying to save vagrants by getting them off the streets. They become scapegoats in the eyes of society, are condemned and publicly shamed — “because of you, a person died.”