Natasha Kameneva is sharp and persistent. Can call 15 times in a row and make anyone pick up the phone. Maybe to hell with a robber who broke into her store. He can single-handedly solve the problem of a large village, which the authorities consider unsolvable. She just cannot understand why, when you do something good yourself, then others come and try to destroy and take away what has been done.
Natasha herself completely got rid of stray dogs from the Pomeranian village of Umba in the south of the Murmansk region. She built a shelter for them, established a system of humane trapping and sterilization. Almost everything is at your own expense. Now her dogs are threatened to be taken away and taken 360 km away to a businessman who receives budget money for trapping stray dogs. He is also criticized by journalists and activists for strange business practices and conditions for keeping animals.
“The dog came to me to give birth in the store. And by that time I had a donated toy terrier and a lapdog whose owner had died — I took her. I thought that I would not have any more dogs, I did not dream about it at all. Andryusha and I were boarding up the store so as not to let her give birth. And she came and asked for help, so that I would take delivery. gave birth. I had to feed. It all started with this,” says Natalia. She has four more children, three of the younger ones are adopted: 2 years old, 4 and 6 years old.
When the dog Belka came to give birth on the threshold of Natasha's store, Kameneva was just studying at the school of foster parents, and her plans for life were completely different.
Almost each of Natasha's hundreds of dogs has its own house. And your name. Names are not repeated. The shelter is called «Belkin House» — in honor of the first dog, which is called the «first settler» here. The shelter is located on the territory of an abandoned oil depot. There were bare walls. Now there is light, a road, enclosures. The land is not free: Belkin Dom annually pays 26,000 for rent to the municipality.
Photo: Alexander Rusinov
The husband and eldest son built enclosures and equipped a veterinary laboratory. Volunteers put together warm booths. And local activist Alexander Rusinov pasted a sign on each of them with the name of one of the lumber stations that once existed around Umba: Kuzreka, Moseevo, Pogost, Kostarikha … The lumber stations have long been closed and forgotten, and many spent their childhood there, and I want to keep this memory. Such a dog museum turned out.
As you know, sterilized and non-aggressive animals in Russia are returned to their habitat. Which causes a lot of criticism and controversy. Natasha does not «return» anyone — read, does not expel. Only attaches, whom he can, in good hands. I've built dozens already. The rest is at his own expense. Therefore, for two years in the village of Umba, which was besieged by packs of dogs in the spring, there are no more homeless animals. Minus 20 «wild animals» who walk on the outskirts. At night, Natalya sets up a huge trap of her own design there, which she calls a seine — Pomors have been fishing with seines for centuries. Now — dogs.
“I’m already slowly raising people. They call, asking if it is possible to let the dog out of the yard for a walk? There is almost no self-walking left in the village,” Kameneva says wearily.
Her family is not at all rich. She doesn’t really know how much money she spends on the shelter a month: how much she has, that’s how much she spends, almost everything.
At first, the Treasury paid a little: trapping, sterilization and 10-day quarantine of one dog was estimated at 4,500 rubles, which is half the market value.
After these procedures, dogs recognized as aggressive, which cannot be released into the habitat, are taken into account by the municipality — 173 days after capture. The municipality had to pay Kamenev for their maintenance — 165 rubles a day. But he didn't. There are 45 such dogs.On each doghouse there are stickers with the names of lumber camps that used to exist around Umba. Photo: Alexander Rusinov
Since September, the settlement has owed more than half a million to Kamenev. And the Kamenevs owed the feed suppliers. Recently, a cry was thrown on the social network: the debt went off scale for 120 thousand. People began to chip in, some for 50 rubles, some for a hundred. In the Belkin House public page, poignant reports appeared: “They still don’t transfer money for dogs, the gas has run out in the shelter. I had to open a bank with donations and spend part of the funds on the needs of the shelter. We ask you to be active in such a difficult time, even minimal donations of money or products will be very useful to us now.”
“There are 102 dogs living in our shelter, 45 of them are recognized as aggressive. By law, after capture, we cannot release aggressive dogs into the wild, their existence in the shelter is provided by the municipality. Despite the hype raised in the summer, the money did not reach our account. We will again appeal to the Governor Chibis Andrey Vladimirovich, we will write letters to the Veterinary Committee of the Murmansk Region.”
And when someone sent a parcel with food or came for free on a tractor to clear the area of snow, a funny entry appeared in the public: “We say to the whole shelter: “Wow-wow!” (Thank you so much!)”.
When at a recent meeting with Vice Governor Olga Kuznetsova, district officials were asked if they had helped the shelter in any way in two years, they haltedly replied: “Last year, subordinate institutions allocated household waste to the shelter.”
Natalia. Photo: Tatyana Britskaya/Novaya Gazeta
Hearing our steps on the crisp snow, the inhabitants of the booths burst into joyful barking: Natasha knows everyone. In a warm box puppies. Ordinary traps do not take them, they say, they are not dangerous for society — until they grow up. At a recent round table on the problems of stray animals, one of the «catchers» reproached Natalya — they say, why do you take them? «That's my business, I'm not asking you for money for them,» snapped Kameneva. She also responds to caustic remarks that the law does not require non-aggressive dogs to be kept in shelters for life. “And who feels bad because I have dogs left? Should they go wild again and attack people? They are undergoing rehabilitation with us, and I am pleased when the dog changes. In the family — at least take everyone. And if we let them out, all the inhabitants will howl.”
Tanya cleans the box. Tanya has traces of a turbulent life on her face. This is community service for her — for alimony debt. In the first days, she hardly spoke, and then slowly warmed up — she learned to work and communicate. On New Year's Eve — Natasha did her best — Tanya received a gift and a treat. First time in many years.
Thanks to my husband and son. It is impossible for one person to pull. Son loves animals. And my husband loves me and therefore suffers, ”Kameneva laughs. She cooks a 300-liter lunch for the dog brethren. She breaks ice in the yard herself, she pays the visiting veterinarian for sterilization.
At the end of the year, the unpaid contract with the settlement expired, and when forming a new tender, the officials decided to save money: 50 rubles were determined for the maintenance of one dog per day, including feeding and care. Natasha refused to play by such rules. And then the Leviathan began. The competition was won by the enterprise «Atlant» from the village of Murmashi. How the traps will arrive from there 360 km away is a question (according to the standards, they must be on site no later than 4 hours after the application is received).
Atlas is owned by former drug offender Mihai Andronaki. He has been a dog hunter for many years. In September, by the way, he sent 9 dogs from Murmashi, recognized as aggressive, to the shelter of Kameneva — for an eternal settlement. According to Natalya, they had to pay the same 165 rubles a day for each. Not a ruble was transferred.
Photo: Tatyana Britskaya/Novaya Gazeta
There are many complaints about Andronaki's business. Five years ago, Novaya told how the owners complain that the four-legged trappers are almost torn out of their hands. And then they demand money. In parallel, receiving remuneration «per unit» from the budget.
More than once, animal rights activists had questions about the conditions for keeping animals in quarantine. On the territory of the «shelter» they found the corpses of dogs in the blood.