Russian intelligentsia has applied to President Dmitry Medvedev with a petition of passing a federal Act “On Protection Animals Against Abuse”. Many famous members of the Russian intelligentsia signed the letter, with Valentin Gaft (actor), Bella Akhmadulina (poetess), Evgeny Evtushenko (poet), Oleg Tabakov (actor and stage director) and other celebrities among them.    

Reminding, a month ago Elena Kamburova presented to journalists a group of animal protection activists who were to raise signatures for the open letter to the President’s name. Now 3,000 signatures have been collected within a month.  

As the authors believe, the absence of regulating norms in the legislature defining the humane treatment towards animals causes the cases of abuse. “Sharp necessity has appeared today of building up civilized attitude towards animals by people. This is not only a juridical and ecological task, this is a moral and pedagogic task, for any evil in any form affects first of all the souls of children” write the authors of the letter.  

“The only juridical basis we dispose of is Article 245 in the Criminal Code” explained Irina Novozhilova, the president of animal protection center named “Vita”. “Eight years ago a draft was introduced to the Duma about the bill ‘On protection of animals against abuse’, but it failed to be considered, and this spring it was just dismissed from the list of consideration”.     

Two federal Acts are effective in Russia – “On Animal World” and “On sanitary-hygienic well-being of the population”. None of them protects the animals, for example, against cruel methods of killing and does not provide for norms of capture of stray animals.  

The waifs and strays issue is solved differently in the regions. In most cities the animals are just shot. Six years ago a program of sterilization instead of shooting was adopted in Moscow, and 900 million rubles have been allotted by Moscow government recently for construction of mega-shelters for the stray animals. It is planned to build 17 shelters for 2, 3, 5 thousands stray dogs. That way the municipal authorities have been trying to solve the problem of stray dogs, the number which is estimated to be 26,000 in the capital.   

However, the animals protection activists believe that mega-shelters are not capable of settling the problem fully. Irina Novozhilova considers that “the program of sterilizing the stray animals and shelter construction are only good as an addition to the main step – that’s strict state control over animal breeding”.