Treatment of Dogs Shows How Russian Officials Reduce Good Intentions to Absurd Opposites, Doliyev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 1 – Russian officialdom has the capacity to turn any good intention into its opposite, Mikhail Doliyev says. When Russians demand that animals be free, officials decide that the dogs must be allowed to bite people; and when Russians oppose that, it means for officials that all the dogs must be exterminated.

            The Astrakhan activist and blogger says that it is now clear to everyone that “Russian officials, whatever they undertake, will act in ways so that everything turns out wrong. They are exceptionally good only at stealing, killing and poisoning” and that will subvert even the best-laid plans (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=64248EEA99539).

            Not long ago, officials in his city adopted a very humane law on the protection of dogs and cats. But Russian officials will ensure that it will never be implemented because they will steal everything and thus reduce “humanistic ideals to the point of absurdity,” leaving shelters without food and leading them to kill many animals that shouldn’t be.

            Those who have been bitten by dogs in the street have every right to demand protection from the state, Doliyev continues. But they and others forget that given official theft, this will lead to the return of “trapping and shooting dogs” as if they are all rabid “just as was the case in Soviet times.

            “The money for trapping and shooting animals will be stolen, and with what’s left, the officials will hire drunks to kill all the dogs they can find, not distinguishing street dogs from those with homes, the rabid from the not rabid. And they will be sure to do it in front of children” to the horror of the latter.

            Because this is what will happen with any law no matter how well constructed, Doliyev says, he doesn’t want to speak out in favor either of animal shelters or the extermination of street dogs. Any law, given the nature of Russian officials, will be compromised in this area just as in all others.

            “Remember,” he says, “when there was ‘democracy’ in Russia. It was build in the 1990ss by former secretaries and Politburo members of the CPSU, by editors of Pravda and Kommunist, and other ‘responsible’ people.” When these people put their democracy in place, the people “howled ’We don’t need democracy! Bring Stalin back.’ And he returned …”