Ownerless

‘Sorry it’s not me anymore’

Anastasia took Eric from a shelter where her friend Marfa Rabkova was working as a volunteer. Marfa, also a human rights activist, is now serving a 15-year prison sentence. Anastasia is sure to meet Marfa in the penal colony in Homiel. It is unlikely that she will meet Eric. In February, she wrote him a farewell letter from prison. Here is an excerpt from this letter:

Eric now lives in the Czech Republic, on the border with Germany. Now, Eric has a house with a lake and long walks in the forest. What he does not have anymore is Anastasia.

Bely, the shaman’s dog

Those who followed the march of Siberian shaman Alexander Gabyshev to Moscow — to drive Putin out of the Kremlin — have probably noticed a white dog beside him. That is Bely [the Russian word for “white” — translator’s note]. He is waiting for his owner in Yakutsk, in the kind home of Victoria Postnikova and blogger Sergei Tikhoy. No one knows how long he has to wait.

The shaman has no sentence to keep track of. He, like the Soviet dissidents of the seventies, became a victim of involuntary psychiatric treatment and has already spent over two years in a mental hospital, first in Novosibirsk and now in Ussuriysk. Nobody knows when he will be released. Neither does Bely.

“When the shaman and his group were arrested”, Victoria says, “I went to his house as soon as I heard about it and saw three dogs. Bely and two of his sisters. I used to visit the shaman and the dogs knew me. The three dogs were sitting there frightened. Bely ran up to me, started pleading. I let them out of the house, then the shaman’s sister came out and said it would be difficult for her to manage three dogs. So I decided to take him with me, but I didn’t know if he would want to come. I called a taxi, and when it arrived, I asked: ‘Bely, will you come with me? It’ll be nice for you at my place’. And you know, he understood. He jumped into the car by himself.

He would lunge at them, and at one point they just went away. He behaves fine towards ordinary people, but he hates people in uniform. He probably has traumatic memories. He is always nearby, he never runs away. He guards us and we can rely on him. I always say: he is not an ordinary dog, but a dog of the Shaman. Everyone in the group loved Bely. And I don’t even know if I’ll have the heart to give him back when Alexander is released.”

Basya and her puppies

Basya the Malamute from Minsk has grown accustomed to the disappearances of her owner Maxim Vinyarsky ever since birth. On her first birthday in 2018, Basya was apprehended with her owner during a walk. Basya was picked up from the police station by family friends and Maxim was jailed for 15 days. Basya is a true dog of the opposition: she was born during a police search and made a big puddle in the police station where she and Maxim were taken on her birthday.

Before 2020, her owner often disappeared for 15 days: Maxim Vinyarsky of the civil campaign “European Belarus” has always irritated law enforcement and been detained at every protest. It is difficult to calculate how much time in total Maxim has spent in the pre-trial detention centre in Minsk, but it is surely years.

Shortly after the mass protests began in 2020, Maxim took Basya to his mother: he realised that it would be days before he was arrested again — and for much longer than 15 days. And so it happened: Vinyarsky was arrested on 22 January 2021 and sentenced to five years behind bars for “organising mass riots”.

Basya suffered not only without her owner, but also without long, fun walks. She used to go running with Maxim and even swim when he took her to the lake. His mother could not provide that, so Maxim’s sister Lena took Basya instead. Lena has a husband, four children, and a dog named Jesya. Jesya is a small dog — just right for a big family in a city flat. The flat is not designed to house a Malamute, however, but Basya wanted to run around, so the family had to make a bit of room.

“And then Basya fell in love with the handsome Husky next door.” Lena says. “We really hoped that nothing would happen. We told ourselves that Basya’s tummy hadn’t grown but had just become hairier. And then one day, when I was at work, I got a call from home saying: we have a puppy here! By the time I came home in the evening, there were already eight puppies.”

Basya turned out to be a very responsible mother. She didn’t give preference to any of the pups and nurtured all of them equally. Sometimes, a dog will push away the weaker puppies to give the stronger ones a better chance. But Basya had enough time for all of them.

Lena found new homes for seven of the puppies. Juno, the eighth puppy, decided she was already adopted. So she stayed with the family. Puppies are seldom lucky to grow up next to their mothers — they are usually given away at a very young age. Juno was lucky. So now there are nine of them in the flat: Lena and her husband, four children, Jesya, Basya and Juno.

But Basya is waiting for Maxim. One day, Lena decided to bring Basya her toy from Maxim’s flat, and Basya clung onto it the whole evening. It was a toy from her happy life with Maxim. In his letters, Maxim asks his sister to take videos of Basya: “I’ll come back and watch them.” Maksim will be in prison for three more years. When he gets out, Basya will be nine. They will still have time to live together.

Birth during a police search

Basya’s mother, however, might not live to see her owner. Her name is Shtiya and she is 13. And her owner, Belarusian politician Yauhen Afnahel, who was arrested in September 2020 for organising protests, has been sentenced to seven years in prison.

He still has four years to serve. When he is released, Shtiya will be 17. I don’t know if Malamutes live to that age.

For years, Yauhen dreamt of owning a Malamute. The breed is freedom-loving, willful, and stubborn — and that was exactly the kind of dog he wanted. In 2010, a few months before the presidential election and the ensuing mass protests, he bought a puppy and named it Shtiya, which means “strong” in the Aleut language.

After the December 2010 protests, the Belarusian KGB came for Yauhen, but he managed to hide from them in the false ceiling. The officers were ransacking the flat while he was hovering above them. They did not notice him and went away. Yauhen then escaped together with his dog.

Shtiya lived in Lithuania and Poland for a while until both of them returned to Belarus. Back at home, Yauhen and his wife Katya decided they wanted to have puppies. Two pups from the litter — Nori and Freya — stayed with them.

Yauhen dreamed of dog-sledding, but the winters in Belarus had become warm, with slush instead of snow. Instead, the dogs simply brought joy to their owners and ran around in the woods during long walks.

“On 23 March 2017, the doorbell rang: at the doorstep stood Zhenya [Yauhen — translator’s note] in handcuffs together with five policemen. ‘The flat will be searched now’, they said. At that moment, Shtiya went into labour. It was quite mental: they were searching the place and Shtiya was giving birth. But everything ended well that time,” Yauhen’s wife Katya recalls.

“When Zhenya was arrested in 2020, the dogs were sad, of course. Malamutes often howl — it’s their way of communicating. And our dogs often howled at the moon.

Shtiya had an especially strong bond with him, and she suffered a lot. The dogs are now in pet boarding, living near Minsk in a private house in good conditions. But I don’t know if Shtiya will live to see Zhenya, and that’s heartbreaking. I often send Zhenya pictures of our dogs, and he asks me to remember to wish them a happy birthday. I remember.”

Cats and dogs

Russian activist Mikhail Krieger, currently on trial in Moscow on charges of “justification of terrorism” and facing up to seven years in prison, has what is possibly the largest pet family among Russian political prisoners. Five dogs and two cats are now waiting for him to return home. Only one is a purebred — the tiny Toy Terrier Barik initially owned by Mikhail’s daughter Ekaterina. Ekaterina left Russia, and since it was a hassle to bring him along, Barik stayed in Moscow. All the others were strays and rescues. Barik, Malchik [Russian for “boy” — translator’s note], Betty, Susan, and Blackie are the dogs waiting for Mikhail to come back home.

Then there are the cats, Chris and Rysya. Susan and Blackie are both 15 years old. Susan is still quite lively, but Blackie is not doing well. He is blind and frail.

“It’s not too bad now,” Mikhail’s wife Aisha, who now takes care of the animals, says. “they’re not that many. We sometimes had up to twenty [rescues] — especially in winter, during the cold. We used to be able to find new homes for the pretty, purebred, or just big dogs. It’s difficult now. Misha loves all his dogs. And they love him back. The dogs are always around, even at night, so he can reach out and pet them. Sounds unbelievable, but the dogs would even lick his heels. And Chris the cat liked to sleep on his pillow.”

In memory of Chupacabra

Susan and blind Blackie are unlikely to live to see their owner. Chupa, the dog of Alexey Gorinov, a Russian municipal deputy and activist sentenced to seven years in prison for anti-war comments, is among those pets for whom it is already too late. Alexey’s Facebook page has the following line in the “Family” section: “Dogs Jack and Chupa (Chupacabra)”. Both were rescued off the street. Neither is alive anymore.

Jack died a year before Alexey’s arrest. He never found out what would happen to his owner a year later. He must have been lucky. Chupa found out. When Alexey Gorinov ended up in prison, Chupa rushed to the door every time the doorbell sounded, hoping he was back. After a while, she gave up. She died in late April.

Alexey probably realised that she could not live without him. Last year, shortly after he was sentenced, human rights activists paid him a visit They later cited what Alexey had told them:

I picked her up in the street, a stray. She’s got a delicate psyche. Too bad you can’t have dogs on conjugal visits. I wish I could see her one last time…” He never did.

After Chupa’s death, Alexey’s friends published an excerpt of his letter describing his beloved dog: “She’s never chewed on anything and is generally very well-mannered. Doesn’t mix much with other dogs when outside. She has her ‘favourites’, but not many. Chupa is not particularly useful around the house. Except just hanging out in bed. She understands a lot of words, though”. Alexey wrote about her in the present tense, but she was already gone.

The world’s unhappiest dog

Tomsk journalist Igor Kuznetsov lived in an old private house, due for demolition. Igor has been in a pre-trial detention centre for two years now (on charges of “participating in an extremist group” and “inciting mass unrest”). His house is being demolished and construction work is underway. At the construction site, near what was once home, sits Igor’s dog. Her name is Volcha. It might just be the most unhappy dog in the world — she had both her owner and her home taken away at once. And she does not understand why her world has collapsed.

“For some time after Igor’s arrest, she just wandered around,” says Kuznetsov’s lawyer Alexey Pryanishnikov. “In November 2021, the two women who fed her helped build a kennel near the house. The construction site guard feeds Volcha together with his own dog.”

This dog is untrusting, beaten down by life. It is quite difficult to approach her and take a picture, she thinks you’re preparing to attack and starts barking and backing away. But she never attacks. Volcha looks to be about 10 years old. Igor faces up to 10 years in prison. It’s not at all certain that they will ever meet again.

I do not know what is on the mind of the old dog Volcha as she is freezing at the construction site. I do not know if blind Blackie remembers what his owner looks like. I do not know if Bely remembers his shaman. I do not know if Eric understands that, with her letter, Anastasia was saying goodbye to him forever. I only know that in actual fact, things are even scarier than they seem.