Election may have brought good news for the Kiev SPA

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July/August 1999:

KIEV, Ukraine––Kiev Society for the Protection
of Animals president Tamara Tarnawska is taking as good
news the May 28 re-election of three-year incumbent Kiev
mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko.
“Shortly after being re-elected,” Tarnawska told
ANIMAL PEOPLE on July 6, “Omelchenko called a meeting
to review the work of the Animals In The City center,”
the animal control department he formed in September 1997,
five months after closing the dog-and-cat pelting plant which
had killed strays since Czarist times, and giving the site to the
Kiev SPA for use as the first humane shelter in the Ukraine.

“Once again,” Tarnawska said, “questions were
raised about what has been done with the large subsidies given
to Animals In The City, and why it has failed to deliver some
of the basic services it was paid to provide, e.g. 184 exercise
areas for pet dogs, a crematorium, and a cemetery for companion
animals. The need for more money was the standard
reply. According to Kievskil vestnik,” a local newspaper,
“the mayor expressed dissatisfaction with the center’s work,
and declared, ‘I have put up with the center for over a year.
But I will not any longer.’ What can be read into this remains
to be seen,” Tarnawska added. “The mayor apparently did
not question the cruel methods of the center,” which allegedly
include poisoning dogs, “and its failure to introduce systematic
neutering.”
The Kiev SPA has repeatedly clashed with Animals
In The City, initially over animal handling methods and more
recently over access to euthanasia drugs. In January 1999,
purportedly at instigation of parliamentary deputy Mykola
Haber, who is closely allied with Animals In The City director
Nina Samofalova, the Kiev SPA was raided and accused
of illegally possessing narcotics.
“Our lawyers and interventions by several other
members of parliament have exposed the preposterous nature
of this accusation,” Tarnawska said, “and forced the investigators
to question Animals In The City chief veterinarian
Petro Leysk, who authorized us to import the euthanasia
drugs in question, but has recently made it difficult for our
vets to obtain even locally produced veterinary drugs.
Although Dr. Lesyk has told our staff that we will never
recover the drugs supplied by European animal protection
organizations which were confiscated from us earlier this
year, we have finally forced him to issue a written statement
specifying which veterinary drugs, including for euthanasia,
are authorized for use in the Ukraine.”
Injured in a mysterious February 18 car crash that
killed two other people, Kiev SPA veterinarian Mykola
Stehnei, 25, “has been recovering well and recently returned
to work in our shelter,” Tarnawska finished. “We have managed
to neuter an average of about 60 animals per month, and
since January 1999 have published our own page in the
monthly newspaper Zdorovya Kyian, which is circulated for
free to 15,000 health workers.”
Kiev SPA supporter Caroline Barker of the British
animal protection group Naturewatch asks that letters urging
animal control reform and an end to harassment of the Kiev
SPA by Animals In The City be addressed to Oleksandr
Omelchenko, Kiev City Hall, Khreshchatyk, Kiev 44,
252044 Ukraine; fax 011-380-44-229-8928. (For further
background, see “Kiev SPA fights city hall,” June 1999.)