Nomination "Our Brothers": A dog found in a garbage bag helps to find illegal landfills.
The story of Happy and his owner Marina Yakubenko began in 2016 in one of the Krasnoyarsk garbage dumps. On a wintry and rather cold day, even by Siberian standards, Marina strolled with a camera around the Yenisei River in the hope of catching a beautiful shot. And then the local mongrels, to whom she had brought sweets, began to call and pull. And not for nothing. Marina was led to a bag of puppies, which someone had thrown out into the forty-degree frost. Only one person was saved, whom Marina's family went out and could not give back. So the lucky dog, who got the nickname Happy, found a home.
Now Happy is an adult dog of an unknown breed, more like a Labrador with an admixture of a shepherd dog, a faithful assistant for his mistress. Marina Yakubenko works for a management company, but in her spare time she is actively engaged in community service. She is the coordinator of the Popular Front's General Cleaning project in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. For almost ten years now, she has been searching for and helping to eliminate unauthorized landfills,"Gornovosti writes. And in their native Berezovka, on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk, Marina and Happy know every ravine and every forest, because that's where people most often throw their trash.
"Happy is a big dog and he needs a lot of space for walking, so I started looking for places where I could run with him normally. And it so happened that wherever we went with him, we very often came across landfills. And then I started taking him with me on all the raids all the time. What we find is mostly construction waste. I feel comfortable with Happy, because everywhere we went, the car sometimes got stuck and there was no one around, but with such a huge defender, I'm not afraid," said Marina Yakubenko.
Over the years of volunteering, Marina and Happy have seen a lot. Some landfills are particularly memorable. One of them is next to the "Health" SNT in the area of the Red Ridge. There, together with the residents and the Ministry of Ecology, they managed to take out several trucks of garbage - broken bottles, plastic, bags. And all this against the background of blooming primroses. Sometimes they find things among the garbage that make your heart ache. Documents, photographs, letters from the army, school certificates, albums with black and white photographs. There was even a bundle of documents from a deceased person: medical records, certificates, letters of thanks.
"Sometimes I took something from the landfill myself. I gave the big soft bear to the dogs at the shelter. A lantern from the barge as a keepsake. A lifebuoy for friends with a yacht on the Krasnoyarsk Sea. One day I found a whole hot tub. I even planned to hold a photo shoot with glasses and candles to draw attention to the problem. But on the day of the shooting, it started to rain, and the bathtub itself disappeared, which means it was useful to someone," says Marina.
The Krasnoyarsk "eco-inspector dog" accompanies the hostess on raids and inspections all the time. They don't take Happy with them only in areas where there is a suspicion of animal burial grounds. According to Marina, it can be dangerous for a dog. Therefore, during such foul-smelling trips, he waits for his mistress exclusively in the car.
"I saved him on Christmas Eve, and it turns out he saved us too. I started walking with him more, seeing more of life, going places I would never have ventured alone before. How can I go to the mountains alone? And I'm not afraid with Happy, my parents also started moving more, because you need to walk with him. So we boldly consider him our savior," Marina Yakubenko shares her thoughts.
Photos from Marina Yakubenko's personal archive.