The Puppies of Pripyat

A puppy pokes its head out of a makeshift kennel built just outside the checkpoint that tourists and visitors must pass through before entering the abandoned town of Pripyat. Six puppies were recently born to a family of dogs that live by the checkpoint, who are regularly fed by the checkpoint guards and the Clean Futures Fund (CFF) – an NGO that cares for dogs living in the Zone. Recently, one of the puppies fell down a drainage hole and had to be rescued by a member of the CFF who visits the Zone daily to ensure the puppies are well fed. Ensuring they’re well fed is important in the winter months especially, to prevent dogs from straying too far in search of food, as the wolves range closer to human settlements (like checkpoints) in search of their own food as it becomes scarcer in the cold weather. During my most recent trip to the Zone, however, there were only three puppies at the Pripyat checkpoint instead of six. The guard told me that three of them had been relocated to live with the guards at another checkpoint.

Like all radioactive places, the nature of Chernobyl as an abandoned space – it’s official name is the ‘Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Zone of Alienation – is not a given but requires work. This work comes in the form of guarding checkpoints, managing tourists, and patrolling the area to ensure ‘stalkers’ aren’t illegally entering. Checkpoint guards and other workers therefore spend lengthy periods of time at certain places in the Zone. One downside to working in a place like this is the boredom that comes with regularly being alone all day. The dogs of Chernobyl, therefore, provide company and entertainment for the workers who in return, care for them by offering them food and water, sometimes shelter, and protection from predation. This reciprocal relationship is a form of nonhuman companionship that is often overlooked in toxic places, and especially overlooked when managing ‘problem’ animals (cf. Narayanan, 2017). As the population of the Zone’s dogs is managed and controlled, what will the effects be for workers in the Zone that live with them? Will they miss their companionship? Do animals provide a sense of safety and security in places where the threat to life is invisible due to their shared bodily presence in these spaces? How will workers and residents of the Zone respond to the future absence of dogs? These questions point to the complex ethical entanglements that arise in toxic places when considered from a more-than-human perspective.

An anecdote from my most recent visit to the Zone provides a speculative answer to the last question. Whilst visiting the canteen frequented by workers from the power plant where a number of dogs hang out, a dog I wasn’t familiar with came over to play. This new dog was much larger than other dogs in the zone and didn’t have the distinctive look many of them have. It was well groomed after and more comfortable around people. An interlocutor who visits the Zone on a weekly basis to feed the dogs suggested the new arrival was probably a pet brought in from outside and could have even been abandoned there. This raises questions as to how successful a population management strategy can be if new dogs are brought in for companionship by workers who let them roam around, leading to more puppies being born each year. If the everyday experiences of animal companionship of those living and working in the Zone aren’t taken seriously (Narayanan, 2017), the management of the dog population will become more difficult given the porosity of the Zone’s borders to more-than-human life.

References

Narayanan, Y. (2017). Street dogs at the intersection of colonialism and informality: ‘Subaltern animism’ as a posthuman critique of Indian cities. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 35(3): 475-494.