Plovdiv is Bulgaria’s second largest city, located in the central southern part of the country. With eight thousand years of history, it is among the oldest cities in Europe. Plovdiv is regarded to be the cultural metropolis of the country. This article describes a different culture of this city – a culture of killing.

"They throw living dogs into the incinerators"

"There are virtually no stray animals in Plovdiv", says Dimitur Georgiev, chairman of Plovdiv's society for the prevention of cruelty to animals. "We insist on a humane solution of the problem. The conditions in the isolators are cruel. Former employees of the combustion facilities have horrible stories to tell. Some of the dogs wake up after anaesthesia and are regardlessly thrown into the flames of the furnace alive. In comparison with the west we are a hundred years behind, but intellectually it adds up to a thousand years."

Animal rights activists demand monitoring cameras inside the isolator

The members of Plovdiv's society for the prevention of cruelty to animals are calling for the installation of monitoring cameras in the isolator "at the fourth kilometer" in Plovdiv. The reason is the inhumane treatment of the captive quadrupeds and the miserable conditions under which they live. "Animals are being tortured in the isolator. Its has the function of a slaughterhouse that provides the surrounding factories with leather and other animal products, gained from the killed animals", Dr. Georgi Litov, member of an animal rights organisation in Plovdiv, asserts.

"Dogs are left to freeze to death"

"What we know about the isolator, we have learned from former employees of the camp. From them we know that animals are not kept alive for 14 days, as required by the law." Dr. Litov is convinced that the animals are killed few days after their arrival, in order to embezzle the money cut out of the expenses to feed them. Even taking pictures within the isolator is prohibited. "I have nevertheless succeeded in taking a photo of a wet dog. It is evident: the dogs are washed with cold water on the cement floor. They die overnight in their cages. When I asked Dr. Stanchev, the director of the isolator, why the dog was so wet, he anwered: 'Who can understand a dog? It took a bath in drinking water.' The dogs are euthanized with natriumbarital, which costs about 50 Lewa (about 25 Euros or 37 Dollars) at a good quality. It is therefore cheaper for those people to bathe the dogs in cold water."

Dr. Stanchev: "Animal rights activists aiming to sow the seed of anarchy in our country"

Dr. Petko Stanchev, the director of the isolator, stated in front of our reporter that these allegations were bottomless. "All the fuss that these animal rights activists are creating is only aimed at sowing the seed of anarchy in our country. They do not have any evidence and they are just talking nonsense. The drug used to euthanize a dog costs 15 Stotinki (about 0.08 Euros or 0.11 Dollars). Those stories about washing dogs with cold water are ridiculous. Hunters are going hunting with dogs who jump into water to retrieve. We are not batheing the dogs in cold water." Dr. Stanchev also reputiated the allegation of animals being killed before the expiration of the 14 days period of safekeeping in order to save food. "The food also costs only a few Stotinki. We buy the food at wholesale prices from butchershops and process it here."

Employees say that puppies are strangled or drowned

Dr. Litov explains in turn that the daily allowance per animal is budgeted at about 3.60 Lewa (about 1.85 Euros or 2.69 Dollars). He is enraged about the fact that nobody has ever seen normal food in this isolator to this day. "They give the dogs water with some kind of oil or fat. It would be possible to buy regular dog food with the budgeted money." The animal rights activists report even more barbarous occurrences. "We have learned from former isolator employees that euthanasia is applied in an unprofessional manner", chairman Georgi Litov explains. "Drugs are applied in underdoses to save money, and some dogs wake up on their way to the incinerator. If an employee does have any compassion, he sets the dog free. If not, then the dogs are thrown into the blazing furnace alive. Another former employee saw a truck discharge his load of dogs into the river Mariza. Some employees say that the puppies strangled or drowned. [...] I recently talked to a woman who saw dogs being dismembered, and there were people waiting outside at the isolator's front gate who feed their pigs with dog meat.

"They mix dog and ground pork"

The animal rights activists know yet another horrible story: In Stara Zagora they observed butchered pigs being loaded onto a pickup truck and removed together with dogs. One of them asked what they were going to do with those animals, and the answer was: "If you mix dog and ground pork and deliver it to the restaurants, who can tell the difference?"