Witnesses silenced, mysterious lawsuits, information and evidence disappearing, charlatan doctors and scientists, and sadistic clowns – sounds like a horror movie? Maybe, but that is the grim reality of the Moscow Cat Theatre as it appears after our investigation into the matter.
It seems that despite the declarations of Kuklachev that “No animal rights organization prevented the appearance of the circus”[1], the ugly truth is that quite a few people objected and published information about the abuse of cats in the Theatre, but they were silenced by Kuklachev.
It all began when 34 bloggers from all over Russia received court summons or legal threats, if they remove from their site content that criticized Yuri Kuklachev and the Moscow Cat Theatre [2]. As a result, it is much harder to find information about the subject these days. We managed to find two people who are still willing to speak up against Kuklachev – and what we hear is disturbing.
Misha Verbitsky is a mathematician, a blogger, and a website operator. One user on his website has published a song which mentioned Kuklachev (“..and that fucker Kuklachev…”) – and received a rude warning and an order to remove the content from his website.
The message was as follows:
“Your resource contains deliberately false and libellous information, damaging the honour and dignity of People’s
Artist of Russia Jury Kuklachev and the professional
Reputation of the government culture institution of the
City of Moscow, the Kuklachev’s Cat Theater”
For the writer of the original song it was enough to change it, and Misha wrote the story on his personal blog. Six months later he received a summons to court, as his blog entry “Is damaging the government institution’s reputation” – which is, Misha adds “Serious business in Russia”.
Misha Verbitsky
Misha
agreed to answer our questions regarding his claims against the circus.
Hello Misha, Can you describe what acts of cruelty occur in the circus?
A lot. A witness claimed that to train the cats to jump fast, Kuklachev uses electric heaters, and cat’s feet are burned, often dangerously. Kuklachev’s former veterinarian has seen that to train the cats to sit still on posts, Kuklachev ties a noose around their necks, so that if the cats jump, they would suffocate (not to death, but still unpleasant).
You raise some serious accusations – have you got any reliable sources for them?
I got some legal witness for the libel lawsuit started by Kuklachev. The judge refused to take this evidence as he claimed it’s all personal opinion. Still, I suppose that in case of another lawsuit, my base is well covered.
Kuklachev claims that he uses “love” to train the cats, what do you think
About that?
Kuklachev is also a member of Russian Academy of Natural Scientists (RAEN) [3], a professional organization for crank pseudo-science, and he used his cats as a test case for chemical experiments by one of most infamous RAEN charlatans (Viktor Petrik)[4][5]. Petrik has on his site some letters from Kuklachev about details of this chemical experiment. Kuklachev is also a follower[6] of Mirzakarim Norbekov[7], an infamous crank healer, also from RAEN. Kuklachev leads a Norbekov healing program for kids in his theater.
I think this “love” has just as much credibility as Norbekov’s “healing” and Petrik’s crank chemistry.
Are you aware of any other country protesting against the circus?
No, Israel is the first case.
What about Russia?
(No Ratings Yet)