Russia

[Yvonne G]

I thought you all might be interested in a small glimpse of what goes on in Russia. Here's a paragraph from an email sent to me by my tortoise partner, William, who is visiting Russia for a couple weeks:

"I went to the giant animal market in Moscow today. Many many kinds of small mammals, all kinds of squirrels, chipmunks, little prockly hedgehog kind of guys, raccoons, etc. A big area with dozens of kinds of cats, and dogs. Birds like you have not seen before. All kinds of songbirds, Parrots, hawks, crows, jays, you name it, the bird was there. Fish, the most abundant in terms of quantity and variety. Reptiles, two snakes - one ball python, and one regular boa. Lizards - bearded dragons, and a few monitors, a few kinds of frogs and salamanders, and then hundreds, maybe thousands of red-eared sliders, and many hundreds of russian tortoises. Two greek tortoises, a few European pond turtles, and maybe a dozen pig-nosed turtles."

I'm assuming this is a "for sale" type of thing, hopefully not for eating, but for pets.

 

[tortadise]

Wow, thats crazy. Especially the hawks in the bird section. Im glad to see at least there were not radiated, geometric, burmese stars and ploughshares there, like asian markets. But I hope these are not for food consumption.

 

[CourtneyAndCarl]

Sounds like they are for pets. Some of that stuff is just like "why would you eat that?" not for the cute cuddley factor but more for the practicality factor. Either way... I want a pet hawk!!

 

[blafiriravt]

Very interesting!

 

[wellington]

I would 't have thought they would be much into pets. Yes, hope that is what they were for and not food, like I would assume.

 

[CourtneyAndCarl]

Think about it, how is a hedgehog a good meal? It's TINY, and you have to get all those spikes off before you can do anything with it Same goes with chipmunks... you'd have to have at least 10 of those guys to make a decent meal.

 

[Jacqui]

Sounds like that would be an interesting place to spend a few hours just "window" shopping.

 

[CLMoss]

Interesting... I live in an area where we have a lot of Russian families. These families, if they have a pet, tend to be exotic or pure breeds of cats & dogs. To live in Moscow, one needs to have a lot of money. I would guess that this market would be selling expensive exotic pets. But, I will ask around. This list of animals does not sound like it would be in the Russian diet.

 

[Jacqui]

I am pretty sure this is a pet shop market.

 

[Yvonne G]

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I'm not sure what this is supposed to mean in this context.

 

[Nixxy]

Most likely pets.

I've been there a few times. Quite a nice country, quite a bit of negativity in the west that is undeserved.

They don't exactly eat a lot of 'exotic' things, either. Some up in Siberia, and on the Asiatic side. But eh..

One of the nicest zoos I've been to was in Russia.

 

[dmmj]

In russia pets sell you
It is more than likely a pet place, I have a friend who worked 6 months in russia ( forget exactly where) and these places are pretty common.

 

[CLMoss]

Most likely pets.

I've been there a few times. Quite a nice country, quite a bit of negativity in the west that is undeserved.

They don't exactly eat a lot of 'exotic' things, either. Some up in Siberia, and on the Asiatic side. But eh..

One of the nicest zoos I've been to was in Russia.

Wow! You have been to Russia a few time! Cool! The summer of 2010, I hosted 4 students (Russian), here on work visus (visas ?). I have to say that they were really nice kids!