In Belarus, you can legally bury your pet only in an animal burial ground. Breaking the law seems more morally acceptable to many

According to a report by the ONT TV channel,

the only free and completely legal burial option remains the Bekari bio-thermal pits, known as animal burial grounds. These are wells about ten meters deep, where carcasses of farm animals, wild animals, and deceased dogs or cats are dumped together. After filling, such an object is hermetically sealed for ten years.

Due to the specifics of animal burial grounds, most owners choose to bury their pets the old-fashioned way — in the nearest forest belt, at a dacha, or in spontaneous pet cemeteries.

In such unofficial necropolises, owners put up fences, marble monuments, and even crosses. However, the addresses of these places are not advertised online, as communal services will liquidate them with bulldozers if discovered.

Illegal storage is subject to an administrative fine of up to 30 basic units — which is 1350 rubles for 2026.

Vadim Chistyakov, the chief veterinary doctor of the Minsk City Veterinary Station, emphasizes that the ban is due to epidemiological danger. The most serious threat remains rabies, which cannot be diagnosed during life — the diagnosis is made only posthumously in a laboratory. When a body decomposes, putrefaction products get into wastewater, reservoirs, and wells. In addition, shallow graves are often dug up by wild animals or stray dogs, which provokes the spread of infections.

An ecological and humane alternative is cremation — general or individual, where the ashes are given to the owner in a special urn. However, there are only a few specialized crematories in the country, and most offers online belong to intermediaries.

Enterprises face strict requirements for sanitary protection zones. Because of this, it is impossible to place furnaces in Minsk: the only capital crematory operates in the Minsk district. As Anastasia Brazovskaya, deputy director of a funeral company, said, transportation over a distance of 50 kilometers one way significantly increases costs.

Demand ranges from two to ten calls per day. The organization serves not only private clients and capital clinics (including the state-owned "Fauna of the City" and the city veterinary station), but also accepts applications from regions — Brest, Grodno, Vitebsk, Salihorsk, Maladzyechna, and even Russian Smolensk.

For many owners, this is the only way to avoid unauthorized burial. Alena Marigerovskaya, a resident of Zaslaul, specially brought the body of her seventeen-year-old cat to Minsk for individual cremation, noting that she learned about the existence of such a service only on the morning of the farewell day.

In the regions, the situation is even more limited. In the entire Vitebsk region, only one facility operates, opened a year ago at the Polotsk District Veterinary Station. During this time, about a hundred applications have been received there. Sergey Bulyka, the director of the station, reported that when the furnace is fully loaded with 100 kilograms, about 60 liters of diesel fuel are consumed, which reduces profit to a minimum, making cremation more of a social project.

Law without instructions

The law "On Responsible Treatment of Animals," adopted a year and a half ago, legally recognized that pets have feelings and enshrined norms for a dignified life, but completely bypassed the issue of their burial.

State bodies shift responsibility to each other: housing and communal services enterprises declare non-compliance with their profile, the Department of Veterinary Supervision of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food is exclusively responsible for controlling sanitary rules, and land allocation issues are redirected to local executive committees.

Meanwhile, in neighboring Russia, official animal cemeteries have long been established in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In Belarus, there are no such sites.

Olga Karpova, chairperson of the board of the charitable association "ZaoShans," emphasizes that the law remains symbolic: as long as the state does not offer accessible mechanisms for rapid cremation or special territories, citizens will be forced to violate the norms.

Maria Vasilevich, former deputy of the House of Representatives, noted that during the discussion of the bill, the public's request for official burials was recorded, but the implementation mechanism remains open, so at an intermediate stage, the authorities should at least explain safe rules of action to people.

According to official data, more than 150 thousand pets are registered in the country, but their real number is much higher: in Minsk alone, pets are found in every third family, which amounts to over half a million individuals.

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