By Natalia Solovyova, strana.ru

The acquaintance of an ostrich is best made with a mop in one’s hands. “The mop is your ‘argument’,” explains Artyom Andronaki, an ostrich keeper. “In a flock of ostriches, the tallest bird calls the shots. If you’re not particularly tall, don’t even try to throw your weight around with an ostrich. It could end very badly.” Making a sad face, he adds: “The ground here is frozen, it’s expensive to bury a person in the extreme North…”

Artyom opens a gate: Stately African ostriches are stepping around dwarf birches, grazing ground that is almost perpetually frozen.

A relative of the dinosaur

The birds are not exactly from Africa, but from Lithuania. “Friends thought we were crazy when we told them we wanted to raise ostriches,” says Artyom, laughing. “Most people associate ostriches with Africa and the African heat. But our beautiful birds arrived in Murmansk when there was snow on the ground.”

During that polar night, the ostriches were led out of their trailer with socks on their heads: they looked more like hostages. The socks were used in an effort to lessen the shock of these guests from the sunny continent of Africa. In complete darkness, the birds took their first steps over snow in this polar region.

The birds came from Alexander Sklyar, a famous factory owner. Sklyar had been raising ostriches for a decade and had delivered birds to customers throughout Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and Uzbekistan. He had even dealt with a sheikh in the Arab Emirates. But he had never sent any of his birds so far north.

Few believed in the Andronakis’ endeavor. They imagined the poor birds cooped up, shivering by electric heaters and dying of bronchitis. No one had ever tried to raise ostriches above the Arctic Circle before. 

But ostriches have inhabited the planet for 70 million years and have lived through more than one ice age. Artyom’s trial birds quickly silenced the many skeptics. A few days after they arrived, the temperature dropped to -22 degrees Fahrenheit, and the farm in Molochny was invaded by people curious to see these miraculous birds with their own eyes. They saw an idyllic picture: ostriches building nests in snow drifts and spending their nights right on the snow.

Ostrich tourism

At first, Artyom and his wife planned to turn their farm into a tourist attraction. Their scheme could not have been simpler: to supply fat-free poultry to restaurants in Murmansk and local gourmets. Nature has yet to invent anything more nutritional. The first bird was butchered a year later, and the poultry went to market.

 An ostrich egg. Source: Vitali Ankov / RIA-Novosti

For farmers, ostriches are profitable birds because almost every part of them can be put to use. Ostrich skin is valued by makers of ladies’ handbags, ostrich feathers are ideal for chic hats and boas, and even the ostrich’s cornea can be transplanted to a human eye. Ostrich flesh is low-calorie, while the fat is now being actively used in cosmetology. Ostrich eggs, too, are in great demand.

The birds are not slaughtered on a large-scale and are only butchered once a year. The rest of the time, hundreds of ostriches make themselves at home in enclosures, nibble at the scant grasses and dandelions, tear off the tops of the stinging nettles that poke through the fence and fatten up eating mixed fodders. Meanwhile, tourists come from around the world to admire the frost-resistant birds. Only recently the Andronakis had guests from Argentina and Australia.

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