Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has promised that sacrificial animals will not be slaughtered in the streets of Moscow during Islamic holidays, calling the sight "offensive."
“I believe even the Muslims themselves don't need this. Nobody needs those offensive, bloody sights,” Sobyanin told Rossia One television on Saturday. “This is a matter of basic organization that can be regulated. I think it will be solved in Moscow.”
Sobyanin did not elaborate on the measures he planned, but media reports earlier spoke about confining ritual slaughters to specifically designated places.
A number of prominent Russian artists and celebrities complained to Sobyanin in an open letter last week about the slaughter of sheep in dozens of public places visible by children during the Eid al-Adha holiday, known in Russia by its Turkic name Kurban-Bairam.
The letter was signed by musicians Andrei Makarevich, Alexander F. Sklyar and Nikolai Rastorguyev, movie stars Leonid Yermolnik and Ksenia Rappoport, television host Olga Shelest and music critic Artemy Troitsky, among others.
An etiquette guide for foreigners living in Moscow that City Hall started working on in June advised visitors to avoid slaughtering sheep in the courtyard of their apartment building.
