At the beginning of October 2024, information spread in the Russian media about an unusual case in the Moscow region: allegedly a local resident demanded that veterinarians provide services to her daughter, but they refused. We decided to check the authenticity of this story.

As follows from media reports, a woman came to one of the veterinary clinics in Serpukhov near Moscow along with her twelve-year-old daughter, who was wearing a cat mask, with a false tail and moving on all fours. The mother asked to microchip the girl, get her a medical card and vaccinate her against rabies. After being refused services, the woman caused a scandal and left the clinic only when the staff threatened to call the police. The news about this event was published "Arguments and facts", "Moskovsky Komsomolets", Lenta.ru, "Vesti.ru", Life and the TV channel websiteConstantinople", as well as several large Telegram channels: "Moscow today"(200,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Kosti (158,000), "ND – News of the day"(116,000), "TV Center | TVC"(102,000), "Rhymes and news"(100,000), etc.

Kvadrobika (quadrobing) is a child and teenage subculture, the fashion for which arose in social networks. Quadrobers imitate animals: they put on masks and tails, move on all fours, and make appropriate sounds. This subculture is widely known in Russia received after singer Mia Boyka at her concert in early September 2024 ridiculed quadrober girl. The video of this episode went viral on social networks and caused heated discussions. Celebrities also joined the discussion: for example, rapper Egor Creed and journalist Ksenia Sobchak publicly supported the girl, and the actress and ex-State Duma deputy Maria Kozhevnikova sided with the singer. Subsequently, publications about teenage girls began to appear in the press and social networks, walking guys on a leash, about adults, playing with quadrober children on the street, and even about what allegedly happened attacks quadrobers on people.

The country's leadership also learned about the new subculture. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov discussed quadrobers at a meeting with Armenian diplomats, and presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov assured journalists that the Kremlin is trying to “keep this topic off our agenda.” In turn, in the State Duma started cooking bill banning the propaganda of quadrobing.

It is not surprising that against this background, the news from Serpukhov caused a wide resonance, but the media were unable to find out the details of the incident and obtain comments from its participants. Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the Moscow Region reported TASS agency that local state veterinary clinics have not received any requests from residents of the region on the topic of vaccination and microchipping of teenage quadrobers. Regnum agency asserts, which called all veterinary clinics and offices in Serpukhov, but none of the institutions confirmed the viral news. Moreover, some employees of Serpukhov veterinary hospitals, in conversations with journalists, expressed the opinion that this story was someone’s invention. “Our city is small, if this really happened, it seems to me that everyone would already know everything,” quotes Regnum of one of his interlocutors.

Often, the dissemination of such news begins with city groups on social networks: readers send there their videos or stories about what they saw, and later their messages are rebroadcast by large media outlets. However, in this case everything was different. First about the incident in Serpukhov wrote publication "Regions.ru" October 7, 2024 at 17:07 Moscow time. City groups started write more about this later, with reference to information published in the media. “Verified” could not find comments from people who would call themselves witnesses to what happened.

Regions.ru is an online publication officially registered with Roskomnadzor. Its founder is the publishing house “Podmoskovye”, subordinate government of the Moscow region. The note, which became the primary source of the news, quotes the direct speech of a clinic employee, but does not indicate his name, his position, or the name of the institution.

The publication of Regions.ru about a quadrober girl in Serpukhov is signed with the name of Alexey Seliverstov (he is also appears editor of the publication). “Verified” contacted the editors to clarify the contents of the note, but our written request was ignored. Over the phone, a representative of the publication replied that he would forward our questions to the author of the article and he would contact us, “if his editor does not mind.” At the time of publication of the analysis, this did not happen.

Thus, there is no evidence that the incident described by Regions.ru actually happened recently in Serpukhov.

Cover photo: Dall-E