On many resources you can read the touching story of a mongrel who accomplished a feat during the natural disaster in Armenia in 1988. We have verified the authenticity of this story.
As reported in publications, in the cemetery of the Armenian city of Spitak you can see hundreds of gravestones with different dates of birth and one date of death - December 7, 1988. On that day, a major earthquake claimed 25,000 lives. Among all these monuments, there is supposedly one without a cross and a surname, only with the name Zhuzha.
This dog lived in the courtyard of a nine-story building, on the first floor of which the Saryan family lived: mom, dad, son Ruben and daughter Lala. During the earthquake, the parents died, and the one-year-old girl was saved by a miracle - she rolled down the slab into the basement of the building, where the dog Zhuzha ended up under the rubble with her. For four days, Zhuzha warmed the baby and fed her milk. Realizing that the rescuers would soon leave - they reacted only to human voices - the dog lightly bit Lala, and the girl’s piercing scream saved both of their lives. Zhuzha allegedly lived in the house of Ruben, Lala and their grandparents for another 12 years, after which the heroic dog was buried in the city cemetery along with people.
This story, often accompanied by two photographs: a dog against a background of rubble and a grave with a figurine of a dog’s head, can be read on the websites All-Russian Voluntary Fire Society, "Culturology.rf", "Peekaboo", Fishki.net, as well as in "VKontakte", Telegram and Facebook (there are publications from 1100, 977, 480 And 342 reposts at the time of writing this analysis).
On December 7, 1988 at 11:41 local time, a strong earthquake, which claimed the lives of about 25,000 people and left almost half a million local residents homeless. The epicenter of the earthquake was near the small town of Spitak, which took the brunt of the impact - more than half of all victims lived there.
In the days preceding the tragedy in the Spitak area there were recorded several hundred reports of unusual behavior of animals, primarily dogs. They were unable to convey their concerns to people, but their specially trained relatives from different countries took an active part in participation in search of survivors. Sometimes real miracles happened - as in situationswhen, under the rubble of a high-rise building, dogs found a newborn girl without a single scratch.
Nevertheless, “Verified” did not find in authoritative sources dedicated to the Spitak earthquake a story even slightly similar to the one that made the rounds on the Internet. In some books There is an unconfirmed case of the rescue of a girl who was warmed for three days by a fluffy cat, not a dog, with her body heat.
There are also numerous inconsistencies in viral posts. So, the text says that there is no cross, star or photograph on Zhuzha’s grave. However, this statement is accompanied by photographs showing a monument to a dog with an inscription and a sculpture, apparently, of a buried animal.
However, the sculpture looks nothing like the dog in another photo that is often included in viral posts.
As shown by the reverse image search service Google, the dog sitting on the ruins is a mongrel named Rip, who participated in search and rescue efforts in Great Britain during the Second World War and received a medal for bravery. The photo used in the viral posts was taken in 1941 and stored at the Imperial War Museum in London (and also used on the Rip page on Wikipedia).
Photos of an unusual dog grave were taken at animal cemetery, located a few kilometers from Riga. The Doberman, whose memory the owners so honored, was called Geromes Normans Iriss. And Spitak cemetery looks completely different.
In addition, according to report Earthquake Resistant Construction Research Institute (EERI), in the late 1980s, the only nine-story building in the Spitak region was of a large-panel type, and such buildings were not damaged by the earthquake either in Spitak or in the largely destroyed Leninakan (now Gyumri).
There are other details in the distributed versions of the story that indicate obvious fiction. So, if the fact (but not the motive) of a dog bite by a girl could still be determined by the marks of teeth, then one-year-old Lala would hardly subsequently be able to describe her fall into the basement and the subsequent careful care on the part of Zhuzha (including exotic breastfeeding).
The text about Zhuzha began to spread in the fall of 2015, and in early publications the name of its author was indicated - Roman Udartseva. Udartsev is a writer; his bibliography includes more large works. Apparently, the first publication of the story entitled “Zhuzha” was deleted for some reason, but subsequently the author posted the text on his pages on various resources, such as “Proza.ru" And Cont.ws. Please note that the story was originally distributed without the incorrect photographs. “Verified” turned to Udartsev with a request for comment - he read the messages, but did not respond to them.
Apparently, the story about Zhuzha was largely inspired by other sources. Legends about dogs saving their owners during earthquakes have been around for centuries. Thus, after the Ashgabat earthquake of 1948, a story about how a dog, before the earthquake began, pulled a little girl out of a stroller and ran out of the house, thereby saving her life. In one of the later versions of the story, the dog's name was Dzhulbars, she lived in a family of Ashgabat Armenians, and they allegedly buried her as a person, erecting a monument on her grave (all these facts could not be confirmed). In addition, in a number of sources approved, that in the same 1988, when the Spitak earthquake occurred, a monument to a dog named Juju, who saved her owners during a fire, was allegedly erected in Portugal.
Thus, the story about the wonderful Spitak dog is not confirmed by real sources and has multiple signs of fiction. Internet users support this text with photographs that have nothing to do with Armenia, and its author never positioned the story as a documentary.
Cover photo: social networks
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