Young businessman transforms trash dump into menagerie
About ten kilometers from Khmelnytsky, somewhere between the villages of Bohdanivtsi and Kopystyn, ostriches have appeared. Soon the female started to lay eggs, and the male, in accordance with his natural duties, began to hatch it. “He has not drunk nor eaten for a week taking indefatigable care for his future offspring. He can remain like this up to three months,” says Mykhailo Koblia. As regards the female, according to his forecasts she will be laying eggs with zeal throughout December.
39 year old Mykhailo Koblia finds time to come here almost every day in his imported car from his office in the oblast center to find out how his Australians are doing. And not only them: right here, between Bohdanivtsy and Kopystyn, turkeys, pheasants, partridges, and peacocks are also propagating.
It seems that this veritable Noah’s Ark boasting all kinds of animals attached itself to the bank of a pond where swans and Canadian ducks swim. Only a deer named Yura is single. Once foresters caught a doe for him and brought her here, but unfortunately Yura had no chance to take advantage of the situation. Doe deer, unlike bucks, do not like to mate in captivity. She kept looking for an opportunity to escape and finally in three days succeeded. That is why the lonely Yura can find consolation only in visits by his master who knows that he should not even approach to the deer without some kind of delicacy.
There is also a new garden, which bore fruit the very year it was planted, and arable land on the pond bank. All this is surrounded by an ancient forest, the road to which traverses a forgotten narrow gauge railway. It is hard to imagine that not long ago there was a dump here in the middle of the forest. “And it still is,” assures Mr. Koblia. He says that the lot was eagerly given to him by the silrada [village council] “for farming”. And he accepted it with equal eagerness only to later regret it: “After each tillage we have to remove two or three tractor trailers full of rocks. That damned stuff seems to grow out of the soil when you plow it.”
However, Mykhailo Koblia has already achieved such fertility that what he grows on these rocks is enough to completely provide all the inhabitants of his menagerie with plenty to eat. The reason why he regretted what he has done is that “the money invested in this lot would be enough for three or four hundred hectares of arable.”
This investment was done, according to Mr. Koblia, not out of generosity but, quite the opposite, with a millionaire’s stingy soul: “This dump was sucking me into it like a quagmire. Every time I thought it was the last time I would invest money. Then it would start to pay for itself. But it turned out that expenditures substantial outruns any returns.”
Who is this Mykhailo Koblia? He is the son of a clergyman well- known and respected in Khmelnytsky. He has graduated from the pedagogical institute and theological seminary, spent two years in the Spiritual Academy, filled a high post in the eparchy. However, as he recalls of the dawn of capitalism in his native city, “I went against my parents’ will and sold my Volga automobile they had themselves bought me for $1000.” With this money he bought some scrap metal, sold it to a plant, got their products, bartered it for sugar. After that, “Selling sugar brought me $3000 with which I bought some scrap metal and passed it to a plant.”
That is how he started out, and now he continues in another way, creating 3,000 jobs for those who process the scrap, taking part in a high tech founding process at a newly constructed foundry, cutting wood for furniture that is produced in faraway Spain.
As regards Noah’s Ark having an official statute as a farm, here all the processes are supervised by a young man named Ihor and his wife Olha. The couple lives here, under the roof of an elegant cottage built by the young entrepreneur on the pond bank. Ihor says that he can sleep peacefully: “Strangers never appear here, neither day nor night.” The residents’ peace and quiet is safely guarded by canines: a Rottweiler, a Caucasian, and East European sheep dog.
Incidentally, it is the dogs that Ihor respects most. “They are the most clever, trustworthy, and devoted animals of all those living here.” Ihor is generous with his praise. He speaks about them as man’s best friends with enthusiasm: how he feeds them, trains them, etc.
Yet, dogs are nothing unusual in such places. That is why, as the saying goes, let us return to our ostriches. Ihor speaks with scorn and even with a certain disgust of these exotic birds. “I try to approach them as rarely as possible.” Entrepreneur Mykhailo Koblia does not blame his employee for this: “One should keep away from the bird that lays the world largest eggs.” It has long legs, weighs up to 150 kilograms, and has a head the size of a hen’s. “When the birds just arrived, the male chased the female like a lunatic. And if she tried to escape him, he beat her. We had to separate them with chicken wire to let the female gradually get used to the male,” Mykhailo recalls. “The ostriches were bought together with a book telling how to take care of them,” Ihor continues.
In spite of his sentiments, most of all Ihor worries about his damned ostriches. One night there was a blackout on the farm. “I woke up, and my first thought was about them, about the ostriches. What if they had frozen?”
Ihor showed us the birds’ home supplied with heating and feed preparation equipment. “Even before the ostriches arrived we prepared everything for their adjustment to our climate.” It appeared that the avian Aussies like the local cuisine: “They leave their feed troughs clean.” What does the menu include? “We plant everything ourselves on this lot,” Ihor answers. Then he demonstrates us the feed kitchen with a root cutting machine, mixer, and other devices necessary for the diet of healthy ostriches “with balanced content of vitamins, minerals, and nourishment just like the book says.” All this reminds one of an elite kindergarten for millionaire lads and lasses.
Still, an ostrich is not a peacock with its charming tail sporting all the colors of the spectrum, or even a pheasant, or a partridge — all of them cost less to maintain. Who is supposed to admire all these species of fauna gathered from all the continents? There is no sign that the road leads to either a zoo, or, so to speak, petting park. Then what for and whom were all these expenditures made?
“I was really happy when I hired a bus and took my son’s class here for the day,” Mykhailo recalls. Here he relaxes, alone or together with his family. He says he can afford it after his intensive labor where one can “pay for a small mistake with all his lifework. But God has had mercy on me and spared me from such mistakes.” He was clever enough to make money, and he will most likely be able to multiply it.
Fine, let us believe what he says. But still, what does he find in the ostriches so hated by Ihor? “Respectable restaurants pay $50 per kilogram of ostrich meat, which, as is generally known, contains no cholesterol,” Mykhailo finally confesses.
Ihor then makes a rapid transition from a total disregard to high praise for the ostrich saying “Don’t you remember all those films with women wearing ostrich feathers on their hats?” He reminds me that the bird can be processed without anything going to waste: “Every part of it can be going to put to use.”
Twilight has fallen. Somewhere from the forest, which already looks dark, the wind rises up, producing high waves in the still unfrozen pond where indifferent and even scornful swans swing. It was time to leave this Noah’s Ark stationed on a cultivated plot of 17 hectares where before there had been a dump. For some reason I recalled a fairy tale about an egg: “Grandpa couldn’t break it, granny couldn’t break it, and their granddaughter couldn’t break it, either...” What was it all about? Later, when I returned to Khmelnytsky, I picked a children’s encyclopedia from the bookshelf to find some information on ostriches. In particular, I found out this: they lay the world biggest eggs weighing up to 1.65 kilogram. And their eggs are also the solidest in the world.
Indefatigable Mykhailo Koblia does not worry about how he would manage to break the egg. The nestling will hatch all by itself with the help of its patient pater familias . And the female continues to lay eggs.
