Ukraine’s psychic hog Funtik was brought to Kyiv on June 8 and placed in the fan zone on Khreschatyk Street, where he made predictions on the winners of the Euro 2012 games by deciding which feed – festooned with competing national flags – he would eat.
The pig turned out to be not-so-psychic, getting 15 out of 31 games wrong – including the fate of Ukraine’s national team and Spain as the tournament champions.
While Funtik’s psychic days are over, his immediate fate is unclear. Tomorrow he may be sent to the Kyiv zoo or back home to a farm in Zhytomyr Oblast.
The pig has been getting so much attention from both local and foreign fans that the Kyiv city administration has offered his owner to put the hog in the municipal zoo.
“At the zoo he will be in the public eye all the time,” explains Svitlana Bovkun, the public relations director for the Kyiv fan zone. He will be placed in a special cage for domestic animals, according to Bovkun.
However, the Kyiv zoo, where the death rate among the animals is so high that it lost its international accreditation in 2009, is probably not the best place for Funtik. A 24-year old bear recently died in the zoo. About two months ago, the same happened to a deer, and it’s not the end of the list. Almost every month the Kyiv zoo reports a new casualty.
“The best thing for him now is to return to the farm. You know what has happened to lots of animals kept in the [Kyiv] zoo,” Ivan Shpakovsky, his caretaker and guard, says.
After Funtik failed to predict the winner of 15 out of 31 Euro 2012 games in Poland and Ukraine, some fans threatened to make pork chops out of him. A group of Kyiv activists even held a protest on July 1 during the capital fan zone’s closing ceremony to fight for the hog’s rights.
Shpakovsky, Funtik’s caretaker, says a decision will be made soon on Funtik’s next home.
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected]
