Monkeys caught in the crossfire of Russian politics

SUKHUMI, Georgia -- Only the monkeys seem oblivious to the destruction that rained for years on this once-renowned research institute.Limber-limbed macaques swing from the rafters of their narrow cages like miniature acrobats, while the bigger baboons sit on their large behinds, blinking at tourists, whose admission tickets help pay their room and board.When it opened 81 years ago, the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy was the first primate testing center on the planet. For decades afterward, the best scientists from across the Soviet Union came to Sukhumi to research cures for polio, typhus, encephalitis and cholera.Two of its most famous chimps, Drema and Erosha, blasted into space in a Soviet capsule and returned to Earth safe and sound.Today, aging scientists wander empty halls and deserted classrooms in buildings still pockmarked with bullet holes, the scars of a brutal war that left the institute and the breakaway Republic of Abkhazia, where it's located, impoverished and isolated.Some teaching and research is still conducted, but the small stipend the institute receives from the Abkhazian government can only cover salaries for a skeleton staff and food for its 286 surviving monkeys. Most of the institute's top scientists returned to Russia.Still, the institute, its staff and the monkeys carry on."I don't want to get stuck on the fact of how great it was in Soviet times," said Deputy Director Vladimir Barkaya. A professor of hematology, he hopes his beloved institute can one day be restored to its previous pre-eminence.Like Abkhazia's separatist leaders, Barkaya hopes Russia will come to its financial rescue. He was heartened earlier this year, when Moscow lifted some trade sanctions with Abkhazia.In its heyday, the Sukhumi center's vast archives, cutting-edge research and affiliation with the Soviet space system attracted international scientists and inspired envy in the West. At one point, 7,000 primates roamed the institute's sprawling grounds high on a hill overlooking the Black Sea.An American delegation that visited in the 1950s was so impressed that it urged the United States to establish its own primate research centers.The only stain on the institute's illustrious reputation was its association with the controversial scientist, Ilya Ivanov, who in the 1920s -- with backing from Josef Stalin -- dreamed of creating a hybrid ape-human. The macabre goal was to produce a creature with limited intelligence and extra-human strength to carry out the manual labor needed to modernize the Soviet Union.The experiment fizzled as did Ivanov's career, and he was eventually shipped to a labor camp.When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the institute's fortunes followed the tragic path of Abkhazia. A bloody civil war and a bid for independence from Georgia ensued. The institute's funding dried up and thousands of monkeys died of starvation and disease. Others, at a breeding center in the mountains, escaped into the forest, their fates unknown."During the war, they were thirsty and hungry and they started dying," Barkaya said.Daily bomb blasts traumatized the monkeys. Their fur fell out and they stopped reproducing. Some froze to death during power blackouts in the winter.In a grim twist, the rattled monkeys provided scientists with research material for a study on the effects of post-traumatic stress. The animals were ideal candidates. Barkaya said the monkeys' physiological reactions to the war were similar to those of humans after the siege of Leningrad in World War II.Meanwhile, the residents in Sukhumi and institute staff did their best to keep the monkeys fed. By 1996, the monkeys' health began to improve and the females began reproducing.Today, the institute is open to the public and tourists can pay to view the animals. Unlike at most zoos, the public is encouraged to feed the animals. Bags of fruits and vegetables are sold at the front gate.Barkaya still conducts research but money is tight. Lab equipment must be smuggled across the Russian border because of an international trade blockade.But the scientist believes the institute's worst times are behind it. His goal is to attract a younger generation of scientists to replace the aging research staff.One student used the institute's older monkeys for a graduate thesis on the long life spans of rural people in Abkhazia.The important thing, Barkaya said, is that the institute has stayed open. "We'll do our best to get back to what it was," he said, sliding a cucumber slice through a cage into the outstretched hands of a juvenile monkey.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)