Cattle theft

Cattle theft is one of the oldest crimes against property, often mentioned in the legends and myths of the Indo-European peoples and reflected in the ancient epic ( Rigveda , Mahabharata , Abduction of a bull from Kualge , the abduction of Apollo's cows by Hermes , etc.).

In previous centuries, horses were considered the subject of cattle stealing. Unlike other domestic animals (cows, sheep, goats, camels), a herd of fast horses could be moved by captors over long distances in the shortest possible time, which greatly complicated their search. Konokrad act as the main characters of the story "The Green Van " and the movie "Tabor Goes to Heaven . "

From livestock stealing, one should distinguish the legal weaning of livestock, which was practiced in the early stages of the history of some peoples as a punishment for a crime committed or compensation for the damage caused .

Cattle-breeding took on especially significant proportions among nomadic peoples engaged in cattle breeding. From the end of the XIII to the beginning of the XVII century, the theft of cattle served as the main occupation of many inhabitants of the Anglo-Scottish borderland .

Barymta

Among the nomadic Turkic peoples, in some cases, cattle stealing was considered not as a crime against property, but as a punishment for the inflicted grievance or compensation for the harm done, elevated to the rank of tradition. This action was called Barymta (from the Chagatai barant - “robber raid”).

After a court decision was made, if the party was found guilty, under various pretexts refused to pay kun ( kun is a fine for the murder of nomads, an analogue of the Slavic vira ), the Biyi court or the council of elders ( aksakals ) openly ruled on barymt . This decision meant that the injured party had the right to steal a certain number of animals belonging to the guilty party directly from the pasture. Also, a reason for declaring a barymta could be a violation of pasture borders, unequal division of trophies, as well as other violations of the usual steppe system. After committing barymty, stolen cattle were counted in order to ascertain the proportionality of the punishment inflicted and to conclude the final reconciliation of the conflicting parties. Persons participating in Barymt were called Barymtachs ^[3] .

The act of barymyta itself consisted in an unexpected raid by a group of horsemen on a herd (herd) belonging to the guilty party, followed by the theft of cattle. Moreover, the guilty party had the right to resist the seizure and to prosecute the abductors.

It is believed that Barymt has replaced a prolonged in duration and more severe in terms of consequences blood feud ^[4] .

To prevent grave consequences in the form of grievous mutilation or the killing of livestock guards of the guilty party, in order to prevent the escalation of the conflict, in modern terms, the Barymtachs should have exclusively non-lethal weapons in their hands. In Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary, the following remark is given for this case ^[5] :

... Baranta differs from military raids in that the attackers, for fear of bloodthirsty, go without firearms and even without sharp weapons, and take burns, instead of spears, butts and a whip ...

- Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language

In modern practice in the media, the term “Barymtach” in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan is applied to all those involved in cattle stealing, regardless of the nationality of the criminals ^{[6] [7]}

Livestock in the USSR

With the beginning of the establishment of Soviet power in Turkestan , the systematic abolition of the previous laws by which nomadic peoples lived and the transition to the norms of the new Soviet justice took place.

December 2, 1920 SNK KazASSR issued a decree "On the abolition of kun." This decree was the first criminal law of a union republic. The punishment for obtaining Kun was his confiscation from the persons who received him ^[8] .

On November 10, 1921, the Kazakh Central Executive Committee issued a decree "On the fight against cattle theft." The decree noted cattle stealing as a threat to the national economy. The decree determined severe penalties up to capital punishment for theft of livestock by repeat offenders, as well as in case of cattle theft by robbery. Also, the concealers and accomplices of cattle stealers, including those involved in the sale of the abducted, could be subjected to capital punishment. By the same decree, criminal cases involving horses, camels, and cattle were transferred from the people's courts to the military departments of provincial tribunals.

On November 19, 1921, by the decision of the People's Commissariat of Justice of the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic No. of the case of theft of livestock, it was required to consider out of turn. As an unconditional preventive measure, detention was envisaged.

This decree was valid for about six months and was repealed in connection with the adoption on June 1, 1922 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, which did not provide for punishment for cattle theft ^[8] .

The first proposals on the creation of official normative legal acts on punishment for cattle theft were made on July 13, 1922, when the “Regulations on the Prosecutor's Supervision and the Bar” were adopted at the III session of the Kazakh Executive Committee and amendments were made to the IX part of the RSFSR Criminal Code “on the prohibition kalym, cattle theft, merciless punishment of cannibalism ” ^[9] .

The elimination of kun, in the opinion of the Soviet government, was also to exclude the practical benefits of committing barymyta. At the same time, Barymta, as a traditional method of resolving litigation, continued to exist. Soviet justice distinguished cattle theft from barymyta, but criminally prosecuted both phenomena. Out of the total number of property crimes in 1926, over 40% were cattle theft, 208 cases were opened by barymte. In the Dzhetysu province in the years 1925-1927 cattle theft amounted to 49% of the total number of crimes ^[8] .

In 1926, the RSFSR Criminal Code was adopted, in which the punishment for cattle theft was provided for in Chapter VII. Property crimes, as an independent corpus delicti. The objects of cattle stealing provided for horses and cattle (cows, buffaloes) ^[10] :

Article 166. Cattle theft.
Secret, as well as open abduction of horses or other cattle from the working agricultural population,
- imprisonment for up to five years.
The same actions committed repeatedly or in conspiracy with other persons,
- imprisonment for up to eight years.

- The Criminal Code of the RSFSR of 1926

Livestock in the CIS

Like a century ago, stockbreeding in the CIS remains an acute problem for peoples who traditionally engage in cattle breeding.

A particularly difficult situation is developing in Kazakhstan ^[2] , Kyrgyzstan and in the cattle-breeding regions of Russia.

Due to the enormous length of the border between the Republic of Tuva and Mongolia in sparsely populated areas, as well as the lack of border protection, gangs of cattle stealers terrorize pastoralists of neighboring parties ^[11] :

... Last year, four times more cattle were lost in the Mongolian border area than in the Tuvan one. Imagine the offense of the Mongols: it’s not theirs who are stealing, but strangers from abroad! According to the government of Tuva, over 90 percent of cattle-raids detained in recent years by border guards of the two countries are our fellow citizens! Once the hordes of the Mongolian Genghis Khan ravaged Russia, but now, apparently, some Russians decided to take historical revenge.
However, the Mongolian authorities did not remain in debt. Border guards of the country of mountains and steppes began to simply shoot Russian “robbinguds”. That is why on the Tuva section of the Russian-Mongolian border over the past decade, fourteen times more Russian citizens were killed and wounded than Mongolians. And, it seems, the Mongols do not intend to retreat. They will protect their cattle to the last cartridge.
True, our cattle stealers are by no means shy. The risk of dying from the Mongolian bullet does not stop them at all. And what more to live in the border outback? If you steal at least one horse in Mongolia, then enough for a whole month of modest life. And if you take away a whole herd, then you can get your own car. And, it should be noted, there are a lot of fans of such a “new market thinking” in the Tuva border region.

- Tuva and Mongolia exchange cattle raids: there are victims

The situation with cattle stealing in Tuva for 2015 remains the same difficult ^[12] .

At the moment, due to the difficult economic situation, the difficult criminal situation and the special importance of cattle breeding for the rural population, among the CIS countries, cattle breeding is a separate article only in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan . Moreover, the punishments provided for in this article are an order of magnitude stricter than the punishment under the article “Theft” ^[13] :

Article 165. Livestock.
1. Cattle theft, that is, the secret abduction of another's cattle, -
shall be punishable by a triple ayp or a fine in the amount of up to one hundred calculated indicators, or imprisonment for a term of up to three years.
2. The same action committed:
- 1) a group of persons;
- 2) in a significant amount,
- shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of three to five years.
3. The same action committed:
- 1) with the penetration into the courtyard of a residential building, enterprise, organization, institution or stockyard, corral;
- 2) on a large scale,
- shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of five to eight years with or without confiscation of property.
4. The same action committed:
- 1) an organized criminal group;
- 2) in a particularly large amount;
- 3) by a person previously convicted two or more times for theft or extortion,
- shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of eight to eleven years with confiscation of property.

- The Criminal Code of the Kyrgyz Republic of October 1, 1997 (as of July 28, 2015)

An attempt by the Kyrgyz Ministry of Justice in 2013 to remove this article from the criminal code met with active resistance from law enforcement agencies ^[14] .

• Gypsy crime
• Horse theft
• Livestock mutilation

• Livestock // Sighisoara - Juices. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1956. - P. 261. - ( Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 51 vols.] / Ch. Ed. B. A. Vvedensky ; 1949-1958, vol. 39).