Residents of Panfilovo village in the Almaty region have been complaining for three years about the unbearable stench from a nearby slaughterhouse. The smell prevents them from opening windows and doors, and some have been forced to leave their homes. The issue was reported by infohub.kz.
Local resident Daniyar Aidarbekov said the stench of rotting animal remains becomes unbearable during warm weather. “This problem has been going on for two or three years. As soon as warm weather comes, summer. When the wind blows from there, that's it. We're suffocating here. The smell of rot. When the insides, organs, skin rot. That manure. It all mixes together and spreads,” he said. According to the villager, he and his family sometimes leave the village entirely to avoid the stench.
The slaughterhouse operates on the grounds of the local market. Residents say the smell travels for kilometers. They decided to investigate the source and found animal entrails and waste simply scattered on the floor.
The slaughterhouse owners explained that an unpleasant odor is inherent to such production. The facility has been operating for 60 years and supplies meat to local residents. There were no complaints before because there were no residential buildings nearby. “Regarding the smell, I can only say that in Soviet times there was a sanitary zone around the livestock farm. But now that zone is not observed by these residents—they have moved closer. You saw for yourselves that houses are built right up against our fences. Of course, this is a production facility, there are animals. It's not a perfume factory. There may be a smell, but it's a natural smell,” said market administrator Bakytzhan Bekmuratov.
After numerous complaints, an inspection visited the slaughterhouse. It found that owners had violated sanitary norms: animal remains had not been removed for about two days. They were fined for this. The violations were corrected, but the smell persists. Arsen Kurmankaziev, deputy mayor of the Panfilovo rural district, said: “We went there on the 20th. The mayor, the veterinary inspector, the head of the department, the police. We went there, inspected, gave a seven-day order to fix it. Then a fine was imposed, specifically by the veterinary inspection. Because of the smell.”
The owners explained that the violation occurred due to a fire at a landfill, and waste was temporarily left on the slaughterhouse grounds. They promised it would not happen again and said they have developed measures to combat the unpleasant odor.