Statue of famous dog killed by hit-and-run driver to be built in Istanbul

ISTANBUL

The statue of a stray dog killed by a car traveling in the wrong direction will be built in Moda, one of Istanbul’s most prominent neighborhoods, by sculptor İskender Giray. 

The statue for the dog, Tarçın, will be built on the spot where she always slept. 

“I want a monument that would make Tarçın immortal. We want to put it on the corner where she always slept,” Giray told a local newspaper on May 19, adding that animal activists Sennur Ulugönül and Mine Vural contacted him to build the statue. 

“As a dog owner I’m extremely bothered by what happened. I told the activists that I wanted to help and that I would build the statue without demanding any money,” added Giray.

Tarçın was killed by a driver going in the wrong direction, who then left her on the street without checking her condition on May 5. The incident elicited an immediate response among Moda residents and animal activists, who voiced their anger against the driver, promising to track him down and bring him to justice.

The driver in the hit and run has not yet been found, although the Garenta rental firm company confirmed that its car had been used in the incident, promising to cooperate with authorities in the event that legal action is launched.

“There are two main problems; the fact that the car entered the reverse direction and ran away after hitting her. Children or mothers with strollers could be passing through that street. It was unlucky for Tarçın that she was there when the car was passing,” said Ulugöl, who was looking after Tarçın voluntarily for more than six years. 

“Three people tried to lift the dead body of Tarçın. The driver who hit her could at least have helped those people speed up the lifting process. One cannot be sure of the intentions of the driver. Tarçın had been staying with me for years. She was so afraid of thunder. Whenever she heard it she would come to my house. Due to the problems in her knees that emerged in recent years, she wasn’t able to walk upstairs. So we prepared a spot for her at the entrance of the house. We lost our beautiful girl, a life that was lived in Moda for 18 years,” added Ulugöl.