The Andersen family got their first borzoi, Ekhaga Irina, in 1968 and the Murugi kennel was registred in 1972. Owners of the kennel was Berit and Arvid Andersen. Later when their daughter Camilla grew up, she also took part in both breeding and showing. It was never a large kennel, at most they had 6 to 8 borzoi at one time, and never kept any other breed
The first years, they worked close to Signe and Axel Hallqvist of the famous Ekhaga kennels.
Ekhaga Irina was bred to Int Ch Zero and had two bitch puppies. Both went to Norway, Tanya to Ester Andersen in Mandal and Tatiana to the Strand family i Kristiansand.
Tatiana was bred to Deanlands Boris, owned by Sylvia Marston of Falconcrag kennels in England and leased to the Tzars kennel in Sweden.Tatiana produced two beautiful bitches, Marsja and Boris Katya, both topwinners.
Ekhaga Piroschka was leased from Helena and Ingemar Törnberg and bred to Tzar’s Cibitj. The P-litter was born in 1973, Signe Hallqvist of Ekhaga kennels was co-breeder with the Andersen- and the Törnberg families.
Murugi started 3 bitch lines and had as a goal to breed these into one line containing the qualities they wanted. The bitches were, Ekhaga Irina, Ekhaga Piroschka and the imported Eng. Ch Falconcrag Esmerarna, all three seen on this page.
They only kept few stud dogs, but always relied on the best studs on the marked, in particular, Int. Ch Don-Cosackens Czardas.
Three borzois were imported as complements to the Ekhaga lines, the above-mentioned Eng. Ch Falconcrag Esmerarna, who came direct from winning her fourth English certificate at the Crufts Show in London. Tierzel of Phantom Lake who was imported from the USA, and after spending 6 months in quarantine made up his Swedish Championship in three straight shows. Later Falconcrag Moryak was imported from England, but did not become a Champion.
The kennel bred some quite nice borzois, one was the top winning borzoi in Sweden in 1977, Ch Podjajka, which by the way was the same year that Ch Marsja was BIS at the Borzoi club annual show under breeder judge Lena Tamboer.
Tierzel of Phantom Lake, the imported american dog sired only a few litters but some of the offspring has made their mark in the breed, Champions. Perchina, Porchai and Potemkin are all still in a few pedigrees.
Murugi’s Saigor first went to Denmark and from there to Holland. In Holland he sired a litter but nothing is left from that. He was however sold to G von Eick in Germany where he was shown and won a CC under the English judge, Vic Harrison.
He sired a litter for Mrs von Eick and one puppy, Eick’s Kretchet went to Russia where he sired a large amount of litters and is found in the pedigrees of many Russian borzoi.
The Andersens most important contribution to the breed was perhaps not in the show ring but for the initiative to form the Swedish Borzoiclub “Borzoiringen” and the initiative for the first world Conference for Borzoi in 1981 in Sweden. Arvid was also for a few years the chairman of the IBC, the International Borzoi Council as he had been for a number of years with the Swedish club.
In 1991 the kennel moved to other locations and a few years later it closed down. Business took more and more time and it was no longer possible to continue the Murugi Kennels. In 2002, 30 years after the Kennel was formed, the family no longer keeps dogs or any other animals for that matter. In 2010 even Business engagements is fading out, they travel, spend time in their cottage in Norway and do other hobbies but borzois still occupies a special spot in their hearts!
In 2017, having sold the cottage in Norway and moved to a little house on Tjörn, an island on the west coast of Sweden.
Arvid has since the move engaged in The Borzoi Encyclopedia. He is the chairman of the group and is working hard to motifie borzoipeople from all over the world to create the complete borzoi history!