Normally I wouldn't be terribly interested in the history of the breed of one of our four-footed family members. But I found myself a bit intrigued about the Siberian cat's history because I learned to speak Russian while in college, spent a summer at Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) State University polishing my language skills and learning about the collective culture of the Soviet Union, and then during the last half of the 1980s played my own tiny role in the Cold War. And now we have two representatives of the national cat of the Russian Federated Republic in our house!

And after researching the web a bit, I've found that the history of the Siberian cat is typical of things Russian: as Winston Churchill once said, "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma."

Ancient Breed?

Irina Sadavnikova of the Dikaya Krassa Cattery has put together what seems by far to be the most thorough information on the history of the Siberian cat. I don't wish to copy Ms. Sadavnikova's work, but would like to highlight a couple of particularly interesting things.

First, Russia's Volga region seems to be a central aspect of the modern Siberian's development. While the first domestic cats (which originally were derived from African stock) arrived in the Volga region of Russia around the 6th century, B.C., there is no mention of cats in official Russian documentation until the 14th century.

Second, the assertion that the Siberian cat originated in the taiga forests of today's Siberia is a myth. In fact, the name "Siberian" as applied to cats is a traditional Russian name for "big, fluffy" cats in general, rather than a specific breed prior to the breed standards established between 1987 and 1993. And the basic stock for today's modern Siberian actually came, as indicated above, from the Volga region, although these cats were not "purebred" by any means, most of them probably being feral or semi-domesticated rodent hunters.

The Soviet Era

With the death of Tsar Nicholas II and the rise to power of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's Communist Party in 1917, the history of the Siberian cat largely passed into shadow. Between 1917 and 1987, when Mikhail Gorbachev's political reforms began to take hold and the first cat clubs were formed by cat fanciers in Russia, there apparently is virtually no documentation of what eventually became the official Siberian cat breed.

Some might wonder why there were no cat clubs before 1987 in the Soviet Union. The fact is that we in the West take for granted both pet ownership and the long-standing pet associations and clubs that we have enjoyed for many years. Because of the records kept by these organizations, virtually every major breed of cat (and dog) that originated in Europe and/or the United States can clearly trace its lineage back for many years - centuries, in the case of some of the more ancient breeds.

By contrast, pet ownership (not to mention basic civil liberties!) in the Soviet Union was generally discouraged and in many cases officially restricted. This didn't prevent individuals from owning and breeding cats, but this - plus the Communist Party's "discouragement" of private organizations not sanctioned by the state - meant that there was literally no one to track the progress of what was to eventually become Russia's national cat. The Communist Party kept records on virtually every activity of its citizens, but apparently tracking the progress of the Siberian cat breed wasn't on the KGB's agenda!

The Siege of Leningrad

However, there was a key event during the Soviet era that likely played a major role in the formation of the modern Siberian cat, and that was the siege of Leningrad during World War II. This epic siege - also known as The 900 Days - lasted for nearly three years, from September 1941 when German troops first cut off the city through January 1944 when the siege was finally broken by the Red Army.

Once the siege was lifted in January 1944, several web sources indicate that the Soviets gathered thousands of cats and shipped them by train to Leningrad to help control the ravaging rat population. A survivor's diary, quoted in Pravda.Ru, indicates that a train with four rail cars full of "smoke- colored" cats from the Yaroslavl area, which is on the right bank of the Volga River about 175 miles north of Moscow, was sent to Leningrad in April 1944, three months after the siege was lifted (note: this article incorrectly indicates the year as 1943, rather than 1944).

This account also indicated that the cats were parceled out to the Leningrad survivors in exchange for bread rations, while other sources on the web seem to suggest that the cats may simply have been released into the city to fend for themselves against the hordes of rodents. Interestingly, the Pravda.Ru article indicated that no official documentation was available to substantiate the Leningrad "cat tale."

However, referring again to Irina Sadavnikova's Siberian cat history, there was indeed documentation that indicated that cats collected from the Volga and northwestern areas of the Soviet Union were on that train. So, once again, the trail of the Siberian's history points back to the Volga region.

Another observation is that the Volga cats that were used to bring the rats in Leningrad under control were not destined to be housecats. Regardless of whether they were distributed in some semi-orderly fashion to the seige survivors or simply released willy-nilly into the devastated city, they would largely have to survive on their own with minimal human intervention for a number of years: these were hard-working rodent-killers who had to survive incredibly harsh conditions, probably significantly worse than their former homes in the Volga region. And the traits of the cats tough enough to survive are embodied in today's Siberian cats.

The Post Soviet Era

As noted earlier, the Gorbachev reforms of the 1980s marked a turning point in Russia's history, not least of all for cats and cat fanciers. For one thing, the first purebred cats were imported to the Soviet Union, which helped fuel the growing cat fancy in the country that culminated in the very first cat shows there in 1986 and 1987.

Again, I would direct you toward Irina Sadavnikova's web site, highlighting only a few key points here:

To begin with, the first (very first!) cat shows in the Soviet Union, held in 1986 and 1987 in Riga, Moscow, and Leningrad, were a great disappointment for the newly formed cat clubs. In Leningrad, several dozen native semi-longhair cats were entered as Norwegian Forest cats, which was the closest breed the new Soviet cat enthusiasts could find to the native cats they were entering. While the Russian native cats and Norwegian Forest cats are closely related, the Russian cats didn't fare well against the Norwegian Forest standards: the show judges accepted only a single cat! After evaluating the results of the show, the Russian cat enthusiasts decided to create a new breed based on their native felines: this became the basis for the modern Siberian cat.

Second, and very importantly, in 1989 the newly formed Soviet Felinological Federation, made up of several new clubs, certified a new cat breed - the Siberian cat - and its colorpoint variant. However, there was no unifying breed standard until 1991 when the Siberian was accepted into the WCF; by contrast, FIFe only accepted the initial standard - modified somewhat - for the Siberian, but doesn't accept the colorpoint variant.

Siberians were first imported into the United States in 1990, and I won't repeat all the details as there is an excellent summary at Petpublishing.com. Suffice it to say, that I and lots of other happy Siberian owners are very happy they were!

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