Received from Russia with an interesting story. The sender picked this up while on vacation in Kazan where the azan cat has been the city mascot since at least the 19th C. A large part of Kazan's tourist souvenirs depicts cats.
After some sleuthing on my own, I read that there is a three metre high sculpture of a cat lounging on a couch with a mouse nearby. Apparently, back in 1745 while the Winter Palace was being built in St Petersburg, there was a problem with mice. The Russian Empress learned about the Kazan cats that were built with large heads, muscular necks and short tails that had remarkable strength and impressive mouse catching abilities. 30 of them were soon sent to deal with the mouse infestation and some of their descendants are in the Hermitage even now, still ridding the place of pesky mice.
CATURDAY
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