Cat breed · Russia
The Russian Blue cat (Russian: Русская голубая кошка, romanized: Russkaya golubaya koshka), commonly known as the Russian Blue, is a pedigreed cat breed characterised by a solid blue coat that has been the breed’s defining feature for over a century. The Russian Blue breed is accepted for registry and holds championship status with all major international cat registries. It is a short-haired breed noted for its dense, plush double coat of pale blue-grey fur with a distinct silver sheen, and for its bright emerald green to yellow-green eyes.
Behaviour: They are generally considered to be a quiet breed but there are always exceptions. They are normally reserved around strangers, unless they are brought up in an active household. Many Russian Blues have been trained to do tricks. They can also be fierce hunters, often catching rodents, birds, rabbits, small mammals, or reptiles. As loving and easy going as Russian Blues are, they do not like change, and prefer predictable, routine schedules.
Russian Blue kittens are energetic and require adequate playmates or toys as they can become mischievous if bored. They have exceptional athleticism and rival even Abyssinians for their ability to leap and climb. Slow to mature, Russian Blues retain many of their adolescent traits both good and otherwise until they are 3–4 years old and even much older Blues can be easily enticed into play by their owners. Russian Blues are also highly intelligent. They have an excellent memory and will learn the hiding place of favourite toys and lead their owners to them when they want a game. They also have a keen ability to remember favourite visitors and will race to greet familiar faces even if quite some time has passed between visits.
Appearance: The Russian Blue is distinguished by its vivid emerald green eyes, pinkish lavender to mauve paw pads, and a dense, short double coat in a solid, shimmering pale blue-grey colour.
The coat is known as a "double coat", with the undercoat being soft, downy and equal in length to the guard hairs. The guard hairs are an even blue with distinctly silver tips, which produce the breed’s characteristic silvery sheen and lustrous appearance. The fur is often described as exceptionally thick and soft to the touch. While the body colour is solid, the tail may display faint, barely perceptible tabby striping. In show cats, the presence of white patches or yellow eyes in adulthood is regarded as a fault.
They are small to moderate-sized cats with an average weight of 3.6 to [dose — ask your vet] (8 to 15 lb) when fully grown. Males will typically be larger than females. Their gestation period is approximately 64 days.
History: The Russian Blue is selectively bred from a naturally occurring landrace that may have originated in the port of Arkhangelsk in Russia. They are also sometimes called Archangel Blues. It is believed that sailors took them from the Archangel Isles to Great Britain and Northern Europe in the 1860s. The first reference to an Archangel Cat appears in British print in 1862. The first recorded appearance of one in a show was in 1872 at The Crystal Palace in England as the Archangel Cat. However, Harrison Weir writing in 1895 reported that the early show cats under the Russian Blue name were British-bred grey tabbies, with separate grey cats arriving from Archangel in Britain in the 1800s with features consistent with the modern breed. The Russian Blue competed in a class including all other blue cats until 1912, when it was given its own class. The breed was developed mainly in the UK and Scandinavia until after World War II.
Right after the war, a lack of numbers of Russian Blues led to crossbreeding with the Siamese. Although Russian Blues were in the United States before the war, it was not until the post-war period that US breeders created the modern Russian Blue that is seen in the United States today. US breeders combined the bloodlines of both the Scandinavian and British Russian Blues. The Siamese traits have now largely been bred out.
They have been used on a limited basis to create other breeds such as the Havana Brown or alter existing breeds such as the Nebelung. They are being used in Italy as a way to make Oriental Shorthairs healthier and more robust called RUS4OSH in FIFe.
.jpg){kind=link}