You think that you have a Russian Blue mix cat. Please read this.

A lot of people on social media think that they have a purebred mix cat without papers and one of those breeds which is often discussed in this context is the Russian Blue which is referred to by aficionados of the breed as a "Russian". And you will find that aficionados or experts of the breed shed some light on the Russian mix cat.

This image is here to emphasis the need for green eyes in the Russian Blue. It is not meant to be a true likeness of the breed. Is is not except for the colour as the whisker pads in this illustration are a bit puffy. Image: MikeB

And I would chip in here as an expert of sorts as well. One issue with the Russian is that it's a cat breed which looks quite similar in body conformation to a random bred or moggy cat. It's a bit slender in general than most or your average moggy but nonetheless it is a fairly standard looking cat in the colour 'blue' which is a grey.

And there are moggy cats which look very much like Russian Blue cats. And it is these cats that social media users sometimes photograph and upload the photograph to social media such as Reddit.com to ask whether there cat is a purebred or a Russian Blue mix.

And an expert will say that they are not. In fact the expert will go further and say that most of the Russian Blue mix cats on Reddit.com - and I guess other social media websites - are simply mixed breed cats. There is no Russian Blue in them.

Russian Blue mix

I guess some might be a mix and let's be clear, a Russian Blue mix will be the offspring of a purebred Russian Blue and a domestic shorthaired cat i.e. a moggy. That is a first generation from that mating.

An expert on Reddit.com says that "Mixes don't happen in this breed but due to a lack of education and the Internet which likes to talk about Russians and show a photo of a domestic cat people don't understand the breed or process very well."

One reason why there are few Russian Blue mixes available is because they are a rare and expensive breed and most of these cats are neutered at 3-4 months of age. Some breeders will send unneutered Russians to purchasers but they will instruct them to have their kitten neutered at the required time and that will be part of the contract.

And they are often sold as indoor cats and therefore there is little chance of them mating with another cats outside.

So there are very few Russian Blue mixes and secondly a good quality, nice looking mixed breed cat that happens to be grey in colour might look very much like a Russian Blue purebred cat. Or in lieu of that they might think it is a Russian Blue mix but for the reasons above they won't be.

Emerald green eyes

One key element to differentiate a Russian Blue mix from a purebred cat of this breed is that the eyes should be in emerald green. Perhaps they might not be glistening emerald green but they should be green nonetheless are not yellow or any other colour. The breed standard insists that they are green and no other colour. Some say that the Russian's eyes change from yellow when subadult to green later on. All kittens have blue eyes by the way.

The Russian Blue cats bred in Russia, which is the home of this cat breed (click this for the origin), are said to have beautiful emerald green eyes because the Russian readers are very particular about this. And Russian breeders tend to breed with greater enthusiasm and determination than other breeders in other countries. They might overdo it sometimes but they end up with a cat which is absolutely on the nail in terms of meeting the breed standard which for the Russians would be the FiFe breed standard.

So, look for those green eyes at first and then be sceptical if somebody says that they want to sell you a Russian Blue. I always say and I'll say again that if you want to buy a purebred cat you should go to the breeder and check out their operation and talk to them; asked questions. If you buy sight unseen, online a so-called Russian Blue you might be scammed. I could state that more strongly and say that you will be scammed but I don't want to exaggerate.

And if somebody says I want to sell you a Russian Blue Mix, I've made my point in this article. But perhaps one of the key checks will be those green eyes.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

American Blue Cat

Ever heard of the American Blue Cat? I doubt it because according to a very earlier writer about the cat breeds, Rush Shippen Huidekoper, writing in 1895 this was a name for the Russian Blue of today. 

The naming of the cat breeds can be a little bit confusing and problematic sometimes. Back in that time more than 120 years ago, this cat breed had been given many names including "Blue Cat", "Maltese Cat", "Archangel Cat", "Russian Cat", "Spanish Blue", and "Chartreuse Blue". 

Russian Blue photo copyright Helmi Flick.

RELATED: What is a blue Maltese?

Apparently, the author explained that the name "American Blue" is "probably due to the fact that the Maltese for some years has been a very favourite cat in America, and has probably been bred more carefully than any other breed of cat, so that its representatives formed a distinct type of good quality".

That is a little bit of history which may interest one or two readers. The Russian blue today is a popular cat breed from we are told the city of Archangel on the north coast of Russia (Arkhangelsk, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia). The blue coat sits very nicely with the fact that Archangel is a cold city by some standards.

If you are interested in reading about the Russian blue cat breed today, please click on the following link.

Would you flood out your home for TikTok social media success? And blame your cats!

This Singaporean man alleges through his TikTok video that his Russian Blue cats turned on the kitchen tap, I guess during the night, and flooded out is home. And he says that it is the second time it has happened! Are you as incredulous as me about the veracity of this statement? Some pretty extraordinary things would have to take place for it to happen.

Russian Blue cats flood home? True or false? Screenshot.

The tap to his kitchen sink is turned anticlockwise from vertical through 90°. A cat would have to do that deliberately for some mysterious reason. Secondly, nearly all kitchen sinks have an overflow to take away excess water to stop flooding. That would have to be plugged in this instance. Thirdly, there would have to be a plug in the outlet otherwise the water would simply flow into the outlet and away to the drain. So, these three things need to be in place for what we see in the video to happen and a cat wood have had to start the whole process.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

@zul_taylor12

won't forget this 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ ##russianbluecat

♬ original sound - Zultaylor

Personally, I don't believe it and therefore I have declared it to be a fake video because this guy has a craving for TikTok success. There is a massive craving among a lot of young people for social media success through videos. They will go to the ends of the world to achieve it including flooding their apartment. 

Maybe he thinks the water is not going to cause too much damage because he has a hard floor. I think he is incorrect because kitchen units are made of chipboard with laminated surfaces. Water seeps up into the chipboard and it expands causing the lamination to come off. You see bubbling in the lamination and the effect is spoiled.

And when you see the video, you will notice that this Singaporean guy is filming the flood while the kitchen sink tap is still running. In other words, the flooding is taking place while he's filming. He did not race towards the kitchen sink to turn it off in a mass panic. He just simply kept on filming and providing his commentary. That doesn't make sense to me. It hints or quite strongly implies to me that the whole video was constructed by him and he's blamed the cats to give it a feline flavour! What do you think? Please comment about this.

Cat's Eye Nebula is a celebration of cat's eyes

There is a nebula in space, millions of light years away, which is called the Cat's Eye Nebula. It is a beautiful, gaseous object that was first discovered by William Herschel on February 15, 1786. Although it is difficult to measure its distance from Earth, it is believed to be 3300 light years away. This means it would take 3300 years to travel to the nebula when travelling at the speed of light which is 186,000 mi/s or 300,000 km/s. The photograph is a composite image of three different images taken at different wavelengths. The images were taken by the Wide Field Planetary Camera-2.

Cat's Eye Nebula. Photo: Wikipedia under CC license.

Surprisingly to me, it's estimated age is believed to be 1000 years ± 260 years.

Turning to cats! The domestic cat's eye is a beautiful object. There are two perhaps four things that come to mind, immediately. Firstly, we all know that there is a reflective layer behind the retina which directs light back onto the retina which in turn enhances the eye's ability to detect objects in low light conditions. The cat's eye also has a preponderance of rods over cones which are designed to detect light under difficult conditions and produce a black-and-white image. Thirdly, a kitten's eyes have no colour or pigmentation in the iris and are therefore blue due to the refraction of daylight through the eye. Fourthly, in the cat fancy, breed standards dictate the colour of the eyes of any one cat breed. They may be a wide selection to choose from but sometimes they have to be just one colour such as for the Russian Blue whose eyes have to be vivid green.

Russian Blue vivid green eye colour per breed standard. Pic: in public domain.

Russian Cat Breeds

Kurilian Bobtail. Photo: Helmi Flick.

These are the Russian cat breeds: Kurelian Bobtail, Karelian Bobtail, Russian Blue, Don Sphynx, Peterbald,  Mekong Bobtail, Ukranian Levkoy, Toy Bob and Siberian. Do Russian breeders breed these cats better than Americans or Europeans? They might and in case someone are rare and only bred in Russia. In Europe and the USA we don't get involved with Russian cat breeders that much but there is a pretty lively cat fancy in Russia. The Russians like their cats, you know. How much do we know about Russian cat breeders? I mention the big three in more detail below.

You might want to read about the Russian Blue first. In the first half of the 1800s, was the Russian Blue a moggie in Archangel, a port on the north coast of Russian near to Finland? I expect this cat was until it was decided that a cat breed would be created. Archangel is said to be the place where the Russian Blue comes from.

Was the Russian Blue always blue? Or to be more accurate: blue/gray. The Russian Blue today must be blue and green eyed. But before the Russian Blue was a purebred cat I doubt that it was always blue. The first Russian Blues were exported from Russia to England in the mid 1800s. That is where they started there life as a purebred cat. I think that someone thought that an exclusively blue coloured cat from the cold north of Russian would be a nice match. It worked out well. The Russian Blue is in the top ten most popular cat breeds.

What about the incredibly rare Kurelian Bobtail? Have you heard of this cat breed? This is a cat that has an origin in terms of natural development that is similar to the Manx in that there was a genetic mutation for a short tail on an island. In this case the island is off the coast of Siberia. There was probably inbreeding in a confined environment for the mutation to occur. This cat breed comes from the Kuril Islands, a disputed territory between Russia and Japan. Is this cat half Russian and half Japanese as a consequence? It is said that the famous Japanese Bobtail originates in the Kurelian Bobtail. The Japanese Bobtail goes back a thousand years so we are talking about long history here. The Russians breed this cat to a high standard.

Finally, we have the Siberian cat. Siberia is in the east of Russia. We all know how cold that part of the world is. That is why this cat is triple coated and stocky. What is unusual is that breeders (one breeder?) claims that the Siberian is hypoallergenic. Believe it? Not me. Research says otherwise. This cat breed looks like the Norwegian Forest Cat and the Maine Coon and there may be a connection. All three may originate in Scandinavia. The Siberian is another popular cat.

Of the three, the Russian Blue is the most popular with the buying public.

Is the Russian Blue a lap cat?

Photo copyright Helmi Flick

Is the Russian blue a lap cat? It depends on the individual cat more than the cat breed in my opinion. It is a little misguided to pigeon hole all cats of one breed into a particular type of behavior. However, I will describe what an expert says about the temperament of the Russian Blue purebred cat.

Gloria Stephens of Legacy of the Cat says that this breed is gentle and a bit shy. They are it seems of quite a delicate disposition. They require delicate handling. This shyness and caution means that they are likely to be more nervous of strangers. But it also means that they are happy in familiar indoor surroundings. They will like the company of their human companion and I suspect be close to them. This may mean that individual Russian Blue cats are lap cats.

They are intelligent cats and like to exercise their intelligence in play. So there you have it. Gloria does not say that they are or are not lap cats but reading between the lines I would think that a good percentage of them are because laps are very comfortable, reassuring and safe places for a sensitive cat.

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The photo on this page is protected by copyright ©. Violations of copyright are reported to Google.com (DMCA).

Russian Blue Kittens

Russian Blue Kitten photograph by Sensual Shadows Photography

Before you go in search of Russian Blue Kittens have a look at these and have a look at some Russian Blue adult cats too and read about this cat breed. I've also built a page in which I discuss the breed standard in a general kind of way, nothing too technical, which may interest potential buyers of Russian Blue kittens as it also contains a large format slide show of a lot of cats of this breed to get a feel as to how they appear and what they should look like under the breed standard. Click on this link to see a large slide show.

All pedigree cats have a breed standard, a target that governs what breeders should aim for. There is, obviously, quite a wide range of looks that all comply with the standard as the wording is quite widely drafted and there are never any diagrams or pictures to guide (which has always surprised me). Your kitten should of course be within the parameters set by the breed standard to be true Russian Blue but more importantly the cat breeder must give you documentary evidence that the kitten is a cat of this breed. If you don't get that you might as well adopt a rescue cat.


Russian Blue Kitten photograph by t0msk. The CFA breed standard says the eyes should be a vivid green. This is a fine photo of a lovely kitten but I am not sure the eyes are exactly the correct color or is it the reflection of the carpet?

The Russian Blue Breeders Association, based in the UK (but the advice is good for any country) state that the breeders must provide a pedigree certificate of three generations for the cat in question and the document must be signed by the breeder. In addition the breeder must produce a transfer document that is evidence of transfer of the cat from the breeder to the new owner, which is signed by both parties and sent to the Governing Council of the Cat Fancy (GCCF) the premier cat registry in the UK. Similar rules will apply in different countries I am sure. If the new owner is thinking of showing their new cat and chasing rosettes and prizes the transfer of ownership (don't like ownership) needs to be registered with the GCCF at least 21 days before the show. Some kittens are bought with breeding in mind and some not; the registration of the kitten will note this difference.

So we've got the transfer and pedigree docs, what is next.....vaccination documents. All breeders will vaccinate their kittens. I have built a substantial page on the issue of cat vaccination recommendations as they have changed over the years as veterinarians have come to realize that vaccinations can be dangerous to cats - it's all about risk whether they are given or not.

The next thing and the most important thing is the health and character of Russian Blue Kittens from which you select. It is hard it seems to me to be sure that your selected kitten will be healthy. Some cat breeds are healthier than others. I have not found any hidden genetically linked health problems associated with this cat breed (that doesn't mean there isn't though but I think it unlikely - some breeds do have predispositions to certain diseases - see cat health problems). That leaves the question whether the particular Russian Blue Kitten selected is healthy. All that can be done to assess the situation. That means an assessment of the breeder's facility and attitude plus observation of the kitten (signs of upper respiratory infection - URI - for example or cat ear mites as another example). Is everything clean and organized?


Two week old Russian Blue Kitten photograph by Sensual Shadows Photography

Next - character. I guess observation over a number of visits will solve this one. The breeder will or should ensure that the kitten is "socialized" meaning used to people and other pets so when he/she is re-homed he settles in and is not too nervous or aggressive. Character, bottom line, is more important than appearance, and health is more important than both. For example, a breeder in Scotland, Dushenka Russian Blues, says that all their kittens are born in the breeder's bedroom, which naturally gets the kittens accustomed to humans. A lot of cat breeders are "cottage industries," small, at home, businesses (c.f. kitten or puppy farms - don't buy from a pet shop). This is good and bad, I think. It means the bad ones can start up easily but it also lends itself to well breed and socialized cat, at least potentially. Socialization is very important and breed standards refer to it indirectly by insisting upon cats that are nonaggressive. Show cats are very placid and happy to be handled, they must be to win shows. So the best show cats not only look great but are great.

Kittens and cats take time to settle in (in my experience at least 6 months) so a very pleasant calm environment is pretty much essential for our new Russian Blue Kitten. Food is also a factor. Cats get used to a certain type of food and a sudden change could prompt things such a diarrhea and litter problems (i.e. problems for the new owners). So, the breeder should tell you what type of food she feed her Russian Blue Kittens. This should be continued with any change being gradual.


Russian Blue Kittens - photograph by hlehto

My preference is quality wet food and some human food such as fish (if she/he likes fish) or chicken. Dry cat food can contain too high a carbohydrate content. It is convenient for the human but essentially unnatural for the cat but in modest doses it is probably OK (i.e. used as part of the overall diet). There are lots of links on this site about cat food (this takes you to all 15). The ideal cat food should mimic the kind of food a wild cat eats but this is complicated as raw meat is not enough, cats will need supplements such as Taurine, a vital ingredient.

Neutering or spaying is pretty well essential if you do not intend to breed from your Russian Blue Kittens or Kitten. Some breeders I believe do this and some insist on the kitten being fixed as part of the purchase contract.


Russian Blue Kittens - photograph by hlehto

Since writing this page I have built a spreadsheet that I call Russian Blue Breeder Worldwide List. There is a page that has the same spreadsheet in larger format. It is here: Russian Blue Breeders. Here is the smaller format version (it is long):



That's about it (in outline). Oh, except for one thing. The GCCF publish a code of ethics. I think it helps of we remind ourselves of some of the more outstanding points (this is a shortened summarized version).

1. Cat owners should think carefully before getting a kitten......
2. Cats must be provided with warmth, comfort, exercise, adequate food and water (at all times). Cat should be kept in at night for safety.
3. Cats should be groomed regularly and checked for parasites
4. We should see a vet when our cat looks ill.
5. Cats as pets (not breeding cats) should be neutered and spayed.
6. Breeders should sell to selected people who it is believed will care for their cat and if not due to unforeseen circumstances the breeder should offer to rehome the cat(s) sold.
7. Owners shouldn't sell to pet shops or large scale sellers or give away a cat as a prize.
8. Breeders should act with integrity and honesty and not misrepresent the health and pedigree of the cat.
9. If a breeder sells to a cat breeder advice should be available and breeding should not have a negative impact on the cats' health.
10. Owners should identify their cat. There are 2 ways, cat collars are potentially dangerous and microchipping for pets can carry health problems (these are my comments and not part of the code).
11. The seller breeder must provide the documentation referred to above (the docs referred to above may not be complete - please refer to the GCCF)

Russian Blue Kittens to Home page

Russian Blue Kittens - Photos: These are published under a creative commons license of 2 types. The Sensual Shadows Photography ones are licensed under this license = Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License. The others have been cropped as allowed under this license = Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. Thanks for the permission. I have provided links as well which are not required under the license.