The Russian Blue
Breed history "Elizabeth Kulova, The magazine "Between Cat and Dog", 2002(last page)
The experiment
lasted long years and unfortunately it produced harmful
consequences:
disproportions, a tubular body, skeleton emaciation, diminution
of
dimensions. At the beginning of the sixties the Russian
blue cat acquires
evident qualities of an oriental kind. This fact
troubled the factory-owners and
prompted them to join forces and
formulate a new standard in 1965 that
contained the main points of the
modern Russian blue cat. The new standard
was assumed as a
basis for all further standards and its principal tendency is a
Siamese phobia that can be seen in new (including American) standards
depicting
their round eyes-form. After 1965 a lean kind of the Russian blue
cat
was disappearing gradually. In 1972 the breed won its fanciers'
confidence.
This episode may serve as a caution against a dangerous
interbreeding with
alien rears that leads to undesirable and often
irremovable genes. The genes
produce consequences of long duration for
breeding. There is a Siamese
colour in the brood of the Russian blue
cat. As for a lightweight it was being
preserved during the 1980th -
90th. This breed still gets the highest points,
for instance in American
exhibitions.
The First World War interrupted the breeding and the breed was on
the brink of destruction. Russian blue cats were kept by the British Zoo
Dunlow. After the war there were a few cats left. British and Swedish
factory-owners began their interbreeding with Siamese cats to save
and rehabilitate the breed. They wanted to create a new base, grade up the
colour of eyes
and have nothing to do with the British kind. In the 1970th the original kind of the
Russian
blue cat was restored on the whole. By that time European,
especially Swedish nurseries had taken an active part in breeding.
However, the European breeding of that time didn't lead to considerable
consequences; it is possible that the animals may have been interbred in
a narrow circle and this fact may have caused their miniaturization.
Recession followed the reviving of the 1970th. The further development
of the breed seemed to have ceased in wait for something.
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