Siberian History

Here the history of the breed Siberian cat ...

We find references to the Siberian cat up to 1000 years AD. The Siberian Cat has naturally developed in Russia until the fall of the Berlin Wall. Then he traveled through the border and appeared in Germany. He then went in other European countries. He can now be found in America and of course at here in Quebec.

Siberians cats come from a cross between domestic cats and wild cats from various parts of Russia. Domestic cats were imported by Russian settlers in Siberia. These were popular because they were hunting rats. They crossed with wild cats from the regions of the Urals and Central Siberia plateau and the Caucasus Mountains.

With the arrival of these different breeds of cat in the city of St. Petersburg to hunt rats, some of these cats were carriers of the gene Neva. These cats came from the Neva River region in Russia in the 1960s and they are at the origin of this breed, named NevaMasquerade. Desert Cat chromosomes were also found in the genes of Siberian cats. From that moment, Siberian and Siberian Traditional NevaMasquerade mated freely with as results to create the Siberian Cat as we know with a diverse color range including pointed colors NevaMasquerade.

The first official pedigree identifying a Siberian cat was issued in 1987 and was established in Russia by Kotefei (canine association). The first standard was established! The Kotofei Cat Club used 2 cats as a model for creating this standard:

        IC Mars (a lynx pointed NevaMasquerade Blue and White)              and      Roman (a traditional brown tabby and white).

In 1988, in Frankfurt, this standard was changed and accepted by the World Cat Federation (WCF) in 1990. NevaMasquerade (Newskaja Maskaradnaja) became is a color variant of the Siberian Cat, In St. Petersburg, in 1986. The Siberian cat color NevaMasquerade is also considered according to the same program as the Siberian cat traditional color.

TICA (The International Cat Association) established its own standard from 1998.

TICA accepted the NevaMasquerade (Pointed Color) in their breed standard in 1992 and in 1996 the first championship titles were given to a color pointed cat (NevaMasquerade)

Son of needle, Siberian cat becomes present around the world and is now at home in most countries, including Canada