Neva Masquerade Cats

No one would be better to talk about the creation of the Neva cat than Dr.Olga Mironova, the Kotofey club founder who elaborated the first standard of the breeding using the foundation cat “Roman”. By the way, Roman did not carry the color point gene, it is pretty much certain since he produced 22 offspring and up to the second generation there was not a single color point cat registered.

Dr.Mironova is a highly educated cat judge and dog judge, a medical doctor with a genetics course and a vast background on breeding.

Here is the transcription of one of her articles that explains how Neva cats were created:

“Siberian cat has an interesting colour variation – Neva Masquerade. The same way as Persian breed has Himalayan cats – Siberians have their own colour point in their breed. Therefore, Neva Masquerade is a Siberian cat with Siamese colours. Of course, this colour is brought in, and it’s known how. In his time, Sergey Vladimirovich Obraztsov brought to Russia a few Siamese cats, this way the population of our Siberian cats was replenished by new gene. Next, in the end of 60es, in Leningrad’s and Moscow’s houses the new population appeared. The only thing, that our club can be proud of, is that we from very beginning patiently took care of saving of that subspecies and creation of standard for it, at first preliminary and then working one. We did it so the “specialists” wouldn’t tell that it’s just a regular half Siamese “Murka” (Russian name used for house cats). The name “Neva Masquerade” was given to this subgroup of Siberians in year 1989.”

The Neva is a magnificent cat created by Russian breeders using color point cats that were available in Russia at that period (80’s/90’s) and the traditional Siberian cat.

Despite the fact that unlike Siberians, Neva are not natural cats, it doesn’t make them less attractive as pets and there is a huge public for these beautiful cats that managed to keep a few traits from Siberian cousins like the hypoallergenic factor in most Neva lines (if well chosen) or the nice temperament, way easier than other CP cats like Siamese..

If you wish to buy a Neva, I would advise you to ask the breeder about their work and the lines he/she used and choose Neva lines that are essentially Russian avoiding recent German lines in which we find other breeds mixed with Neva (for the size for example, like Ragdolls).

It would have been beneficial for the two cats if they had been separated as two different breeds since some of most desirable traits like beautiful deep blue eyes, are often ruined by a mating with regular gold or hazel Siberian eyes. Neva being such a popular and attractive cat, I am surprised there wasn’t more efforts from Neva breeders to separate the two cats into two distinct breeds.

Here is an extract from an article written by Elena Schevchenko regarding the matter Siberian vs Neva, president of the MFA association and ICU judge.

“Therefore, I want to emphasize again: the conversation is not about “like – not like”, “bad – good” breed. In my opinion, the problem is that there are certain differences between Siberian and Neva cats, and breeding between them does not benefit posterity.”

Siberian breeders are most definitely not Neva haters but at the same time destroying Siberian gene pool to favor mixes would not be sensible and we would be depriving the future generations from having the possibility to appreciate both cats.”

You can view the full articles in this link.