From abc.net.au: Cats stand guard over Russia's artistic treasures.
Saint Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum is well known as home to some of the world's greatest artistic treasures.
A lesser-known collection at the museum is an army of cats, its praetorian guard against rats.
For more than 250 years, the Hermitage's resident felines have waged incessant war against the rodents that infest Russia's most prestigious museum, set on the bank of the Neva River.
In summer they stroll the institution's grounds and yard, picking out their sinuous way between the statues and other priceless exhibits, but in the winter the 50 strong army spends much of its time in the better-heated basement.
"We consider them to be museum employees," said Tatyana Danilina, one of the Hermitage's human employees. (...)
The presence of cats in the Winter Palace, the historic residence which houses the Hermitage Museum and was once the heart of the Russian empire, owes nothing to chance.
The feline invasion began in 1745 when Emperess Elizaveta Petrovna, Peter the Great's daughter, signed a decree ordering to "find in Kazan (a city located in the Volga region, some 800 kilometres east of Moscow), better cats, the largest ones, able to catch mice, and to send them to Her Majesty's court, accompanied by a person who will look after their health."
Within a few decades, during the reign of Emperess Catherine the Great, there was already a substantial population of "Winter Palace cats" living in the building. [continue]
Link found at Cronaca.
Related:
Hermitage Museum - Mirabilis.ca