Table of contents:
- State Hermitage (St. Petersburg)
- British Museum (London)
- Ernest Hemingway House Museum (USA, Florida)
- Issa Kobayashi Memorial Museum (Nagano)
- Torre Argentina Square (Rome)
Video: In which museums you can see cat employees, and what they do there
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
What should a museum worker be like? Experienced and professional, polite and tidy? Some of the largest museums in the world are confident that qualified personnel may well have a mustache, paws and tail. The tradition of using cats to protect valuable exhibits from mice dates back to time immemorial, but only in some places tailed guards are full-fledged workers and receive an official "salary", albeit in the form of food and care.
State Hermitage (St. Petersburg)
The basement network of the Hermitage is a real underground “city”. The total length of these corridors is more than 20 kilometers, and they are home to their own "people" - the Hermitage cats. Since the 1960s, the number of tailed defenders of cultural heritage has been set at about 50, and all "workers" have their own rights and responsibilities. Each cat has a special card, bowl and basket for sleeping. The cellars in which they live are not at all damp and gloomy dungeons, but dry and warm "streets". Access to cats is restricted only to the palace halls and, most importantly, to the Hermitage ventilation system, because this "labyrinth" can be deadly for them, because how it works is still unknown, because the old drawings have not survived.
The tradition of keeping cats in the palace dates back to Peter I, it was he who brought the cat, nicknamed Vasily, from Holland, and settled the tailed pet in the Winter Palace, which was still wooden at that time. Peter issued a special decree. The next step to rescue from rodents was taken by Elizaveta Petrovna, who held a whole action, ordered. It was these Kazan robbers who became the first Hermitage cats. Catherine II did not like cats, but she understood the need for their presence, so she ordered them to be launched into the new building of the Winter Palace, where they quite successfully took root, only the cats in those days were divided into two classes - outbuildings and rooms. By the way, they were then awarded the official title.
Once again, cats were brought to Leningrad again after the blockade was lifted, since there were practically no cats left in the besieged city, and rodents became a real problem. In the 60s, however, the Hermitage cats multiplied greatly, and they tried to fight the mice in new ways. It turned out that no new items - technical and chemical - do the job as well as the tailed defenders, and the cats had to be returned to the basements.
British Museum (London)
Compared to the Hermitage "team", the British division looks quite modest - only six cats, but they are all officially enrolled in the staff, receiving a salary of £ 50 a year - for food and toilet. In addition, cats are given a free uniform: a yellow neck bow. True, the wise English do not overfeed the "workers" so that they would have an incentive to fulfill their official duties.
English rodent fighters sometimes even accompany guards during night patrols, and one of the cats, Mike, for 20 years, since 1909, has been on duty every day at the entrance to the museum, making it a real attraction. After the death of the permanent guard, obituaries were even printed in the newspapers.
Ernest Hemingway House Museum (USA, Florida)
In 1935, the famous writer was presented with a kitten, which he originally named Snowball (Snowball). The cat had a unique feature - it had six toes on its front legs. Today, as many as forty descendants of the favorite of the great writer live in the Hemingway house-museum. It is surprising that an unusual feature was also inherited by them - all seals are six-fingered. They live in the museum for their own pleasure - they walk wherever they want and can even lie on Hemingway's rare bed, because recently they are considered a national treasure of "historical, social and cultural value." True, until 2007, the museum staff had to endure a real battle - the state authorities demanded taxes from the museum and the fulfillment of sanitary requirements "for circuses and zoos."
Issa Kobayashi Memorial Museum (Nagano)
Sora the cat appeared in the museum not so long ago, but almost immediately it will receive the official status of “special director”. This "worker" found a "job" for himself. The fact is that an unusual visitor began to regularly appear in the museum and be on duty in the exhibition halls. It should be noted that in the work of the great Japanese poetry master Issa Kobayashi, cats were a very important topic - more than 300 poems are dedicated to them, so Sora's presence in the house-museum does not distract visitors, but, on the contrary, creates the necessary mood.
Torre Argentina Square (Rome)
This open-air museum is guarded by cats as needed. The fact is that when at the beginning of the 20th century archaeologists began excavations at this place, having discovered the remains of an ancient forum, hordes of rodents poured into the square from the opened cracks and holes. To fight them, it was necessary to urgently bring a "landing" of several dozen cats to this place. The tailed beasts coped with the task quickly enough, and after that they remained to live in the "cleaned" area, especially since there are still enough rats and mice there. Today, the excavations have turned into an official museum, and a shelter has been built for the cats, which is maintained with money from the city budget and donations. Nobody knows the exact number of cats now living in the square, but they are rightfully respected by the townspeople and tourists.
For all cat lovers, there is no doubt that Heaven on Earth is a place in the Hawaiian Islands where 600 cats live in fabulous conditions.
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