This utterly heartbreaking story began to unfold on Thursday, January 11th when he surrendered custody of Twix to his unidentified stepfather in order to care for during a grueling thirty-six-hour and two-thousand-two-hundred-twenty-eight kilometer trip from Yekaterinburg, east of the Ural Mountains, to St. Petersburg on the state-owned Russian railroad. That route is better known to westerners as the Trans-Siberian Railway although some Russians do not consider its last leg, the seven-hundred-seventy-six kilometers that separate Yaroslavl from St. Petersburg, to be part of that famous line.
That was Gaifullin's first and, sadly, last mistake in his solemn duty to have safeguarded Twix's life. Under no circumstances whatsoever should any owner ever delegate the care of his cat to another individual.
Many individuals, even family members and close friends, secretly do not like cats. Much more importantly, none of them fully comprehend how much that a cat truly means to its doting owner.
Cats additionally have enemies everywhere and they also are prone to being victimized by a host of unexpected calamities. The latter are so prevalent that it often seems that misfortune dogs a cat's very existence every bit as closely as it shadow does on a sunny day.
Even locking up a cat at home in order to go to either the office or the store is not without its inherent risks. Burglars, conflagrations, and gas leaks are just a few of the worries that sometimes materialize into full-blown disasters.
Taking a cat to a veterinarian is another nerve-racking experience in that cages sometimes fall apart en route. Besides, being grossly incompetent money-grabbers to begin with, some practitioners even have been known to allow cats to escape through windows and doors that have been inexcusably left open and unattended. (See Cat Defender post of July 2, 2010 entitled "Lexi Was By No Means the First Cat to Be Lost by Woosehill Vets Any More Than Angel Was Their First Victim of a Botched Sterilization.")
All of those perils pale in comparison with Gaifullin's utterly insane decision to have allowed Twix to have embarked on such a lengthy and arduous train journey with someone other than himself. Even so, all went well enough for approximately the first fourteen hours and six-hundred-eighty kilometers of the trip until the train closed in on Kirov, a mid-sized city of approximately half a million residents located eight-hundred-ninety-six kilometers northeast of Moscow. Then disaster struck.
The man retired, presumably, for the evening and while he was sleeping Twix either escaped from his cage or he had been carelessly left out by his traveling companion. The RZhD later claimed that the latter scenario had indeed been the case.
Regardless of whether his escape was either accidental or due to the malfeasance of his minder, Twix began to wander the passenger car. Ordinarily that would not have been any matter of grave importance except that on this occasion he soon ran into a conductress who was not only a rabid cat-hater but also an exceptionally vile and cruel human being. She reportedly did query some of the passengers in order to determine if Twix belonged to any of them but the extent of her efforts has not been disclosed.
Given that sixty per cent of all passengers traveling on long-distance trains in Russia do so in third-class sleeping compartments that can accommodate up to fifty-six riders, it is very unlikely that her search was very extensive. She most certainly did not awaken Twix's substitute guardian and question him.
Often derisively referred to as either campsites on rails or cattle cars, these carriages feature bunk beds on both sides of a narrow aisle. They accordingly are very congested with rather limited storage space and that would have made it difficult for Twix's guardian to have hidden his cage. Any halfway diligent conductress who therefore would have been willing to have made a thorough search likely would have spotted it.
More than likely she confined her investigation to strutting and preening up and down the aisle a time or two and querying a few of those passengers who had not already gone off to the Land of Nod before calling it quits. Even more outrageously, if she had checked her tickets she readily would have learned that Twix had one and that should have been the end of the matter.
Instead, this demon of the rails ludicrously declared Twix to be a stray and began planning his demise. In that regard, she surely must have wanted him dead awfully bad because both in appearance and demeanor he shouted out to anyone with eyes and ears that he was anything but a stray: au contraire, that he was a well-cared for and highly-socialized domesticated cat.
Even if he had been a disheveled and emaciated homeless tom who had unwittingly wandered aboard, he was still entitled to humane and compassionate care from the railroad. Being poor and homeless is not normally considered to be capital offense for a man and it should not under any circumstances be one for a cat. The very idea is sheer barbarism and the absolute worst kind of animal cruelty!
So, with her warped and twisted gourd already made up, the conductress bided her sweet time until the train rolled into Kirov and then she grabbed Twix and threw him off the train and onto the snow-covered ground in -22° Fahrenheit weather. The mere fact that she was able to have gotten her murderous hands on him in the first place is further proof that she knew good and well that he was not a stray but morality and logic count for absolutely nothing with those who detest cats.
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The Railroad Operates from the Sea of Japan to the Baltic
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Ironically, it would have been much better for Twix if he indeed had been a stray as the conductress had slandered him. In that case, she likely never would have been able to have gotten her murderous hands on him and, if she had even tried, he hopefully would have clawed out her eyes.
Under such a scenario, the railroad would have been forced to have halted service and to have called in a local Animal Control officer in order to have trapped him. He then would have been taken to a shelter and most likely killed but even that that grossly unjust and cruel fate would have been preferable to what ultimately befell him.
Nevertheless, it should not be against the law in Russia, as it is in ailurophobic Australia, for any cat to invoke its right to self-defense. (See Cat Defender post of August 24, 2011 entitled "Self-Defense Is Against the Law in Australia after a Woman Who Attacked a Cat Gets Away with Her Crime Whereas Her Victim Is Trapped and Executed.")
Despite what the world maintains, it is seldom a productive idea to socialize a cat too much in that a healthy distrust of all humans, including its owner, is highly beneficial to its continued survival. In that light, experience continues to demonstrate time and time again that is precisely those cats that are the most favorably disposed toward those beasts that strut around on two legs who are abused the worst. (See Cat Defender post of July 14, 2016 entitled "Missy, Who Was Too Kindly Disposed Toward Humans for Her Own Good, Is Memorialized in Wood at the Bus Stop That She Called Home for Almost a Decade.")
The order to events that transpired next is not exactly clear. Most likely, the stepfather awakened from his ill-advised slumber and went in search of Twix. Whether that was while the train was still stopped in Kirov or further up the line is unknown.
When confronted the conductress initially claimed that Twix had simply absconded but once videos, either from CCTV footage taken at the train station or those taken by private citizens on their cell phones, were posted on social media the following day showing someone throwing a cat off of the train she was unmasked as a bare-faced liar and immediately suspended from work by the RZhD. The existence of the videos points to the inescapable conclusion that not only private citizens but also employees of the rail depot in Kirov knew immediately what cruel fate had befallen Twix.
Yet, apparently none of them intervened in order to have rescued him. Contrary to what most individuals believe, cell phones do have other usages besides voyeurism, morbid curiosity, and the pursuit of fame and fortune by posting online.
At the very least, some of them should have notified the police and the railroad concerning what they had witnessed before Twix had gotten too far out of sight. At that early stage of this unfolding life and death drama it might still have been preeminently possible to have saved him.
Someone, presumably the stepfather, notified Gaifullin about what had happened and on January 12th he contacted Renterin Olga Kudriashova who organized a search party that soon included up to five-thousand cat-lovers. By contrast, even if a feline as famous as either Morris, Heathcliff, or Garfield were to tragically disappear in the United States it would be extremely difficult to round up even as many as a dozen volunteers who would be willing to search for him on a warm and sunny day, let alone to have trudged through the deep snow, howling wind, and bitter sub-zero temperatures of Kirov in January.
She also began posting about Twix on social media and that led to, at last count, three-hundred-eighty-thousand residents signing a petition urging the RZhD to fire the conductress. Another one-hundred-thousand citizens put their names to a second petition calling for a criminal investigation to be opened concerning the incident.
Gaifullin offered a reward of ₽30,000 (US$341.00) for information relating to Twix's whereabouts and the story of what was done to him spread like wildfire through both the local and state-controlled media as well as social media.
Finally on Saturday, January 20th, Twix's lifeless body was found frozen and stiff as a board in the snow by an unidentified male volunteer. It also had an unspecified number of bite marks on it and the paw prints of a dog were clearly visible in the nearby snow.
It is unlikely, however, that he was killed by a dog. In -22° Fahrenheit weather, he likely would not have lasted more than a few hours at best without shelter and heat.
Due to the amount of snow on the ground, the going would have been slow and exhausting, especially if it were deep and, possibly, frozen. His paws would have been the first to have frozen and soon thereafter hypothermia surely would have claimed his life.
The dog likely came along later and attempted in vain to have devoured his frozen corpse. That is mere supposition, however, and only a necropsy could have pinpointed exactly the actual cause of his death but it is unlikely that one was performed.
The Associated Press reported on January 21st that his body was found a little more than eight-tenths of a kilometer from the train station but it neglects to specify either on which side of the depot or which side of the tracks.
(See "A Pet Cat Thrown Off of a Train Died in Cold Weather. Now Thousands Want the Conductor to Lose Her Job.")
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A Typical Third-Class Dormer Car on the Trans-Siberian Railway
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If canine footprints were visible in the snow, so too should have been Twix's but press reports have not made any mention of that having been the case. Under such hellish circumstances, most cats' first instinct surely would have been to have sought shelter in the direction of the depot so his tracks should have been heading in that direction.
The fact that his body was found so far from the depot is one indication that the conductress may have forcibly evicted him from the train, not while it was stopped in Kirov, but rather either before it entered the station or soon after it had departed from it. In any case, she should have been immediately taken into custody and given the third degree by the authorities as to where and exactly when she had thrown Twix from the train.
It also is more than likely that Twix was severely injured as the result of being physically thrown from a moving train. He sans doute would have been disoriented and frightened to death long before he ever hit the snow-covered ground.
Without knowing anything about his past and life with Gaifullin, it is a difficult matter to speculate about but it is entirely possible that he was ill-equipped to have dealt with the outdoor world, especially the bitter cold and snow. He even could have been previously declawed.
As is the case with socializing a cat to the point that it loses its fear of humans, it likewise is a terrible mistake to denature a cat. Cats need to know how to survive on their own and that most definitely includes a willingness and an ability to use their claws and teeth.
That is especially the case given that so many of them are routinely abandoned by their heartless owners to the streets and woods. Moreover, countless numbers of them accidentally become separated from their owners and wind up on their own.
In a story that is every bit as heartbreaking as what happened to Twix, on December 26, 2014 a beautiful, ten-year-old tom named Nicky with long orange-colored fur somehow escaped from his home in Lorain, Ohio. It never was explained how that happened but it is suspected that the fact that it was Boxing Day somehow factored into that equation.
Compounding that tragedy, his owner, Candice Darmafall, had not only cruelly declawed and sterilized him but she also had kept him locked up indoors for all of his life. He accordingly was completely lacking in the survival skills that he needed in order to have persevered for long on his own in an alien environment.
Worst of all, the elements were against him in that winters in Ohio are brutal. Even with all of that against him he was still able to somehow have survived on his own until he was rescued on Thursday, January 15th by an unidentified family in Amherst, eight kilometers south of Lorain.
He then was rushed to the Friendship Animal Protection League (FAPL) of Elyria, fifteen kilometers west of Amherst, but by then it was almost too late to have done anything for him. "It was completely frozen. The cat was basically stiff as a board," Greg Willey of the charity related. "The best way for me to describe it is that it looked like it came out of a meat locker."
His first instinct was to have killed off Nicky on the spot which is not the least bit surprising for anyone who is in the habit of referring to a cat in the third person neuter. When Nicky stirred, however, he changed his mind and transferred him to the Fox Veterinary Hospital in Carlisle Township, seven kilometers south of Elyria.
"The poor cat came to me completely flat out; we thought he was dead," veterinarian Ashley Berardi said. "(His) temperature was low beyond normal, so low it wouldn't even register on the thermometer."
She placed him on a heating pad, bandaged his frostbitten paws, and placed him on intravenous fluids and painkillers. By Friday, January 16th, his body temperature had returned to normal and he miraculously was back on his feet.
Nothing good ever lasts for long in this wretched old world, however, and a day later it was announced that he was dead. No explanation was ever publicly given for his dramatic reversal in fortunes but there seems to be little doubt that Darmafall and Fox belatedly decided to kill him off.
During the twenty-one days that he spent alone and on the streets the thermometer was below the freezing mark on twenty of them. On four of those days it was below 0° Fahrenheit and on another four of them it was in the single digits.
Plus, it snowed on twelve of those days and rained on another four of them. Without food, water, shelter, and heat, it is amazing that he persevered for as long as he did and that in turn makes it all the more infuriating that Darmafall and Fox gave up on him so soon and killed him off.
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Although He Initially Rebounded, Nicky Was Killed Off by the Vets
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"I just thought, gosh, there's no way he can make it because he's been inside with us all these years," Darmafall predicted but in that assessment she was completely wrong. Furthermore, his demise demonstrates writ large once again that owners and veterinarians pose an even far greater threat to cats than even do the merciless cruelties doled out to them by Old Man Winter.
(See Cat Defender post of February 2, 2015 entitled "Cruelly Denatured and Locked Up Indoors for All of His Life, Nicky Is Suddenly Thrust into the Bitter Cold and Snow for Twenty-One Consecutive Days with Predictably Tragic Results.") None of that is meant to in any way imply that the cold, ice, and snow do not take a god-awful toll on cats, especially when they are combined with animal cruelty as was the case with Twix. (See Cat Defender posts of March 5, 2007, December 9, 2008, May 8, 2009, January 21, 2010, April 8, 2010, February 23, 2015, March 14, 2015, May 13, 2015, March 23, 2019, and July 10, 2022 entitled, respectively, "Run Down by a Motorist and Frozen to the Ice by His Own Blood, Roo Is Saved by a Caring Woman," "Shaved from Head to Tail and Left to Freeze to Death in the Ontario Cold, Chopper Is Saved at the Last Minute," "Domino, Feral and All Alone, Faces an Uncertain Future in Wisconsin Following an Unplanned Trip to Arizona," "Trapped Outdoors in a Snowstorm, Annie Is Brought Back from the Dead by the Compassion of a Good Samaritan and an Animal Control Officer," "A Frozen Food Purveyor Knowingly Condemns Frosty to Spend Five Weeks in Its 28° Fahrenheit Warehouse Without Either Food or Water," "Abandoned to Tough It Out by His Lonesome in the Deadly Michigan Cold and Snow, Flick Sustains Horrific Injuries to His Front Paws When They Become Frozen to a Porch," "Ace Is Found Frozen to a Porch with His Eyes Goughed Out but the Authorities Are Too Lazy, Cheap, and Ailurophobic to Go After His Assailant," "Bubba Is Condemned to Spend Forty Days Trapped Underneath a Snow-Covered Porch after Her Uncaring Owners Prematurely Wrote Her Off as Being Dead," "Fluffy Is Brought Back from the Dead after She Is Found Comatose in a Sarcophagus of Frozen Snow and Ice in Frigid Montana," and "Intentionally Blinded, Crippled, and Abandoned to Freeze to Death in a Locked Cage at a Rest Stop on Interstate 95 in Connecticut, Highway Not Only Perseveres but Now Has Hope for a Brighter Tomorrow.")
The data are contradictory but it nevertheless is believed that the bitter cold that Twix was exposed to in Kirov was perhaps as much as seventeen degrees colder than what Nicky endured in Ohio. It has not proven possible to ascertain how much snow fell in either Kirov or Ohio while Trix and Nicky were fighting for their lives.
It is known, however, that Kirov normally receives an average of seventeen inches (forty-four centimeters) of snow each January with the thermometer generally hovering most of the time between 6° and 17° Fahrenheit. Compounding an already almost hopeless situation to begin with, the Weather Underground has reported that between January 11th and January 20th the city was buffeted by alternating periods of light and heavy snow.
The wind and bitter cold were unrelenting and overnight temperatures ranged from -5° to 10° Fahrenheit between January 11th and January 15th. That is strikingly at odds with press reports that maintain that it was -22° Fahrenheit on January 11th.
Daytime highs could do no better than 3° to 10° Fahrenheit. Temperatures moderated considerably between January 16th and January 20th with readings ranging from 2° overnight to daytime highs in the low to high twenties. It is remotely conceivable that Twix could have survived if he had somehow been able to have made it through the first five days, but without shelter and food even that is highly improbable.
It is also possible that he could have attempted to have gotten out of the snow by returning to the tracks but if he had done so he quickly would have been a dead duck because the Trans-Siberian Railway is fully electrified. Once again, only a necropsy would be able to determine if he had been electrocuted.
It additionally is mystifying that it took that many volunteers so long in order to have located his corpse. Although it could have been covered up by the drifting snow, they should have been aware not only that missing cats do not travel far but also that under such inclement conditions Twix could not possibly have gotten very far from the vicinity of the depot.
Still, a half-mile radius is a rather large section of ground to have covered, especially under such trying conditions. It would have been a real long shot at best, but if the railroad and the police had been willing to have brow-beaten the truth out of the conductress as to exactly where she had evicted Twix it just might have been possible for the volunteers to have reached him in time to have saved his life.
Only one thing is certain and that is that it is difficult to imagine any cat dying a death that was any more prolonged, terrifying, and excruciating painful than the one that the conductress condemned him to die. Since cats are every bit as capable as humans of experiencing pain and rational thought, his brain surely must have been racked during his final hours trying to comprehend why the evil conductress had treated him so vilely.
He had never done anything to her. In fact, he had never seen her before in his life.
His soul no doubt was tortured by thoughts of why Gaifullin had abandoned him to such a cruel fate and when, and if, he would be arriving on the scene in order to save him. It is not unreasonable to think that before he closed his eyes for the final time that his thoughts returned to his home near St. Petersburg and to the happy years that he had spent there.
Then the deadly, unrelenting, and unyielding cold stilled his noble heart. To even contemplate what he was forced to endure during his last hours on this earth is painful.
In the aftermath of his death the RZhD wasted little time in pulling out all the dodges that it could think of in order to save its reputation and rubles. It began, however, by descending into absurdity.
Our employees "treat animals with great attention and love, and take care of them in every possible way on the journey," it ludicrously declared on social media according to the January 20th account of the BBC. (See "Russia: Cat Thrown Off Train into Snow Found Dead.")
It went on to add that some (but not how many) of its employees had participated in the search. It additionally stated that one of its subsidiaries, but not which one, was looking into teaming up with animal welfare agencies across Russia in order to help homeless animals.
When absolutely no one believed so much as a solitary syllable of such outrageous hogwash, the railroad switched tactics and offered a simple apology. "We sincerely regret the death of Twix the cat and apologize to his owners (sic)," it announced on social media according the Associated Press.
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Neko Was Deliberately Killed by an SNCF Train in Paris
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Belatedly realizing that considerably more was expected from it, the railroad vowed not to allow another cat to fall victim to what was done to Twix. "To ensure similar incidents will not happen in the future, amendments are being made to the documents used to transport pets on long-distance trains," the Associated Press reported it as declaring on social media. "Conductors will be prohibited from disembarking animals from carriages: instead animals will be handed to station workers who can contact animal welfare groups."
None of the railroad's self-serving sottise is sufficient, however; on the contrary, it must provide Twix with a measure of justice and that most definitely includes publicly identifying and firing the conductress. It additionally must compensate Gaifullin handsomely for his irredeemable loss.
Russia does have laws against cruelty to animals but, like in every other country on the face of the earth, they are strictly beau geste and seldom, if ever, enforced. Therefore, it is a sure bet that the conductress definitely will not be punished and she in all likelihood will be allowed to keep her job with the Trans-Siberian Railway.
Officials in Kirov have already swept the matter under the rug by refusing to even arrest her. On January 22d the State Duma (the lower house of Parliament) in Moscow convened a meeting in order to discuss the rules for transporting animals on trains but that had absolutely nothing to do with bringing the conductress to justice. (See The Moscow Times of Amsterdam, January 22, 2024, "How a Cat Thrown Off a Train Became a National Scandal in Russia.")
Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, which looks into corruption involving the police as well as local and state officials, reportedly has opened an investigation into the killing of Twix but nothing beneficial is expected to come out of it. "A criminal case into the incident has been opened, but not in relation into any specific individual," Gaifullin's unidentified attorney later confirmed to The Moscow Times on January 25th. (See "Russia Launches Animal Cruelty Investigation into Cat's Death.") "Experience shows that punishment comes as a fine, not as a prison sentence."
With a criminal indictment and prosecution of the supremely evil conductress being all but out of the question, Gaifullin has turned his attention to the civil courts where he is planning on suing the railroad for killing Twix. The company likely will offer him some small token of satisfaction, such as a pair of complimentary tickets, in order to shut him up and to make him go away but that is all. Hopefully, the presiding judge will feel differently.
The railroad's chief executive officer, Oleg Belozerov, has already poured cold water on the idea of monetarily compensating Gaifullin by labeling his company's killing of Twix as force majeure. "I have two dogs and a cat at home," he confessed to The New York Times on February 2nd. (See "What You Can Still Complain about in Russia: A Cat Thrown from a Train.") "Could anyone compensate me for their loss? I'm not sure."
What an outrageous load of baloney! His employee's cold-blooded and premeditated killing of Twix was neither an act of the gods nor a natural disaster but rather a willful, deliberate, and totally preventable criminal act. Belozerov and his subalterns are as guilty as sin and Gaifullin is richly entitled to monetary compensation and a lot of it.
With his death, Twix thus has become the second known cat within the short span of a calendar year to have been intentionally and ruthlessly murdered by a state-owned railroad. The other one was a beautiful longhaired brown and white male with sad green eyes named Neko who was deliberately run down and sliced in half by a Train à grande vitesse (TGV) operated by La Société nationale des chemins de fer francais (SNCF) at Gare Montparnasse in Paris on January 2nd of last year.
Under circumstances eerily similar to those that befell Twix, Neko's undoing began when his guardians, Georgia Mylona and her fifteen-year-old daughter, Melanïa, either took him out of his sacoche or he somehow managed to have gotten out of it on his own while they were waiting on the platform in order to return to their home in Bordeaux in southern France after having been in Paris in order to have rung out the old and rung in the new year. Frightened by all the noise, people, and confusion, he bolted down onto the electrified tracks.
The Mylonas spent the following harrowing twenty minutes attempting to persuade the train's crew to cut off the electricity and to mount a rescue. When that failed to have moved the obstinate crew, they sought permission to go and fetch him themselves but that offer also was refused.
"Ce n'est qu' un chat, ce n'est pas notre problème," Melanïa later reported the crew as telling her. "Les agents nous disent qu' on aurait dû le garder en laisse."
The crew's insanely cruel and heartless attitude sealed Neko's fate. Almost as terrifying, Melanïa had a front row seat in order to witness the cold-blooded execution of her beloved companion.
"On l'a vu en train de courir en dessous du train. C'est la dernière fois que je l'ai vu en vie," she afterwards related. "Il (Neko) m'a regardé dans les yeux car il a dû m'entendre. Il a continué à courir puis c'etait fini."
No one can even begin to contemplate the absolute horror that coursed through her mind at that moment. Although what happened to Twix was bad enough in its own right, at least Gaifullin was spared the agony of watching Twix slowly freezing to death in the bitter cold and snow.
The members of the crew of the SNCF, who moments earlier were in such a hellfire hurry in order to have gotten underway that they were more than willing to have committed murder, suddenly slammed on the brakes and dispatched a party in order to gather up Neko's remains along the track and that further incensed Georgia. "Je ne comprendre pas: on ne pouvait pas descendre pour sauver notre chat vivant, mais il est maintenant possible de la récupérer mort," she indignantly retorted.
With the assistance of the charity 30 Millions d'amis, the Mylonas brought charges against the SNCF and the case was heard by an unidentified police court in Paris on June 19, 2023 but the verdict was not publicly announced until July 4th. At that time, Le Président of the tribunal found the railroad guilty of "atteinte involontaire à la vie ou à l'intégrité d'un animal domestique."
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There Never Will Be Any Justice for Twix...
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That was, of course, ridiculous because what the railroad had done to Neko was anything but involuntary. Le Président even backhandedly admitted as much when he condemned the SNCF for failing to have have taken "de moyens humains nécessaires pour récupérer le chat."
The only bit of justice that he gave Georgia and Melanïa was to have ordered the railroad to pay them €1,000 each in compensation. Regrettably, he turned down a demand made by them and 30 Milllions d'amis that he refer the case to a tribunal correctionnel where the crew of the train could have faced, possibly, jail time for "sérvices graves et actes de cruauté."
As was the case with Twix, the fact the Neko was a paying passenger with a ticket made absolutely no difference to the train's crew. Unlike the RZhD which has pledged to stop forcibly evicting cats from its trains in the future, there has not been any such declaration on the part of the SNCF to stop running down those that accidentally find themselves on its tracks.
Many Frenchmen are not only obstinate and incorrigible but they also have a long and inglorious history of not only burning and eating cats but of cruelly walling them up alive underneath their houses. "Workmen in France were at one time accustomed before laying the last board in a floor to intern underneath it a living cat; this ceremony was supposed to carry good fortune to the inmates of the house," Carl Van Vechten wrote in his 1920 masterpiece, The Tiger in the House. "In demolishing old mansions in Paris the dried remains of pussies convulsed in suffering that they endured in dying are often found."
As the cold-blooded murder of Neko by the SNCF has demonstrated, the French's treatment of cats has not improved all that much since medieval days. Furthermore, their mistreatment of the species stands in stark contrast to that of the ancient Egyptians who buried their beloved and revered cats with them when they died. (See Cat Defender post of July 23, 2023 entitled "Arguing That He Was Only a Cat, the French National Railroad, SNCF, Proceeds to Run Down and Kill Neko at Gare Montparnasse in Paris and, Unbelievably, Is Allowed to Get Away with Its Heinous Crime.")
Seemingly no major story concerning either an individual cat or the species itself would ever be complete without that all-time champion of one-sided, scurrilous journalism, The New York Times, turning up johnny-on-the-spot like a bad penny and deliberately distorting both the narrative and the truth in order to advance its own perverse ailurophobic agenda. Whereas this was first and last a tale concerning an unspeakable act of barbaric cruelty that was perpetrated against a defenseless cat and the Russian people's reaction to it, The New York Times transformed it into a diatribe against Twix and the species while simultaneously seizing another opportunity in order to malign the Russian people in general and the government of President Vladimir V. Putin in particular.
In the past, The New York Times never has had anything positive to say about cats; rather, it has gone far out of its way in order to take the side of ornithologists, wildlife biologists, and others who are attempting to eradicate the species from the face of the earth. (See Cat Defender posts of December 8, 2007, July 9, 2018, and June 22, 2018 entitled, respectively, "All the Lies That Fit: The Scheming New York Times Hires a Bird Lover to Render His 'Unbiased' Support for James M. Stevenson," "The Slimy, Underhanded, and Utterly Despicable New York Times Fabricates Another One-Sided, Scurrilous Screed Against Cats and This Time Around the Target of Its Libels Is a TNR Colony at the Googleplex in Mountain View," and "As Their Colleagues Across the United States Continue to Defame and Wage War Against the Species, a Handful of Correspondents for The New York Times Are Hypocritically Turning to Cats for Their Salvation and Deliverance.")
This time around the rag called upon Russian ex-pat Anatoly Kurmanaev of Novosibirsk in Siberia in order to do its dirty work for it and he certainly did not disappoint his paymasters. While to his credit he did not choose to follow in the well-trodden footsteps of his colleagues at the Times by blaming cats for all that is wrong with the world, he certainly did not have anything positive to say about them in general, Twix in particular, and especially the Russians' fondness for them.
He kicked off his assault upon the truth by falsely claiming that the conductress "mistakenly" threw Twix off the train and that she "mistook" him for a stray. From that inauspicious beginning, he proceeded to cast aspersions on his fellow countrymen's love for the species.
Although he does admit that roughly half of Russia's population of one-hundred-forty-four million residents do own cats, he nevertheless concludes that their outrage over what was done to Twix was fueled, not by ailurophilia, but rather rank political opportunism.
C'est-à-dire, since they are unable to complain openly about the inconclusive war in Ukraine, the high cost of living, and a thousand other things due to a fear of reprisals from the authorities in Moscow, they chose to let off steam about the death of a cat. He therefore cavalierly dismisses the public's response to the killing of Twix as amounting to little more than "part catharsis (and) part political theater."
"This story has lowered the (political) temperature, and helped to shift the attention from the gloom," he proudly quotes pollster Denis Volkov of the Levada Center in Moscow as declaring.j
He then dredges up Boris B. Nadezhdin, an anti-war political opponent of Putin, in order to challenge the notion that the Russian people's outrage over what was done to Twix was genuine. "The country has missed being able to express itself freely, and to be humane," he told The New York Times. "To express support for a kitty that you have never seen in your life is to show humanity."
That is to say, according to The New York Times, in order to empathize with a cat a person has to be intimately acquainted with it. Yet, the imperious New York Times has anointed itself with an unqualified right to defame all members of the species, none of which it is even remotely acquainted with, and to champion their eradication.
While it is true that Russia does have a simply terrible animal rights record, so too does every other country in the world. Russians gobble down billions of cows, pigs, chickens, fish, and other animals each year without so much as an iota of remorse. They slaughter countless more for their fur and the country has its share of scum-of-the-earth vivisectors. Additionally, those animals that are exploited in business and recreation enjoy few if any protections.
That is why World Animal Protection's Animal Protection Index of London gave the country a grade of "F" in 2014. In 2020, the charity upgraded the country's overall rating to a modest "D" although it still received an "F" for its abhorrent mistreatment of laboratory animals.
With that being the case coupled with the fact that cats are treated like dirt everywhere, there is, admittedly, more than ample reason to question the sincerity of the Russian people's love for cats but much more information is needed before Kurmanaev's assertions to the contrary can be accepted. For example, how are homeless cats treated in Russia?
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... and the Happy Times Are Over Forever for Him
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Are they allowed to live or are they rounded up and systematically exterminated? Is TNR practiced? Is low-cost sterilization readily available?
Much more importantly, what are the kill-rates at both shelters and veterinary clinics? Is veterinary care for cats even remotely competent, available, and affordable?
Other crucial concerns are the rate at which citizens abandon their cats and the number of cases of cruelty to them that are reported each year. Furthermore, do the authorities even bother to investigate these types of utterly despicable crimes?
It also would be good to know the number of cats that are tortured to death in governmental and collegiate research laboratories each year. Also, do Russians eat cats and traffic in their pelts?
Perhaps most importantly of all, are governmental officials, the degree mills, ornithologists, and wildlife biologists allowed to use the media in order to denigrate and to call for the eradication of cats as are their colleagues in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa? For what it is worth, World Animal Protection's Animal Protection Index in 2020 gave Russia a "C" for its treatment of companion animals.
Without knowing the answers to any of those fundamental questions it is difficult to determine with any degree of exactitude if the public's reaction to the killing of Twix was heartfelt or, as Kurmanaev and The New York Times maintain, political opportunism. That which is not in doubt, however, is that the Times never will pass up an opportunity in order to denigrate the species and its supporters.
Likewise, the Sulzburger gang never will forego any opportunity in order to shill for American imperialists and capitalists and that most definitely includes libeling Russia and the Russian people to the hilt. For instance, the coverage of Joe Biden's proxy was against Russia in Ukraine by these professional liars with a printing press has been so one-sided that it would be laughable if the conflict were not claiming so many lives, both animal and human, on both sides and causing so much destruction and environmental degradation.
Finally, Kurmanaev and The New York Times have the unmitigated gall to heap scorn and ridicule not only upon what that they have termed as Putin's "disproportionate" response to the killing of Twix but also upon his opposition to "inappropriate (and) immoral behavior." That is indeed rich, but hardly surprising, coming as it does from a newspaper and a country that is totally morally and intellectually bankrupt.
After all, it most assuredly is not Russia that is currently actively engaged in the commission of animalcide, genocide, the destruction of the earth, and the wholesale theft of real estate in Gaza, but rather the phony-baloney United States of America. Nobody ever bothers to look up the historical record, but the United States has always behaved that way.
"You wander the world trying to be -- how does the slang go -- the good guys and you are despised for your bungling, hated for your wealth, and ridiculed and mocked for your posturing," Ross Thomas wrote of the yankee imperialists way back in 1966 in his book, The Cold War Swap. "Your CIA would be a laughingstock, except that it controls enough funds to corrupt a government, finance a revolution, subvert a political party."
If Kurmanaev truly believes that the supremely dishonest newspaper that he toils for is a cut above TASS and Izvestia, he sure has an awful lot to learn. Moreover, if he is so dazzled by all the bright lights of Times Square as to believe that the United States is a beacon of free speech, free press, fair elections, democracy, equality, and enlightenment where animal, environmental, and human rights are held to be sacrosanct, he is more than welcome to his fantasies but at the same time he should take care not to confound a stuffed wallet and a full belly for the unvarnished truth.
Just as a cook is not always the best judge of a feast, so too is it that the well-to-do speak only for themselves and for absolutely nobody and nothing else. Also, if he should ever sober up from his intoxication with the piranha of the west, he might want to look up Ambrose Bierce's definition of an immigrant in his 1906 tome, The Devil's Dictionary.
Worst still, by trashing his homeland he is denigrating a people who, with untold sacrifice, defeated both Napoleon and Hitler while still bequeathing to the world Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Anton Chekhov. By contrast, the United States has had little more to show than Mark Twain and Sinclair Lewis.
Besides, it would not make so much as a jot of difference even if America were capable of producing any literary geniuses because the fascists who control the book publishing business only accept for publication those manuscripts that flatter their own prejudices, interests, and baseness. Criticism of the state is either not allowed altogether or is drowned out by big money and its stranglehold upon American society.
Russia additionally has given to the world composers such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachaninoff, Igor Stravinsky, and others. On the other side of the ledger, the United States has had little to offer other than Lawrence Welk and a bloated and drugged out of his gourd Elvis. With so many notable literary and musical virtuosos, the Russian people surely must be doing something right but readers of The New York Times would be left with the impression that they are totally lacking in all merit and that the country as a whole does not have any legitimate right to even exist.
No mention has been made in press reports as to what was done with Twix's remains so it is doubtful that Gaifullin reclaimed them and therefore provided his cat with the dignified internment that he so richly deserved. The Mylonas were offered Neko's remains but they refused to take them back home to Bordeaux with them for burial, thus demonstrating that he was "n'est qu' un chat" as far as they too were concerned after earlier having berated the SNCF for maintaining the same thing.
The status of cats everywhere is indeed glum and there is not so much as a scintilla of hope for any improvement on the horizon. In reality, there is precious little decency, compassion, and justice to be found anywhere on this earth.
With that being the case, the only thing left to do is to mourn the terrible and irreplaceable loss of such a young and handsome cat as Twix. Even in doing so, there is not any escaping the unforgiving reality that, as it is the case with all those who have been unjustly killed, there in all likelihood never will be any rest for his spirit.
Photos: The Moscow Times (Twix in a playpen, on top of a chair, and lolling on his back), the Trans-Siberian Express (map), Prince of Travel of Ontario, Canada (dormer carriage), the Friendship Animal Protection League (Nicky), and Le Parisien (Neko).
