About Russian Whites!

Russian Whites were developed in the 1970's
in Australia to re-establish colors that
existed in old Northern Russia.
One complaint you will see from the
traditional "blue only" breeders is
that the Russian Whites
do not have plush, silvertipped coats.
Here is a close up photo of Lili's
coat that not only shows plushness,
but also a silvery sheen!

Harrison Weir wrote the book "Our Cats"in 1889.
Mr.Weir is called the 'father of the cat fancy'
because he was the one who arranged the first cat show
in England, at the Crystal Palace, London, 1871.
He was the one who wrote the first standards
to describe the different breeds of cats.
He wrote the following about the Russian Blue
shown in that first cat show:

"This is shown often under a number of names.
It was at first shown as the Archangel cat,
then Russian blue, Spanish blue, Chartreuse blue,
and, lastly, and I know not why,
the American blue.
It is not, in my belief, a distinct breed,
but merely a light-coloured form of the black cat.
In fact, I have ascertained that one shown
at the Crystal Palace, and which won many prizes
on account of its beautiful blue colour
slightly tinged with purple,
was the offspring of a tabby and white she-cat
and a black-and-white he-cat,
and I have seen the same colour occur when
bred from the cats usually kept about a farmhouse
as a protection from rats and mice,
though none of the parents had any blue colour."

Alas, the fact that a "Russian Blue" was
shown at the Crystal Palace show is
continually pointed out as showing the cat
is of a 'natural' breed.
Unfortunately it seems, this cat was
the product of non-blue parents!.

Genetically, the color blue in a cat is a recessive gene.
What this means is that the color blue
had to come from other colors.
And, while blue cat to blue cat breeds
blue kittens due to the recessive nature
of the color, blue cat to any other color cat
does not produce all blue kittens.
Therefore, the logic of traditional breeders stating
that the Russian BLUE is a natural, separate breed
falls way short of science.
Arctic Russia and the Northern areas of
the Scandinavian countries
where the Russian Blue is mythically
said to have originated, has no
natural boundries and is not geographically
isolated to keep Russian Blues breeding true.
It was man who decided
to keep the Russian "blue" a blue color
by ignoring it's White, Black
and Tabby sisters and brothers.
Most of todays Russian Blue cat lines
can trace many “unknown” blue alley cats,
Siamese and British Shorthairs in their
pedigree history, proving that this
"naturally occuring color"
of cat was as man made by selective breeding
as the Russian White cat.
If using unknown domestic or alley cats as
an outcross makes a cat a “sport” of a breed,
then the Russian Blue
ranks right up there with the Russian Whites,
Blacks and Tabbies in that respect.