Thank you for the interest in our cattery Rusik Siberians. My name is Cathrine Hughes. I am originally from Norway but have lived in the UK for more than 20 years. I live with my husband and 3 children in south Cheshire (on the Shropshire boarder). Growing up in Norway I always had cats, some big and fluffy like Norwegian Forest Cats and Siberians, some smooth haired moggies. When I married my husband I thought I wouldn’t be able to have cats as he is allergic. We had a Bengal female cat which I bred (bengals are amazing, but such high energy and very loud). My husbands allergies seemed to cope with just the one bengal, but when she had a litter and there was more than one, he suffered. After years of research I found out that Siberian cats are great for allergy sufferers. I spent lots of time visiting people who owned Siberians and had already decided I wanted to breed them. I wanted to help some of my friends who were quite allergic to be able to have a kitten. Shirley at Witchfyre Siberians gave me a chance to obtain two cats from her. Moya and my stud boy Stasik. After that Mina D’Artannes arrived from the south of France. Sue and James Dear trusted me with the gorgeous Sayadaws Glorious Raze or Rusik. After these first four cats things moved on for us at Rusik.
I have always preferred Sibierians with the traditional look. Although I love the look of the Neva Masquerade (NEM) cats, I choose not to breed these lines and I therefore choose breeding cats without colourpoint in the genealogy.
I was very lucky to find my first two NEM free girls from Russia. Iolanta Iz Oddissei of Veresk Line and Ramina Crown of Siberia, both from very prestigious Russian catteries. Then new cats arrived in short succession. Odetta Dysgarden from Poland, Chulym and Chudacha Zaimka from Ukraine, Cica Sonya from USA and Druzhina Romana Remi from Clare Ferris in Liverpool. We are constantly looking for new cats to bring into the cattery to widen the genetic diversity, therefore keep an eye out at the Our Cats to see the new additions.
The girls mainly live in the house with us, but goes outside in a secure cat run often. The boys mostly lives outside in a large secure, custom built cat run. However, they come inside the house almost every day for human company, cuddles and grooming. And we also spend lots of time outside with them. The girls goes outside in the run almost every day to stretch their legs and get fresh air. These are very pampered cats. The kittens we have are born in the house and are handled by us every day. When they are a bit bigger they even get to meet our dogs, Max who is a black Labrador and Amara the young female Lagotto Romagnolo.
My main aim is to breed for health and temperament and to further this beautiful Siberian breed. Hoping to maintain the ‘old style’ which were found in Russia many years ago. If in the process I can help allergy sufferers get a most wanted kitten, I am overjoyed.
All our kittens are born in the house and brought up in a family environment.
Rusik is registered as a prefix with Fife, Tica, GCCF and recently LCWW. From December 2022 all our kittens will be registered with Fife and therefore will not leave us until they are 14 weeks old.