Catnapped: abduction of moody moggie Begemot from Moscow museum sparks media frenzy

A huge fluffy black cat named Begemot (or Behemoth) was kidnapped this week from Moscow’s Bulgakov House, a private museum in Moscow, setting off a media frenzy and unprecedented cat hunt by police in the capital. The museum had put out an alert via Facebook, saying that the six-kilogramme cat had been taken on 1 August by an unidentified woman. Begemot was described by the museum as “a staff employee"—a mixed-breed Persian and Siberian with “his own doctor and stylist” and special diet, a distinct ID collar and “harsh temper”. The latter might have helped because police found him nearby just hours later, minus his trademark collar. Begemot is named after one of the main protagonists in The Master and Margarita, a mystical, satirical novel about Stalin-era Russia by the writer Mikhail Bulgakov. Begemot the cat has lived at the museum since 2005.