Russian cat rescued from rubbish plant receives honorary ministerial role

Russian waste plant worker Mikhail Tukash rescues a cat from a rubbish separator

Credit:  GORKOMHOZ/ GORKOMHOZ

A Russian cat rescued from a rubbish separator at a waste processing plant has been adopted by the Ulyanovsk region’s environment ministry and given an honorary title.

The black and white cat has achieved local celebrity status in Ulyanovsk, a city 435 miles east of Moscow, after surveillance camera footage showed a worker at the sorting facility grabbing a bag from a conveyor belt and opening it to discover the feline inside. 

“I felt something soft inside the bag,” plant worker Mikhail Tukash told the tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets, Reuters reported. “I cut the bag open slightly and I saw eyes looking back at me.”

The footage shows the conveyor belt come to a stop as Mr Tukash shows his colleagues the cat, which remains calm as he strokes it with gloved hands.

“I needed to cut the bag to screen it for metals. I was just doing my job,” Mr Tukash told local television in the city, which is known as the birthplace of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin.

The local channel reported that workers at the plant had previously rescued an African hedgehog nicknamed Vezunka, which means lucky in Russian, and two red-eared slider turtles.

The region’s environment ministry lauded Mr Tukash for the rescue, writing that the male cat was “on the brink of death” and would have “ended up in the trash separator” had Mr Tukash not grabbed him.

The well-fed and friendly cat was likely an abandoned household pet, the ministry said.

“If you can’t keep an animal at home, you can always give it away to a shelter,” minister Gulnara Rakhmatulina said in a statement.

After adopting the cat and bestowing upon him the honorary title of  honorary deputy in charge of wildlife protection, the ministry released photos of him catnapping in the minister’s chair. 

The ministry has announced a contest to name the rescued cat.