A Sphynx in Russia?

That was what the Russians also thought, back in 1988, when a hairless cat was rescued by Irina Kovalyova.  The cat was treated with anti-fungal medicine, but the hair just kept on falling out.  Soon it became obvious that Varya, a blue tortie cat, was ment to be hairless.  She was the foundation cat of the two Russian hairless breeds. 

Yes, TWO hairless breeds, the Don Hairless & the Russian Peterbald.

 Most people thought Varya was just another natural mutation similar to the Sphynx. After started breeding with Vanya, it was clear that this was a total different kind of hairless gene.  It is a dominant gene, where that gene that cause hairlessness in the Sphynx is recessive.  Thus bald kittens can be expected in the fist generation kittens when mating a Russian Hairless with a normal coated cat.  In the Sphynx all these kittens will be normal coated.

 At first the breed was called the Don Sphynx, but after it was discovered, that this cat was totally different from the Sphynx, the name was changed to the Don Hairless.  In 1989, Varya was mated to a domestic cat, called Vasya.  Several kittens were hairless.  Irina kept kittens for a breeding program.  The hairless cats of Irina's Myth Cattery were bred exclusively to European Shorthairs and Domestic shorthairs.

 In 1993 a very oriental looking brown mackeral tabby Don Hairless male, Afinguen Myth, was mated to a very classy tortie Oriental female, Radma Vom Jagerhof.  That was in St. Petersburg in Moscow.  These oriental type hairless cats were called Peterbalds.  They were unpopular in Moscow, but became very popular among St. Petersburg breeders.  The first Peterbald were born in January 1994. 

Radma was also mated with Russian Blues.  The kittens were considered to be Don Hairless, but some were rather oriental in type and are used today in Peterbald breeding programs. 

Another male that played a big role in development of the Peterbald was a black male called Nocturine Iz Murino.  He was born in February 1995, resulting from the same sire and dam as Radma.  He was used widely for matings with purebred Oriental and Siamese females, and produced many high quality offspring.  His offspring have been bred with each other.

 To increase the gene pool, the Peterbalds are also crossed with light-type Don Hairless cats and new lines of Oriental Shorthairs and Siamese cats. Thus most colors are present in the Peterbald.  The goal of course is to breed Peterbalds that are homozygous for the hairless gene.  Such cats are born hairless, and they will not produce normal coated kittens if breed to another homozygous cat.

 Thus mostly the degree of hairlessness in one litter can vary from full nakedness to "brush", to a straight coat.  It depends very much on the genes the parents carry, and it is apparent that gene-modifiers are of great importance here. 

A female Peterbald in Belgium was bred to a Sphynx and all resulting kittens were born with a full coat.  Thus the Sphynx is not an allowable outcross for the Peterbald breed.

 The Don Hairless and Peterbald breeds are becoming more well known outside of Russia.  Peterbald have been sold to breeders in Holland, the Ukraine, Belorus, the former USSR republics, South-africa as well as America.