Milan the traveling cat goes missing in Vladivostok
Daria Murashova holds onto the belief that her traveling cat Milan is still alive despite two weeks of searching in Vladivostok.
The search for Milan — a large, gray, good-natured cat who traveled almost all of Russia with his owner — has been ongoing in Vladivostok for two weeks now. He disappeared on the cold night of November 29 on Uborevicha Street, just as real winter began in the city.
His owner — Daria Murashova, a children«s program methodologist at the V.K. Arsenyev Museum of the History of the Russian Far East — told VLADIVOSTOK1.RU that she still can»t find peace, confuses sleep and reality, and a move is looming ahead.
When people ask about Milan«s breed, Daria tenses up but honestly answers that he is an ordinary gray domestic cat. She knows the next thing she»ll hear will be a drawn-out and surprised: «So why all the fuss if the cat isn»t purebred?« Previously, the fuss involved passports, vaccinations, carriers, and tickets for the pet, and now — a large-scale campaign to find him.
«I never understood that logic of people»s. I didn«t take Milan for shows, not to show him off, he»s not an investment. He«s just my beloved cat. Isn»t that enough?«, began the owner of the missing cat.
Milan«s story began almost eight years ago — in 2018. Daria was in her fourth year of studies in Krasnoyarsk. On Avito, she saw an ad for a kitten and couldn»t pass it by.
«It was March — still winter, cold, frosty. I was a student, just started tutoring in history for 350 rubles an hour (about $4 at current rates). They brought me a tiny kitten, and back then I couldn»t even imagine that we would travel together across almost all of Russia. First, we moved to Shushenskoye, where I«m from, and I worked in a museum there. Then — Kaliningrad, two years working at a zoo. And now, a business trip to Vladivostok turned into a sudden move across the entire country to this city in May 2024», Daria said.
In total, the cat has lived in more than ten Russian cities, survived the COVID summer at Daria«s parents» dacha in Shushenskoye, hunted in the forest at Yemar Bay near Vladivostok, and ran away from a dog that scared him from the 4th floor in Krasnoyarsk. Despite the fact that Milan, from the plastic window of his carrier backpack, has seen and heard more than the average Russian, let alone cats, he still retained a fear of the city and its scary, sharp sounds. Daria believes this very fact became key in his disappearance and the prolonged search.
«I know he»s alive. I just know, I feel it. I«m sure he»s somewhere in a basement, pressed against a wall and frozen. Waiting to be found«, the girl stated.
The last night at home
The gray cat traveled with his owner from Kaliningrad in the west to Vladivostok in the east of Russia over several years.
On November 29, according to the cat«s owner, it was an ordinary, unremarkable evening. Daria and a friend were getting ready for a birthday party — they left the apartment around 10 p.m. Returning in the early morning, the owner realized the worst: Milan was not in the apartment. Only after the cat went missing did she think that the pet, who had his left canine tooth removed the day before, had been suspiciously quiet that day.
«He»s always nearby, greeting me. If he«s not visible — it means something happened. But I thought he was sleeping after the tooth extraction», she recalled.
To this day, unfortunately, the exact time of the cat«s disappearance has not been established. Reconstructing the chain of events is difficult due to a huge number of uncertain time variables.
One version — the cat ran away at the same time as Daria and her friend left for the party. On that unfortunate Saturday evening, the door of the apartment at 20 Uborevicha Street remained slightly ajar. This was because the girls left and returned quickly several times, forgetting some small items. However, both have a feeling that the cat wasn«t home several hours before that.
«After work, a friend came over to visit. After some time, she asked, like, where»s Milan? He«s not yelling, not running around, not showing himself at all. I thought it was really strange, but chalked it up to the after-effects of anesthesia. Later, we started getting ready to go out, made noise, but the cat still didn»t come out«, Daria said.
The search for the cat began on the morning of November 30 after the cat«s owner lay down for a few hours to sleep before work and, upon waking up, didn»t find him sleeping at her feet.
«It feels like there are no clues at all. I, of course, regret that he didn»t have a collar with a number or an address tag. An address tag, honestly, is already lying in my cart on Ozon. But now nothing can be understood… It«s some kind of incredible story», she shared.
Neighbors, stairwells, flyers — and silence
In the basement of Daria«s building lives a cat cartel, so footprints in the snow didn»t provide clues for finding Milan.
The first thing Daria thought: the cat ran out into the stairwell, and some grandmother picked him up. Daria checked the stairwells, put up flyers, and wrote in the building chat a message with the approximate text: «Please return the gray cat to apartment No. 22». But neighbors said: they saw him in the stairwell — and that«s it.
When it became clear that Milan wasn«t in the building, they started combing the street. Uborevicha Street is connected by a passage to the TV center, and that»s where the first lead appeared. A dog owner said she saw a large gray cat crossing the road towards a Wildberries pickup point.
Another girl remembered that someone recently posted on social media a story about feeding a similar cat somewhere in the city center. But who posted it and where exactly — she doesn«t remember.
There were also false hopes: children called, saying they petted a «big gray» cat. But on the spot, it turned out to be a local stray cat. In the dozens of photos sent and still being sent to Daria«s private messages, not one was of Milan.
«All gray cats look alike, but Milan is large. He weighs about five kilograms (11 lbs). Big, with a wide bone structure, the color of light gray wet asphalt. Only his paws, chest, armpits, and belly are white. Otherwise, he»s all solid-colored«, the girl continued her story, noting that, despite the pain of loss, she is grateful to absolutely everyone who sends her photos of cats.
On social media, posts about Milan«s disappearance have gathered thousands of views. Daria, her friends, her boyfriend, colleagues — all are involved in the search. They have searched dozens of basements in the area, put up flyers in three blocks, and even bought a pharmacy tincture of valerian to attract cats. They believe that among them, Milan will surely be found, drawn by the intoxicating aroma. But the guys always feel they haven»t done enough.
Daria«s face is probably known not only to local cat lovers but also to the cats themselves. Once, a local alcoholic man came to the girl»s aid, who had keys to a basement from somewhere. He led her into the holy of holies of the «cat cartel» in central Vladivostok — a huge underground space where it was hot as in a mine, with bowls of clean water and hundreds of eyes of basement cats glowing.
The girl admitted that before Milan went missing, she was sure there were almost no street cats in central Vladivostok. It turned out there are thousands, but they have no need to go outside. In the basements, it«s dry and warm, kind-hearted people bring food, refresh the water, and set up beds, and if they get bored — they can hunt for rats.
«They told me that they might chase away outsiders. Apparently, neighbors even heard the local cats fighting with someone very loudly, which hadn»t happened in a long time. Of course, I immediately thought of Milan and ran there, but the residents didn«t let me into the stairwell, and through the basement grate, nothing was visible. And there were no sounds anymore. It comforts me that Milan is big himself and can definitely fight back», confessed the fluffy one«s owner.
Attempts to reach the cat, who «decided to fool around and run out into the stairwell at the most inopportune moment», don«t stop for even a day. Daria persistently leaves food by the building entrances, even though pigeons periodically scatter it. At night, she walks around the area with a flashlight, listening for any meowing in the dark. She printed a new batch of flyers and is quietly putting them up towards Pokrovsky Park and the central square. She even poured, on the advice of a VLADIVOSTOK1.RU journalist, valerian near the basement windows so the cats would »come out like cockroaches«. But Milan hasn»t heard her yet.
Once before, Milan went missing under similar circumstances. During a move to a new apartment in Krasnoyarsk, the one-year-old cat slipped unnoticed between the movers« legs and was gone. Daria realized something was wrong when she noticed a neighbor carrying a new cat litter box, bowls, and food somewhere. On pure intuition, she followed the man and saw, in the open doorway of his apartment, Milan screaming in terror.
It turned out the neighbor liked the gray cat who had somehow ended up in the stairwell and decided to keep him for himself. Daria noticed the man when he was returning with purchases for Milan from a pet store. Then the girl was able to get her beloved pet back without much trouble.
«The worst thing is the uncertainty. If there were at least some confirmation that he ran off in a certain direction or that a family took him in and doesn»t want to give him back to me. I«m afraid I»m moving in the wrong direction, that he«s sitting and waiting in a completely different part of the city», Daria shared her worries.
Time is running out: in January — another move
Milan has lived in over ten apartments across multiple Russian cities and even experienced the pandemic with his owner.
The veterinarian who removed the cat«s canine tooth shortly before the disappearance gave the girl hope, telling her that in his practice, there have been cases where escaped cats returned to their previous place of residence after weeks and months. Thin, sick, flea-ridden, but they returned.
The problem is that the apartment on Uborevicha is temporary. Daria has only lived there for two months. Milan didn«t have time to get used to the smells, doesn»t know the yards. And in a month, there«s another move, this time to the Stoletiya district. If the cat isn»t found by the New Year — it will be almost impossible to search further.
Daria«s voice trembled at times, then became steady again when she showed videos of Milan: here he»s showing off, rubbing against things, responding to his name, and here he«s stepping tensely with soft paws on moss and leaves in a quiet forest.
In Vladivostok, thousands of people have read posts about Milan«s disappearance, and we hope just as many will learn his story and help in the search. Everyone can contribute and give a New Year»s miracle to Daria Murashova and her cat Milan. All that«s needed is for as many passersby as possible to pay attention to gray cats with white paws and a missing left canine tooth around them, take a photo, and send it to the owner on Telegram @ideardari or call her at 8-921-008-21-71 or 8-908-457-06-76.
The VLADIVOSTOK1.RU editorial board appeals to all readers in Vladivostok: no matter how far you live from the TV center, Pokrovsky Park, or Uborevicha Street — please look around. Maybe you will see that somewhere in an alleyway sits and shivers a cat who traveled across all of Russia with his owner for eight years.
A cat for whom home is not an address or walls, but Daria, who is waiting very much for him to come home and believes that everything will definitely be alright.
