Sanya is a short haired domestic who lives in a high rise on the far southern edge of Moscow with a lovely women in her 30s, her husband and a couple of kids, two boys, 3 and 5. 

Sanya is now 15.  This is his triumph against the odds.

When Sanya was 5, he fell from the balcony and 15 stories to the ground.  He is completely deaf and breaths with difficulty.  Otherwise, he is fine.  Actually, he is much better than fine.  He comes right up to you, and looks into your eyes the way we will stand in front of a refrigerator with the door open, taking a catalogue, interested in some things, dubious about others, curious in a dispassionate way that is a little unnerving.  We don’t expect that the refrigator will notice or care about our examination.  Neither does Sanya.  He’s just looking around, seeing who’s home. 

At 15, Sanya is roughly the same age as post Soviet Russia.  Not that he’s a metaphor or anything.  None of that Orwellian nonsense for Sanya. Well, unless you take the fact that he survived an event that would have killed any other cat in the universe.  Or the fact that he perseveres in spite of the injuries inflicted upon him.  And the fact that he remains implacably interested in the world whether or not the world welcomes or returns that curiosity.  Ok, now that you mention it, there are a couple of similarities.