The cats at St. Petersburg's Museum

From abc.news: "The standard line about the Hermitage Museum on the banks of St. Petersburg's Neva River is that you can spend days wandering its rooms and only see a small fraction of the millions of masterpieces under its roof. But glance out the window next to that ancient Roman statue and you may see something as much a fixture of the museum, but not nearly as celebrated: cats.

Dozens of cats roam the grounds of the Hermitage, living in the museum's gardens and labyrinthian basement, cared for by a designated staff. They've lived here for centuries, first brought in by the imperial family to rid the Winter Palace of rats, and for the last 10 years cared for by the office of the director of the Hermitage.

"We joke that if [our director] permits us to have 50 cats, so we [technically] have 50 cats. But really we have around 60 cats," says Maria Khaltunin, the director's assistant and head of the cat program.
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