The Underground Inhabitant

This is a story about an inhabitant of the Moscow underground who avoided daylight. From the cradle to the grave, he spent time in the underground tubes (the tunnels of the metro).

He settled down and made a crash pad near the side of the tracks. He made friends with metro workers and distracted them from rigorous work. He rejected living in a Moscow flat and chose to settle in the underground.

What did he see in cold, smelly, damp, dirty and twilit tubes?

Moscow underground tunnels

Let me introduce the inhabitant of the rotunda "Krasnogvardeyskaya" the cat. His nickname is Ankle Boot (Башмак in Russian).

A metro worker took Ankle Boot then a kitten to the underground. Ankle Boot felt at home and the underground quickly became a new haven for him. He understood where and where not to go in the underground, thus his life was not in danger. The clever kitty successfully made his way around the tracks. Ankle Boot had grown among tubes and airshafts. Overall, he was a pet. He was meeting metro workers in the morning. Later, he would walk all day long in tubes and usher the workers in the evening.

Moscow underground tunnels.

Sitting in on meetings was one of Ankle Boots’ favorite pastimes. He would listen to discussions as if he had a full understanding of what was being said. One day, workers objurgated Ankle Boot as they were working and he was resting. Somebody said, "He could catch a mouse." When workers arrived the next morning, Ankle Boot was sitting near the doors of the office with several mice lying beside him.

Nobody knew the natural color of Ankle Boot. He always appeared grey in the lamplight. Cleaning women tried to bath him again and again. His fur would lighten a little, but a few days later (due to walks through the dusty tubes), Ankle Boot was back to his usual dusty color.

 

One fine day in March, Ankle Boot took a girlfriend to the underground, but his happiness didn't last long. The "woman" was unable to adapt to underground life and she left him the next day. Ankle Boot lived in solitude. No feline had gone underground and exchanged sunlight for semi-dark tubes.

Once one of the engineers took Ankle Boot to his flat, but the cat didn't want to leave Moscow’s underground life. In protest, he went on a hunger strike. Two days later, the only alternative was to take Ankle Boot back to the underground. It was only there that he was willing to eat.

Ankle Boot was an angel for workers of the Krasnogvardeyskaya station and for engineers of the green subway line. They said if anyone was in a bad mood or problems ensued, Ankle Boot came and sat beside them and everything was okay.

Ankle Boot died last year. He lived more than 10 years underground. Metro workers brought other cats to the underground, but all of them ran back to the surface. It seems that Ankle Boot was singularly the most famous cat worldwide. Hopefully there is a kingdom of heaven for cats, which also has a metro to make Ankle Boot happy.