The Donskoy cat, also known as Don Sphynx or Russian Hairless, is a hairless cat breed of Russian origin. It is not related to the better-known Sphynx cat, also known as the Canadian Hairless, whose characteristic hairlessness is caused by a recessive mutation in the keratin 71 gene. The Donskoy's hairlessness, on the other hand, is caused by a dominant mutation. This breed started in 1987 with the discovery of a hairless cat in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don by cat breeder Elena Kovaleva. She had rescued a blue tortoiseshell kitten, which she named Varvara. At around four months of age, the cat began to lose fur. Varvara mated with a local tomcat and produced a litter of kittens; these kittens are the founding stock of the Donskoy breed and were later outcrossed with European Shorthair cats. (Source: Wikipedia.org, CC BY-SA)