Meet Maxik – a tiny kitten found in a Moscow street. His story is about the choices we make in life and their consequences .

Maxik was found alone in a busy and scary place – frightened, crying, exposed to so many dangers. 

How did this happen? We don’t know for sure but someone chose not to neuter his Mum out of lack of care or ignorance. The same person chose then to throw his Mum or only her kittens including Maxik out onto the street not caring about the consequences. Then people walking past him chose to ignore him and leave him behind not caring about what’ll happen to him. Until one person made a different choice. The choice which saved Maxik’s life.

This person was a foreign student studying in Moscow called Lara. This was not her country, she does not speak Russian, but compassion and empathy has no boundaries or language limitations. 

Lara knew that her life as a foreign student did not allow her to adopt Maxik. Even taking care of him for a short time was fraught with difficulties. But hesitating for minutes let alone hours was not an option. Maxik was vulnerable and required immediate help.

Lara took him into her student quarters despite all the restrictions, risks and inconvenience. Maxik was temporarily safe. But he needed a lot of care – baby food, help with going to the toilet (he was not fully weaned from his Mum yet). Luckily, Lara happened to be very experienced in looking after cats. 

Lara wrote to us asking for help. We are not a rescue organisation, so we are not set up to take animals from the street or members of the public. We help other rescue groups and shelters with supplies, treatment and neutering costs and we run educational programmes to prevent abandonement and neglect.

But how could we not help Maxik, especially as Lara had shown so much commitment to save his life?  So we said we would try hard to find a solution.

After few days, we managed to find a very experienced fosterer who happened to have a space for a kitten and who agreed to take Maxik in. He is doing really well – eating, playing, cuddling, learning how to groom himself. And Lara has visited him at the foster home which is amazing! 

We hope that Maxik will find a loving home. 

We thank Lara for making the choice she did. Not only her choice saved Maxik’s life but the experience of saving a tiny kitten’s life has brought together people from different countries who otherwise would not have met and it’s made their lives richer for that.