After former Vice President Joseph Biden was proclaimed the 46th president of the United States on Nov. 7, the Ukrainian political establishment rushed to publish their congratulations and photographs with the president-elect on social media.
But posts by local officials in Dnipro, a city of 1 million residents located 500 kilometers southeast of Kyiv, unexpectedly stood out: They all featured pictures of a cute ginger cat with an American flag on his collar. The pet, it turned out, is a resident of the city council building and was named after former U.S. vice president upon adoption.
“We knew in advance (the results of the election) when a couple of years ago we officially named the main cat of the Dnipro City Council ‘Biden,’” Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov joked on Facebook on Nov. 8.
“I established contacts with Biden before it was mainstream,” the mayor’s advisor Evgeny Gendin joked, running a photo of the cat.
Biden the cat has been strolling the halls of the council building since 2018, when Deputy Dnipro Mayor Mykhailo Lysenko adopted him as a kitten.
Lysenko says he saw a post on social media by a person giving out kittens. When the deputy mayor arrived to pick one of them up, there was only one left.
When it was time to decide what to call him, Lysenko, a big animal lover, continued his family’s long-standing tradition of naming pets after famous U.S. officials and settled upon Biden rather accidentally.
At home, Lysenko takes care of an American bulldog Bush, named after the 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush, and two cats: Hillary, named after former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Hoover, named after 31st U.S. President Herbert Clark Hoover.
Biden, a ginger cat living in the city council of Dnipro since 2018, was named after Joseph Biden, U.S. president-elect. (Borys Filatov/Facebook)
Biden the cat lives in Lysenko’s office.
“I like him. I always wanted to be constantly surrounded by animals, not only at home but also at work,” Lysenko told the Kyiv Post. “This is such an anti-stress (tool).”
Although Biden the cat spends most of his time in Lysenko’s office, the pet also freely enters all the council premises. In pictures published by local officials, Biden is seen strolling through meeting rooms, laying on the stairs and walking on top of desks.
“He is the boss,” Lysenko says. “Sometimes you get the impression that he behaves like nobody is around, like he is in charge,” the official jokes.
According to Lysenko, the city council has a crucial rule: In case of a fire, the cat is to be saved first. There is a special travel container for him labeled “Biden #1, take out first.’”
“This is absolutely true — the staff has been instructed,” Lysenko says.
President-elect Biden is a big animal lover himself. He now owns two German shepherds, Champ and Major. The latter was adopted by Biden’s family in 2018. The president-elect is expected to bring both dogs to the White House when he takes office in January.
U.S. presidents have maintained a tradition of having pets in the White House while in office ever since the country’s formation.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who lost to Biden, was the first president not to have a White House pet in more than 100 years.
