Most street cats live and die known only to the people who feed them. A few get lucky: a photo, a chance meeting, a famous visitor. Here are four who went from the pavement to the world.
Tombili, Istanbul
Istanbul is famous for its street cats, and in 2016 the documentary Kedi took them to cinemas around the world. But the city’s best-known cat is Tombili, Turkish for chubby.
Tombili lived in Ziverbey, in the Kadıköy district, and had a habit of reclining against a step on the pavement, like someone relaxing at the end of a long day. A photo of the pose went around the internet. When Tombili died in August 2016, more than 17,000 people signed a petition for a statue. On 4 October 2016, World Animal Day, Istanbul unveiled a statue of Tombili in exactly the same spot, in exactly the same pose. A month later it was stolen. The outcry was so loud that it was back within two days.
Gli, Hagia Sophia
For 16 years, a cat called Gli lived inside the Hagia Sophia, the 1,500-year-old church, museum and mosque in Istanbul. She sat wherever she liked, including in the middle of tourists’ photos.
Her big moment came in 2009, when US President Barack Obama visited and stopped to stroke her. When the building became a mosque again in 2020, the Turkish president’s spokesman promised she would stay, and that all cats were welcome. She died that November, and was buried in its grounds.
Bob, London
In spring 2007, a ginger tom turned up in the hallway of a block of sheltered flats in Tottenham, north London, thin, scratched and with an infected leg. James Bowen, who lived there and was on a methadone programme and getting by busking in Covent Garden, took him to the vet. The cat then refused to leave him, following him onto the bus and sitting on his shoulder while he played.
Crowds grew. The local paper ran a story, then a book followed: A Street Cat Named Bob, which sold over a million copies in the UK and was made into a film in 2016, with Bob playing himself. Bob died in 2020, hit by a car, aged around 14 to 16. Bowen always said the cat saved his life.
Larry, Downing Street
Larry was born a stray, and ended up at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home in London. In February 2011 he was picked to live at 10 Downing Street, home of the British prime minister, with the official title Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office.
He’s still there. Prime ministers have come and gone, every one since David Cameron, and Larry has outlasted them all. He isn’t much of a mouser, and once had a long feud with Palmerston, the Foreign Office cat next door. Our page for Tuxedo Cat Day tells Palmerston’s side.
And the ones nobody knows
None of these cats was special to begin with. Tombili was a fat cat on a step. Bob was a stray with a bad leg. What made them famous was that someone looked twice. Cyprus has cats that have been famous for 1,700 years: read about the island of cats.
Every cat on your street has a story. Snap them with Island of Cats and start telling it.
