A true oasis of living nature in the heart of the Russian capital. A large and cozy home for thousands of animals from different parts of the world. A center of attraction and scientific development. On February 12, the Moscow Zoo turns 160 years old. To celebrate this milestone, MIR24.TV has recalled the most important and interesting facts about this amazing place. The Moscow Zoo is one of the oldest in Europe. It was the first zoo established in a country with frosty winters. At the time of the zoo's opening, it housed about 300 animals, primarily representatives of Russian fauna: foxes, bears, wolves, hares, etc. There were also exotic animals – an Indian elephant presented by Emperor Alexander II, a zebra gifted by the Egyptian viceroy, animals from Australia brought from a circumnavigation, and more. The zoo's location has not always been considered central: in the mid-19th century, Presnya was a suburb of Moscow, surrounded by birch groves and wooden estates. In the early years of the zoo's existence, visitors could not only see animals but also enjoy ice skating and sledding on ice slides. To this day, only one 19th-century building remains in the zoo: the stone pavilion for ungulates, which currently houses one of the zoo's most famous residents - the giraffe Samson. An amazing fact: during World War II, the zoo did not close and was very popular - during those difficult years, it was visited by about 6 million guests. Only a part of the zoo's animals was evacuated to other cities, but most of the animals remained in the capital. Zoo employees repeatedly showed remarkable dedication to their work: fainting from hunger, they continued to feed their charges. Starving Muscovites repeatedly tried to steal birds from the zoo's ponds - eventually, they had to be hidden indoors. Hard times for the zoo were not only during the war but also during the Perestroika period, when there was a severe shortage of food for the animals. Food was scarce throughout the country. There was a time when zoo employees went to the Tishinsky market in the evenings to collect vegetable and green scraps thrown away by vendors. Perhaps the most amazing current resident of the zoo is the Mississippi alligator named Saturn, who once belonged to Hitler! He was presented to the Soviet Union by the British government in 1946. Before the war, he lived in the Berlin Zoo and was also part of Hitler's personal menagerie. The crocodile is now about 85 years old; the average lifespan of crocodiles is over a century. In 1935, one of the zoo's lionesses abandoned her cub. The newborn was taken home by zoo employee Vera Chaplina, who raised the cub named Kinuli in her room in a communal apartment. The cub was fed... by a Scottish Collie named Peri. Both animals became so attached to each other that the lioness returned to the zoo in the company of the dog. The recognized symbol of the zoo is the wild cat - the Pallas's cat. It should be noted that zoo visitors rarely see this pet: during the day, wild cats prefer to nap, hidden in shelters. Today, the Moscow Zoo houses over 7,500 animals. Its largest resident is the elephant, and the smallest is the pygmy shrew (a shrew whose length is only 5-7 centimeters). The most expensive care in the zoo is logically for the elephant: feeding it costs more than 3,000 rubles a day; they primarily eat a huge amount of porridge. The cheapest to maintain are invertebrates and fish. For example, feeding a tarantula spider costs 6.5 rubles a day, and a shark - 18.5 rubles. Some zoo animals have sponsors who cover the costs of their upkeep. Small animals, like hedgehogs, receive special care. But there are sponsors for tigers, wolves, and others, whose food costs from 500 to more than 1,000 rubles a day. Currently, the most popular resident of the capital's zoo is the little panda Katyusha. She was born at the end of August 2023 and became the first panda born on Russian territory. Her father and mother, Zhui and Dindin, arrived in Moscow from Beijing four years ago. Now the whole country is watching with affection as the black-and-white baby grows, daily demonstrating her new "skills." Recently, for example, the tiny one learned to deftly grasp and hold thin bamboo sticks.