To support the concept of feline Vaskas in Russia, just thought I would mention that our local newspaper's Sunday travel section published an article this past weekend about a current Vaska.
Here's one of the photo captions: "Vaska the cat, at 12 the oldest of the Hermitage museum's mice hunters, naps in one of the museum's lobbies. Cats have been part of the Hermitage's secuity system since its founding days in the 1760s." (Nothing, I might add, is said about how cats during the Siege of Leningrad were eventually used as food.)
The article is brief but fun, mentioning that several staff members are assigned to manage "the cat corps," and that the Hermitage also advertises cats for adoption on its website.