The monument to the Persian cat Panteleimon was erected in 1998 in Zolotovorotsky Square opposite the Pantagruel restaurant where the cat lived. In the mid-1990s, Margarita Sichkar, a Kiev restaurateur and director of the Pantagruel restaurant, which is located near Golden Gate, had a the idea of having a cat at the restaurant, which was supposed to become a feature of the establishment. Thus, the gray Persian cat Pantyusha appeared in the restaurant, who gained extreme popularity among visitors to the establishment and residents of the city. The animal died during a fire that occurred in a restaurant. After this, regular visitors began to donate money for the repair and restoration of the restaurant, and for the same money it was decided to erect a monument to the cat.
Initially, near the sculpture of the cat there also stood a small bronze bird, which was constantly cut down by vandals and now the cat stands alone on the pedestal. Due to the originality of the monument, it is often compared to the world-famous monument to the Edinburgh dog Bobby, who, after the death of his owner, lived on his grave until the end of his days. The cat Panteleimon has spawned many urban legends around him. One talks about him as a rescue cat. As if on the night when the fire occurred, there were people in the restaurant, and the cat warned them about the incident, but he himself did not survive. The second legend says that Panteleimon was the businessman’s favorite, and when the cat died, he erected a monument to him in the very heart of the city. The third story claims that in fact the monument to the cat Panteleimon is a monument to the famous cat Behemoth from Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita”.