Tombili the cat passed away in 08/01/2016.To keep her memory alive, her fans started a petition urging the local government of Istanbul to build a commemorative statue of Tombili. The petition acquired more than 17,000 signatures.hundreds of people visited the memorial sculpture to pay their respect

ponderin- on December 21st, 2020 at 18:55 UTC »

This is really sweet but it’s kinda cracking me up how the statue looks like it was made by someone with a loose interpretation of what cats look like

Youwillbe_Youwillbe on December 21st, 2020 at 19:09 UTC »

Archeologists will find this someday and won’t have any of the important context to go on.

They’ll correctly assume it was left by a society that destroyed itself with it’s obsession with cats.

TooShiftyForYou on December 21st, 2020 at 19:52 UTC »

The statue was stolen a month after being placed, a huge public outcry against whoever took it resulted in it being quickly returned.

The local council confirmed on Twitter that it had been stolen, posting a sobbing cat emoji, and Tombili's fans expressed their outrage online. "They stole the Tombili statue. They are enemies of everything beautiful. All they know is hate, tears and war. They can't live without those," Republican People's Party MP Tuncay Ozkan tweeted. Another social media user said: "What kind of a country do we live in? What are they going to do with the statue, put it on the mantelpiece?" Even foreign diplomats were upset: the Russian embassy in Ankara tweeted its concern about the statue's fate.

Perhaps the guilt was too much for whoever took it, as on Thursday the statue reappeared. Sculptor Seval Sahin shared a photo of herself with it, thanking everyone on social media and the press and TV coverage which she says helped bring about the happy ending.

Article from BBC