Achilles the Cat, Russia's deaf but highly gifted World Cup soothsayer     

SAINT PETERSBURG - AFP

A deaf, white cat named Achilles is soon to begin his work as Russia's official soothsayer for the World Cup, following in the tentacle-prints of Paul the Octopus who became a star in 2010.

Paul predicted winners for that years' World Cup by choosing one out of two boxes containing food, while Achilles will be presented with bowls marked with teams' flags.

"We went for Achilles because he is beautiful, first of all, but also because -- like all white cats with blue eyes -- he is deaf, so he has a great deal of intuition, he sees with his heart," said Anna Kasatkina, a vet who oversees guard-cats at Saint Petersburg's Hermitage museum.

For the World Cup, Achilles will move out of his lifelong home of the basements of the Hermitage, where he works with a team of dozens of other cats to keep the world-famous museum free of rodents. Instead he will live at the "Cat Republic" cafe nearby. 

"He's going to live here for the duration of the tournament to keep him 'on form', since he has more opportunity to move and also meet guests," Kasatkina said.

The cat is not the first animal to be positioned as successor to the celebrated Paul, who became the world's most famous mollusk when he correctly predicted all the matches of the German team during the South African World Cup. He went on to predict the victory of Spain in the final.

Swiss guinea pig Madame Shiva made a play for the crown in 2014, as did British Piranha Pele, but neither quite had Paul's foresight.