Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's Siberian tigress Mashenka will be given a ten-kilogram meat cake for New Year at her home in the Black Sea resort city of Gelendzhik.
Putin was given the Ussuri tiger on his 56th birthday last year, but has not revealed who the giver was. Mashenka, whose species is listed as endangered, was two months old at the time.
The government earlier said the Ussuri tiger could become the mascot of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held in the Russian Far Eastern city of Vladivostok in 2012.
Siberian tigers, also known as Amur tigers, are classed as endangered by the World Conservation Union, with only about 500 individuals left in the wild. Since 2006, poachers are known to have killed at least 10 of the rare animals in Russia's Far East.
GELENDZHIK, December 21 (RIA Novosti)
