ABOUT US - JOTAIN MEISTÄ

The breeder in 1975

My first cat "Murre", a red mackerel tabby European shorthair

"Mikki" & "Rölli"

14th April 1974 I, Annaleea Aurora Alanen, was born in the town of Joensuu, eastern Finland. Right from the beginning I was called "Annukka" by all the friends and relatives. (By the way, my husband and the majority of Italian friends call me with my second name Aurora - being an Italian name, it's easier to pronounce.)

In 1981 I was seven years old, started school and got my first cat to accompany me at home after school days. We met his breeder in a catshow in Tampere, where we were living at the moment, and "Murre" moved to our home a couple of weeks later. Unfortunately Murre died of an intestinal obstruction at the early age of 6 years.

In 1987 I got my first Norwegian Forest Cat. After Murre's death I couldn't live without a cat so when I was 13 years of old, a brown mackerel tabby/white male kitten "Mikki" arrived from FIN*Satukissan cattery. We didn't have any intentions to show him, but the breeders wanted him to be shown once and I unwillingly decided to take him to the near catshow in Jyväskylä. Mikki won his class and was best of variety and best of breed kitten. From there on, in august 1987, I started my "career" as a show exhibitor. In august 2002 Mikki died of cancer after over 15 years of happy life.You can read more about Mikki here.

After Mikki had moved to us, I had hopelessly fallen in love with "Wegies" and wanted another kitten to give company to Mikki. So in 1988 "Rölli", a white odd-eyed halfbrother of Mikki, became a part of the family. At almost 15 years of age Rölli "joined the angel chore" after a heart attack. More about Rölli here.

After a couple of years of showing my male cats I began to dream about breeding forest cats. My first female Nanna came from Ve Gimle-cattery, Denmark, in 1990. Nanna was the "boss" of the house and a caring mother of 4 litters. She died in 1999 of cancer. You can read more about Nanna here.

In January 1992 my first litter (Mikki x Nanna) was born under the prefix FIN*MoonCat's. The only female kitten in the litter, "Bella", remained at home.

In 1995 I started my university studies of education and foreign languages: English, Scandinavian languages (Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic) and Italian + some French, Spanish and Latin.

In 1999 I met Andrea, my husband-to-be, at the University of Lund, southern Sweden, where I was studying Scandinavian languages as an exchange student whereas Andrea studied economics.

In 2000 I graduated from the University of Jyväskylä. My master's thesis can be read here.

In 2002 Andrea got his master of economics degree from the University of Florence.

In June, 2003, I got married with Andrea in my hometown Jyväskylä and changed my surname into Quaranta. In September 2003 we moved to Florence, Italy where I am, at the moment, working in an online travel agency and as freelance translator.

In April 2005 we moved from Florence to Fano which lies by the Adriatic sea, on the eastern coast of Italy.

On the 5th of June our "little" son Daniel was born.
Height 52cm, weight 4340gr.

© Sabina Ugolini

Daniel 15 months.