When you’re King Louis IV and you care to give the very best, what is your gift of choice? An ancestor of the Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka. The small sized Maltese type dogs were presented to Russian nobility as gifts from Louis’ court.A bit later, those ancestors (once known as the “French Bolonka”) traveled to the Russian Empire with Napoleon’s army; when the army pulled out, some of the dogs stayed behind and become the foundation stock of today’s Russian Bolonka.
Lapdogs had no place in a communist state, but the desire for canine companionship wasn’t diminished. It was close to impossible to import a dog from another country, so localized breeding in Moscow and St. Petersburg from mixes of Lhasa-Apsos, Toy Poodles, Shi-Tzu, French Bolognese and Pekingese resulted in a breed that could live within the realities of Russia’s small living spaces. The Tsvetnaya Bolonka was discovered after the Iron Curtain fell, but before 2002, one would have been hard pressed to find many Bolonki (the plural form) in the US. One source we read reported that because of negotiations between the Russian Kennel Federation and National Russian Bolonka Club to honor and maintain the home country’s standard, the first Bolonka was finally imported from Russia. Importantly, the dog came with the translated export pedigrees and legitimate papers needed for a rare breed to start the road to AKC recognition. As of this writing, the Bolonka is listed as an FSS breed.
Russian Tsvetnaya Bolonka by Lee Ann Shepard