If you head to the centre of this Russian city, you’ll find an odd statue of a Tiger with a beaver tail and webbed paws, holding an oversized rodent. It’s really bizarre, and the story is pretty classic.

When this city first created its coat of arms in the 1600’s, it added an animal called a Babr, which what they called a Siberian Tiger. As the years went on, the tiger became extinct, and so did this local term.

In the late 19th century, officials in Saint Petersburg decided to redraw their coat of arms, but were baffled by the strange, foreign looking word, associated with what looked like a tiger. Thinking that someone had accidentally misspelled bobr (beaver), they thought they had to concoct an an entirely new animal. Hence, a beaver/tiger hybrid, holding a sable, with a confused look on its face.