Gli

Gli — whose name means "union of love" in Turkish — was a green-eyed European Shorthair who lived inside Hagia Sophia, the thousand-year-old former cathedral and mosque in Istanbul, from her birth in 2004. For sixteen years she padded across the ancient marble floors and dozed beneath the great Byzantine arches, becoming as much a fixture of the monument as its mosaics. Millions of visitors photographed her, and she gained worldwide fame in 2009 when US President Barack Obama, touring the building, stopped to stroke her — an image that travelled around the globe. Calm, confident, and utterly at home among the crowds, Gli embodied Istanbul's deep affection for its street cats, which roam the city freely and are fed and sheltered by residents and shopkeepers alike. She had her own devoted social-media following, and when she died in November 2020 after a period of illness, the news was reported by international media and mourned by fans across the world. She was, fittingly, laid to rest near the monument she had called home.