Nine Centuries, Two Near-Extinctions, and 45 Million Views on a Pringles Video
The Borzoi has had one of the strangest trajectories of any dog breed in history. Bred by Russian aristocrats to course wolves across frozen steppes. Nearly wiped out because of that aristocratic association. Preserved by a handful of Western breeders. Relegated to the fringes of the dog world for decades. And then, in late 2022, a dog took a sad bath on TikTok and Borzoi popularity exploded overnight.
This is the story of how a breed that once required a personal invitation from the Czar to own became the internet’s favorite long-nosed philosopher.
The Aristocratic Origins: Wolves, Czars, and Hundred-Dog Hunts
The Borzoi’s history starts in the courts of medieval Russia. The breed standard was first officially recorded in 1650, but Borzoi (the name means “swift” in Russian) had been part of Russian noble culture since at least the 11th century, three Borzoi accompanied Anna Iaroslavna, daughter of the Grand Duke of Kiev, when she traveled to France to marry King Henri I.
By the time of Ivan the Terrible in the 15th century, Russian nobles maintained Borzoi in the hundreds and sometimes thousands, passing sprawling kennels from generation to generation. The dogs existed for one purpose: wolf hunting. And these weren’t casual outings.
At Perchino, the estate of Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievich, wolf hunts were elaborate, ritualistic productions that required dozens of train cars to transport the horses, hounds, and hunters to the hunting grounds. Huntsmen wearing the Grand Duke’s signature green livery, mounted on padded Cossack saddles, each rode out with a trio of Borzoi, typically two males and one female, matched in size and color. The dogs worked in teams: they’d spot the wolf, run it down at speeds approaching 40 miles per hour, and pin it until the mounted hunters arrived.
For centuries, you couldn’t buy a Borzoi. You could only receive one as a gift from the Czar. Czar Alexander II sent them as diplomatic gifts to European royalty throughout the 19th century, Queen Victoria received some, which is a significant reason the breed survived what came next.
Revolution and Near-Extinction
In 1861, the emancipation of Russia’s serfs collapsed the feudal system that had provided the cheap labor to maintain the massive aristocratic estates and their kennels. Borzoi numbers began to decline. Then came 1917.
During the Russian Revolution, Borzoi were slaughtered in large numbers specifically because of their association with the aristocracy. The breed that had been a symbol of imperial Russia became a target. In a remarkably short period, the Borzoi was practically extinct in the vast country that had created it.
The breed survived because of those diplomatic gifts. Dogs that had been sent to British, European, and American kennels in the preceding decades formed the genetic foundation for rebuilding. American and British breeders, working with what they had, brought the population back, though it would never approach the numbers that Russian nobles had once maintained.
The Quiet Century: Beautiful, Rare, and Mostly Forgotten
For most of the 20th century, the Borzoi existed in a strange cultural space. The breed had a brief moment as a Hollywood status symbol in the 1920s and 1930s, when every leading lady from Jean Harlow to Greta Garbo posed with one. The Art Deco movement adopted the Borzoi silhouette as a visual motif. Alfred A. Knopf made one the logo of his publishing house in 1922, where it remains today.
But as a pet, as an actual dog that people lived with, the Borzoi remained rare. The AKC currently ranks them 101st in breed popularity. At their lowest point, in 1935, only 85 Borzoi were registered in the entire United States. The breed attracted a devoted but small community of enthusiasts, people who showed, lure coursed, and bred carefully, keeping the genetics viable without ever breaking into mainstream popularity.
Which is exactly how most Borzoi people preferred it.
The TikTok Explosion: How a Sad Bath Changed Everything
The Borzoi meme era started quietly on Instagram around October 2020. Dog photographers had discovered something specific about the breed: when you shoot a Borzoi with a wide-angle lens positioned near the tip of their nose, the already-long snout becomes absurdly, impossibly elongated. The images were striking, weird, and immediately shareable.
But the real explosion came on December 11, 2022, when TikToker @sugarthesilken posted a video of a sighthound taking a bath, set to a Miss Piggy cover of FKA Twigs’ “Cellophane.” The dog’s expression, deeply melancholic, existentially burdened, somehow conveying the weight of all human experience while sitting in three inches of water, struck a nerve. The video earned 9.9 million views and 2 million likes in a single month.
Borzoi owners immediately recognized what was happening. Their dogs had been making that face for centuries. They just hadn’t had TikTok.
The cellophane sound became the Borzoi anthem. Owners flooded the platform with their own dogs doing what Borzoi do naturally: looking beautiful, looking tragic, looking like they’re contemplating the fundamental meaninglessness of existence while lying on a $3,000 couch. The format worked because the breed’s natural expression, calm, dignified, slightly mournful, is genuinely funny when set to dramatic music. You don’t have to train a Borzoi to look existentially troubled. You just have to point a camera at one.
Then, in January 2023, TikToker @drawzillazzz posted an animation of a Borzoi helpfully using its long nose to reach the bottom of a Pringles can for its owner, set to the same cellophane sound. The “let me do it for you” meme earned over 45 million views in four days. Forty-five million. In four days.
The Borzoi Influencers
The meme wave created genuine Borzoi celebrities. The first viral Borzoi was actually Esper, who became famous on Vine back in 2016, his owner’s TikTok account, @esperborzoi, now has 1.8 million followers across four Borzoi.
Then there’s Eris, full name Madam Eris Overbite, Queen of Snoots, a Borzoi from Virginia with over 200,000 Instagram followers and 600,000 on TikTok. A viral video of Eris standing on her hind legs revealed she measures 5 feet 7 inches tall, which is taller than a significant percentage of her human audience.
Lapsha, known on Instagram as @loopsnoot, became one of the most-used Borzoi in the exploitable meme format, her face photoshopped into increasingly absurd contexts.
NBC News ran a feature titled “TikTok users are loving borzois, the dog breed that perfectly captures our existential dread.” Jacob Chattman, a longtime Borzoi owner and content creator, explained it perfectly: Borzoi “embody the existential crisis of being way too aware of everything.” He added: “It fits the internet age, too, because we’re all kind of like alone behind our phones and behind our computers, just kind of contemplating existence through these little windows.”
A Russian wolf-hunting dog as a metaphor for modern digital isolation. The Czars would have had questions.
What Borzoi Popularity Means for the Breed
Here’s where the story gets complicated. Increased visibility is a double-edged sword for any dog breed, and Borzoi people know this. The breed community has watched what happened to Dalmatians after the 1996 live-action film, or Huskies after Game of Thrones, surges in demand followed by surges in surrenders when people discovered that the cute dog from the screen was actually a high-maintenance animal with specific needs.
Borzoi are not starter dogs. They have serious prey drive, they need space, they’re independent thinkers who don’t respond well to heavy-handed training, and they can hit 40 miles per hour in a sprint. A Borzoi that gets loose in an unfenced area is a Borzoi you might not catch.
But the surge in Borzoi popularity has also done something genuinely good: it’s made more people aware that this breed exists. The Borzoi has spent decades as one of those dogs that makes people stop on the sidewalk and ask “what IS that?” Now, more people know the answer. And for the right owners, patient, experienced, willing to live with a dog that will occasionally ignore them with magnificent grace, a Borzoi is an extraordinary companion.
The breed went from czars’ kennels to near-extinction to Hollywood glamour to quiet obscurity to 45 million TikTok views. Nine centuries of history, and the Borzoi is still doing exactly what it’s always done: being beautiful, being dramatic, and making everyone around it pay attention.
Whether you’ve owned Borzoi for decades or just discovered the breed through a meme, there’s something worth wearing.
Browse Borzoi apparel at Esoteric Design, original vintage-style illustrations on premium Bella+Canvas blanks. Five designs: Breed, Mom, Dad, Humor, and Latin. For people who understand why a dog that hunted wolves for the Russian aristocracy is now the internet’s favorite existential philosopher.
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