'Take me to the city' - kitten called Lucky hitches a ride to Vladivostok

Lucky surely used up some of her nine lives with her daring escapade to reach the bright lights of Vladivostok.

A video records the moment wet and bedraggled Lucky was freed by driver Artur - aged around 30 - from his Honda Fit.

He had to remove his right side rear wheel to get her out.

By now, the curious kitten - aged around six months - has travelled 150 kilometres under the car from a lonely village where she was seen eyeing the vehicle for her escape.

She nonchalantly hopped aboard when no-one was looking.

Artur and his colleague record on video the moment the cat is freed after the wantaway pet was heard meowing when he turned down the music to make a phone call.

He wipes her with napkins and tries to comfort her. 

But what does Lucky do?

She climbs right back in the wheel, intent on completing the journey to Russia’s Pacific capital. 

'The village she jumped into the car wheel was not far from Arsenyev - in the yard of a house I saw a cat similar to this one,' explained Artur.

The drive was fast and furious and also bumpy. 

'In Mikhailovka village, I made the radio quieter for a phone call, and suddenly we heard a kind of meowing. 

'We couldn’t believe it.'

Stopping the car and diving underneath, he saw an 'incomprehensible silhouette'.

The journey for the globetrotting kitten must have been a ‘nightmare’, he said. 

'Bumps, bad asphalt, and she hid in the suspension,' he said. 

He apologised for the expletives in the video, but the shock was enormous. 

'I was so stunned that the cat was alive - and healthy.'

She had a slight scratch on one ear. 

'I pulled her out all dirty, wiped her with napkins, and she went right back into the suspension behind the wheel.

'As if she was saying: 'I haven’t reached the destination yet, I need to go to the city'. 

'I thought she would lie down and come to senses - nothing like this.

'She sat quietly; looking and watching as if remembering the road.'

Having reached the city, Lucky made herself at home in Artur’s flat, untroubled there was already another cat there. 

'She eats everything, even the borscht.'

But what is it about Vladivostok that makes it so appealing to felines? The smell of fish, perhaps?

Last year we reported how wanderlust Vladik, an endangered Amur tiger, walked 725 kilometres to return to the city after he was forcibly removed on an earlier visit. 

Vladik is one of the the biggest cats in the world. 

Big cat expert Pavel Fomenko explained at the time: 'He is where he was striving to get to.’

Looks like the same with Lucky.