Cheburashka is a film and novel character who originally comes from the Soviet Union. The character was invented by the Russian children's book author Eduard Uspenski, who is known in Russia for his humorous and politically unbiased writing style. Cheburashka first appeared in the film by the great Russian animator Roman Katshanov in 1969. It is a fantastic animal character with big ears, a friendly face and brown fur. Cheburashka is found by a fruit seller in an orange crate; he probably comes from the tropics. It is an animal that has so far been completely unknown to science; it probably fell asleep in the box after eating oranges and was transported to its new home. He has brown fur and very large ears. The fruit dealer first takes Cheburashka to the zoo, which, however, does not want to take the animal. Cheburashka now meets a shopkeeper for whom she is supposed to work in the shop window and lives in a telephone booth. When the lonely crocodile Gena looks for friends and posts notices around the city for this purpose, Cheburashka and Gena get to know each other and live together from then on.

Cheburashka gained new fame when he was declared the official mascot for the Russian Olympic team for the 2004 Summer Olympics in 2004. He was also the mascot for the Russian participants at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin - albeit with white fur. In 2008 he was the mascot of the Russian national team with red fur at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing and in 2010 with blue fur at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Cheburashka will be the mascot in all three national colors.