Viral cat brings tourists to Polish town

STORY: Have you heard of Gacek the cat?

The feline has become a major tourist attraction in the Polish city of Szczecin

after clips of him went viral on social media

[Kherlen, Student from Mongolia]

"I came to the city like the day before yesterday and I'm looking for that cat named Gacek. It was really cute and my friend told me about it, so I hope I will find the cat, maybe today, maybe tomorrow."

Gacek lives in this wooden house near the city center

His address has become the city’s No. 1 rated tourist attraction on Google Maps

[Szymon Maksymiuk, Szczecin tourist information center employee]

"For example, there was a guy from Norway who took a flight. In this case, I will not believe that Gacek was the only reason because tourists from Scandinavia are quite common viewing Szczecin, but he claimed that Gacek really drove him to make the decision of arriving here and sightsee(ing) the city, so Gacek’s impact for Szczecin’s tourism and tourism development shouldn’t be underrated."

To stop Gacek from gaining too much weight, passers-by have been asked not to feed him

[Jakub Szukiel, Local resident]

"It warms my heart because it's a chonky boy, but yeah, as a sidewalk attraction, very cool cat.’’