Lariska

The owner of the rat Lariska is the old woman Shapoklyak, named after an old-fashioned headdress - a hero of children's stories and cartoons, an antagonist in a series of works by Eduard Uspensky, and an enemy of Cheburashka and Gena.

According to the book "Gena the Crocodile and His Friends," her main occupation is "collecting evil." In the cartoon, her motto is expressed in a song: "Whoever helps people is wasting their time. You can't become famous by doing good." Shapoklyak, with the help of her antagonist, the rat Lariska, who is carried in her reticule, plays cruel pranks on innocent townspeople. As she gets to know Gena and Cheburashka, Shapoklyak gradually mends her ways, usually returning to her mischief at the beginning of the next episode. But despite her mischief, she is a sensible and even noble old woman.

According to the book "Crocodile Gena's Vacation," Lariska loves chocolate ice cream.

In later cartoons, Lariska is portrayed as a more intelligent rat. She can open a window from the outside, open doorknobs, roll and hand snowballs to Shapoklyak, draw pictures with a pencil, express her emotions through facial expressions, communicate with Shapoklyak through sounds of a certain pitch, and hold objects in her paws.
It also seems that Shapoklyak is able to understand Lariska.

It is one of the few animals that cannot speak.

Lariska was never called by her full name "Larisa".

Lariska, being a rat, is agile and nimble. She can also run quickly and even pull her owner by the leash. Lariska can stand on her two hind legs and even walk on them for a while. She knows commands, at least "come." Apparently, she can "follow a scent" and locate people by scent. Old Lady Shapoklyak often releases Lariska from her reticule to scare her victims. Shapoklyak can also set Lariska on her enemies, which means Lariska can bite.

Lariska is one of the antagonists of famous fairy tales, and seems to enjoy causing mischief, just like her owner. She always obeys her owner, the old woman Shapoklyak, and follows her around. At the same time, Lariska is quite curious (when meeting people for the first time, she looked at them with interest; she also inspected lampposts with curiosity). Lariska is also quite intelligent, capable of "keeping an eye" on people.

Lariska the rat looks like a fairly large tame rat. She is gray in color, with beady black eyes, black whiskers (vibrissae) on her face, a black nose, short legs, and a long tail. She has large ears (relative to her size). Lariska wears a red collar and is rarely walked on a leash.