In Mexico, near the largest museum of Maya Indians in the world, a monument has been erected to the Russian scholar Yuri Knorozov. The sculpture, made of yellowish stone, resembles his famous black-and-white photograph, and in his hands is depicted his beloved cat Asya. Yuri Valentinovich repeatedly tried to include her in the list of co-authors of his works, but editors always removed the cat's name. The monument in Merida is the second dedicated to the Russian scholar by grateful descendants of the Indians, while in Russia, a project for a similar memorial is still under discussion. It may be unveiled in 2022, marking the centenary of the birth of the great linguist and ethnographer.

Yuri Valentinovich Knorozov was born in 1922 in Kharkiv into a large family of an engineer. At the age of five, he accidentally received a strong blow to the head while playing lapta and temporarily lost his sight, which soon recovered. The scholar was convinced that this incident awakened unusual abilities in him, as his character differed significantly from other family members.

Knorozov's youth coincided with the difficult war years, but in 1948 he successfully graduated from the history faculty of Moscow University and began research that could have led to arrest at that time. The young scholar was particularly interested in shamanic practices and ancient languages, and the mystery of Maya writing, considered unsolvable, attracted him the most. Yuri viewed this task as a challenge and asserted: "what is created by one human mind cannot remain unsolved by another."

In 1949, Yuri Knorozov, arranged by acquaintances to work at the Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR in Leningrad, lived in a small room at the museum. He wore the military overcoat and tunic in which he was demobilized, and his room, just over three meters wide, was completely filled with books, with walls adorned with hieroglyphs from the pre-Columbian era. He was fortunate with colleagues at work, befriending Lev Gumilev and visiting him at the Fountain House, where Gumilev lived with his mother, Anna Akhmatova. Anna Andreyevna took pity on the young scholar and even gifted him a winter hat.

Later, the life of the brilliant scholar improved a bit: he got married and settled with his wife in a communal apartment on Nevsky. In 1952, his first article on the decipherment of Maya writing was published. In 1955, he defended his doctoral dissertation, despite lacking a candidate of sciences degree. A few years later, the world learned of his incredible breakthrough, and Yuri Knorozov received well-deserved recognition.

Perhaps the Russian genius managed to accomplish what was considered impossible due to his broad perspective on the task: he viewed the decipherment of ancient symbols as a practical approach to a more general theory of signaling and collectivity. These studies became central to his life, including his interest in shamanic practices, and later evolved into the theory of collectivity and fascination.

The scholar claimed that the main idea of how to approach ancient "unsolvable" writings was inspired by his beloved cat. Observing how she taught her kittens to catch mice, he drew conclusions that formed the basis of his article "On the Classification of Signaling Issues." Cats were Knorozov's passion. Around 1970, friends gifted him a rare Siamese cat in the USSR. Aspid, shortened to Asya, became his main assistant, and he referred to her as "his co-author." Later, Knorozov had descendants of Asya, and he maintained a tender attachment to them until the end of his life.