The key facts

  • Anatoly Garbuzov called the ZIS plant's equipment «the most advanced fluff vacuum»
  • The video with «fluff vacuum robots» at the Patriarch's Ponds was created using AI
  • Transport Minister Andrey Nikitin earlier allowed for the creation of such machines

From meme to production

Municipal cleaning equipment that can be adapted, among other things, for collecting poplar fluff is being produced in Moscow. This was announced at a press conference at the press center of the Rossiya Segodnya media group by the head of the capital's department of investment and industrial policy, Anatoly Garbuzov. «It can be said that we have the most advanced 'fluff vacuum', which is also a street sweeper,» his words are quoted as saying Gazeta.Ru and Life.ru. According to the outlets, we are talking about equipment produced by a resident of the special economic zone «ZIS» — a plant of innovative special-purpose machinery; Life.ru specifies, that the machine is electric, and various modifications and additional equipment allow it to be tailored to specific tasks.

How the word «fluff vacuum» entered everyday use

The word itself became widely known in June 2026 after a viral video in which compact blue robots collect poplar fluff on a street at the Patriarch's Ponds. It later turned out that the video was created using artificial intelligence, but it turned into a popular meme. Life.ru, citing the developer Roman Zaripov , reported that the team went through dozens of variants of the robot's appearance before choosing a model for the shoot, and many viewers believed such machines actually existed. Meanwhile, Russia's transport minister Andrey Nikitin allowed, that such machines could indeed be created and put into use for street cleaning.

What has changed

Garbuzov's statement effectively moves the topic from the realm of an internet meme into the realm of real production: in the summer, vacuum combined machines were already spotted on the streets of Moscow, cleaning the city of fluff, and Rospatent received an application to register the trademark «Pukhosos» (Fluff Vacuum). At the same time, as Life.ru notes, the official did not announce the existence of separate specialized «fluff vacuums» — he merely suggested that a serial cleaning machine could be adapted for collecting fluff. The publications do not report on the timeline for the mass adoption of such equipment or its specifications.