Illustration by Philippe Meyrier
Paris to Moscow on Horseback
3,333 kilometers in 75 days
by
Jean-Louis Gouraud
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Paris to Moscow on Horseback 3,333 kilometers in 75 days by Jean-Louis Gouraud
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(Translated
and edited from the French by Basha O'Reilly)
Five years of effort rewarded!
After five years of trying,
Moscow has finally given me the green light:
I am to be allowed to ride into the USSR! This it the first time that permission to do such a thing has
been given to an Occidental since the 1917 October Revolution!
The Soviet Federation of Equestrian Sport has written to me:
“Be at the border of Brest (Litovsk) on 23rd June.
Before noon”!
I’ll have to leave soon,
find some horses quickly. I am
determined to do the journey on French Trotters.
Robin (age 7) arrives from
Normandy. Prince (age 9) comes from
Anjou. They meet each other at my
stables on 9th April. They
get on well.
Three days before our
departure, Francois Houdau, my farrier, comes to fit them with a magic
horseshoe: it will effectively last
for 2,500 kilometres! Nine little
tungsten crampons on each shoe – inspired.
I won’t have to change them until I get to Janow, in Poland, just
before we get to the USSR border!
1st
May 1990
New shoes, up to date
vaccinations, we can set off at last. We
leave the stables at about 8 a.m. The weather is beautiful.
At 10 a.m. it is very hot, and at midday it is, frankly, scorching.
The heat never gave us any respite until we got to Moscow (except for one
or two days somewhere between East Germany and Poland).
It was to prove the hardest part of the journey.
Sometimes it was real hell, such as when we crossed Belarus and Russia
where the huge, humid forests, the swamps, and the ditches of stagnant water all
gave birth to millions of biting insects which harassed us for twenty hours a
day. “That’s still better than
the cold or the rain, though”, the local people told me, by way of comfort.
May 1990
Not too many problems, or
at least no great dramas. During
the first few days there were certainly some very hard moments, physically and
psychologically, for the quadrupeds as much as for the biped.
But after two or three weeks, that was it:
we’d all found our rhythm.
On the morning of 27th
May we passed into “the east”. At
Topen a (tiny) frontier post still separated East and West Germany.
Not for long – a few days later the border was removed, Germany was
reunited and Europe transformed!
We cross the famous
Oder-Neisse Line on 4th June, at Swiecko, Poland.
Luckily, it’s Whit Monday and the motorway, which the customs men force
us to use, is deserted. On the other side of the frontier, a slightly mad Polish
horseman, Jacek Szymanski, is waiting for me.
He speaks French, and will help me to cross his marvellous country in
twenty days. A nation which I found
rural but warm, impoverished but generous.
A country where the horse is still a familiar sight.
In some villages my trotters draw admiring crowds and initiate endless
discussions (and the inevitable drinking bouts).
On the appointed day (23rd
June), at the appointed hour (before noon) I arrive at the Soviet border
accompanied by my friend Jacek, who is requested not to cross the white band
which indicates the frontier of the USSR.
A huge delegation of
officials, reporters, photographers and cameramen had turned out to assist
“the event”. Here I am in the
Soviet Union! I feel very
emotional.
Brest, Minsk, Smolensk,
Moscow: a thousand kilometres in a
straight, straight, straight line… At
times the towns are more than a hundred kilometres apart, which means that some
nights we have to camp in the forest. Otherwise,
kolhoses and sovkhoses (community farms) are usually very welcoming.
In an strange combination of the traditional and the modern, these
cooperatives or state farms have good stables and oats.
The omnipresent portraits of Lenin and socialist slogans do not seem to
disturb either the relaxation or the digestion of my horses.
On 14th July, at
8 a.m., I am at Port Mojaisk, the very same one by which Napoleon entered
Moscow. Waiting for me there are
five superb horsemen, a detachment of the Mounted Police, who will escort me to
Red Square where Prince (who I was riding that day), Robin (who really wants to
try Russian champagne) and I are welcomed triumphantly at about 11.30 a.m.
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Click on picture to enlarge |
Jean-Louis Gouraud and his French Trotters, Robin and Prince, celebrate their safe arrival in Moscow’s famous Red Square. |
14th July 1990
Under the Kremlin walls, we
are showered with compliments, flowers and honours: medals, diplomas, and even a certificate for the Guinness
Book of Records! And yet, I do not
really think I have broken any records (except, perhaps, for the longevity of
the horse shoes, which record belongs to my farrier), nor even really achieved a
great exploit. I have simply proved
that a mediocre horseman, mounted on ordinary horses, without any extraordinary
preparation or training, could make a long journey on horseback in the 20th
century, which for that matter was routinely done before the invention of the
car! The only aspect of my journey
which was a bit exceptional was its speed:
an average of 45 kilometres a day over 65 days in a row!
It’s not bad, really. This
little performance is due to the mode of riding used (“a la Turkmene” –
Turkmenian-style*) and to the amazing luck which never deserted me.
No, the only thing of which
I am really proud is that I brought my horses to the end of their journey in
good physical and mental shape. When
we arrived in Moscow, Prince and Robin seemed to be asking, “Now Peking, which
way is that?”.
I offer my saddle, pommel
bags and saddle bags to the Museum of the Horse in Moscow.
One pommel bag had contained my documents.
Ah, the documents! Health
certificates, veterinary tests, passports of the International Federation,
authorisation for export, permits for import:
madness! If the free
movement of human beings has made great progress, the movement of animals is of
growing complexity and absurdly complicated.
24th July
1990
As I had promised to do
before I left, I offer my horses to President Mikhael Gorbachev, the man who had
changed the world, rocked Europe… and made my journey possible!
His wife, Raisa Gorbachev,
comes to take possession of my “presents” on 24th July, at
Bitsa, the huge equestrian complex where the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games had taken
place, but it is only to offer them in turn to the children of Bitsa, Russia.
Having returned to France
(by airplane) on 25th July, I couldn’t bear it.
I had to go and see what had happened to my horses.
A short trip back to Moscow. Relief
– they are fine. Well fed, well
treated, well looked after, Prince and Robin are in fine form.
All at once, so am I.
* “A la Turkmene” is a method of riding in which one horse carries both the rider and the baggage, while the other one is led, “naked”. The next day it is the second horse’s turn, so the tired one can recuperate. It presupposes very little luggage! The theory is that “the enemy of the horse is not kilometres but kilograms.”
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