Where war horses rest

by Steve Cunningham

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NICHOLAS I was one of the cruellest Russian rulers in history. He hated people, but he loved horses.

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Now, one of his bizarre creations has been uncovered: a rest home for horses, next to the world's only known equine cemetery.

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There are 120 graves, honouring war horses, all remembered by the Russian emperors who rode them.

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Jean-Louis Gouraud discovered the cemetery during a business trip to St Petersburg. He was the first foreigner to walk among its graves since the Russian Revolution.

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'The place was fenced off with barbed wire and had become a dumping-ground,' said Gouraud.

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'I pleaded with the Soviet authorities that it should be restored as a site of immeasurable historical value, but they first refused even to admit that it existed and then accused me of just making trouble.'

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Back in France, Gouraud found a reference in an 1860 Parisian magazine to 'an imperial rest home for retired horses' in the town of Tsarskoye Selo, 12 miles from St Petersburg, to which a cemetery was attached. The graveyard was 'a veritable necropolis with elaborate monuments and inscriptions.'

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One records the death of Hamlet, 'a horse belonging to Alexander III; nine years service; died 14 September, 1889.' Another mourns Biouta, 'a horse belonging to their Imperial majesties; 24 years service; died March 1834.'

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Gouraud found that the stables had been made in 1827, commissioned by Nicholas I and built by a Scottish architect.

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The first resident was L'ami, the horse on which Alexander I had ridden victoriously into Paris in 1814, after defeating Napoleon. When L'ami died in 1831, the first of the 120 official burials took place.

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'The commissioning of the rest-home and cemetery was virtually the first act of Nicholas I on becoming Tsar,' said Gouraud. 'He was known as one of the cruellest Tsars in history, but although he hated people, he loved horses. He created a sentimental cult of the horse.'

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Gouraud's campaign has succeeded in delaying the bulldozers. The Russian government, however, still refuses to fund any restoration work. 'The Russians have never seemed to recognise its value.

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'It would be an appalling waste if the graveyard were just abandoned and forgotten all over again,' he said.

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'Horses have been buried before, but never on this scale and never with such pomp and ceremony. The Tsarskoye cemetery provides a unique insight into the mentality of Tsarist Russia. Now that it has been found again, it must be preserved.