Monument to Akhal-Teke Absinth. Dressage.

1. Part one, sad but bright

From time immemorial, the tradition of honorable burial of horses has come down to us, when the horse accompanied the owner in the afterlife. Scythian, Sarmatian burials are well known, where next to a warrior his war horse in full dress rests. Later, they began to bury the horses themselves, who had special merits or were simply favorites of their owners.

Love story

The story of Peter I and his beloved horse named Lisette has reached the present. The first Russian emperor did not particularly like riding and horses (as historians suggest, because of his high stature, he felt ridiculous and uncomfortable in the saddle). However, when Peter first saw Lisette in a military camp near Riga, he immediately exchanged her for his horse, adding a little money. Peter I and Lisetta were sincerely devoted to each other. Contemporaries said that if the emperor did not appear at the stable for a long time, Lisette herself left the stall and looked for the owner. After the death of his beloved horse, Peter I buried her remains on the banks of the Tarakanovka River. A monument in the form of a column with a figurine of a horse was erected at the burial site. After Peter I, a real tradition of burying their favorite horses was established in the Russian imperial family, and at the beginning of the 20th century there was a whole cemetery of imperial horses in St. Petersburg. It is now completely destroyed to the ground.

One of the originators of the Thoroughbred Eclipse riding breed in Newmarket, UK.

Loyalty story

Or another example of a person's gratitude for his horse, it is associated with the village of Divovo, which now houses the All-Russian Research Institute of Horse Breeding. Before October revolution the territory of the VNNIK experimental stud farm was the estate of the Counts Divovs. One of the counts brought a Turkish wife from a foreign campaign, and so that she would not miss her homeland much, he built a minaret for her (the ruins of the minaret have been preserved in Divovo today). But one fine day, a Turkish woman climbed onto the top platform of the minaret and rushed down from there. The count in love took his best horse named Raven and galloped to Ryazan for a doctor. The raven covered about 50 kilometers without rest, delivered the count to Divovo and fell right in the courtyard of the estate. The count brought a doctor from Ryazan, but the young woman could not be saved. However, in gratitude for his loyalty, the Count buried the faithful Raven in front of the stables. A memorial stone still stands at the burial site.

Horse cemeteries

Burial traditions have not disappeared even today. A special honor is given to well-known sires or horses that have shown high results in sports, racing or racing.
Horses are buried in two ways. In the first, the horse is buried in its entirety, standing up. To do this, they dig a grave pit with a depth of at least 2.5 m. In the second method, the heart and head of an outstanding horse are buried. A monument or a memorial plaque with the horse's name is erected over the burial place.

Australian Champion Far Lap in Flemington, Australia.
One of the largest modern horse cemeteries is located in the Voskhod stud farm, it is called the Walk of Fame. Aniline, his mother Analogue, the famous manufacturers Ivory Tower and Athens Wood are buried on it. There are horse burials in other large stud farms.

In all countries, the most outstanding horses are buried with honors on special walks of fame. Some cities have special pet cemeteries where anyone can bury their pet. But there are also horses that are not buried at all, and their stuffed animals are exhibited in museums.

2. Part two, unsentimental:

Dog food or auto da fé?

But not all horses are waiting for an honorable burial and the memory of a grateful owner. What happens to the rest of the horses (and, admittedly, the majority)? According to the established practice in farms, the posthumous fate of a horse depends on whether it died a natural death or was subjected to forced slaughter.

If not to be sentimental, then we have to admit that in many situations the owner of the horse or someone else makes the decision about the forced slaughter. Forced slaughter is the sad but inevitable fate of old horses that no one undertakes to keep “in retirement”, or horses that have received incurable injuries in sports or at races. True, today there are not so many cases of forced slaughter in sports and amateur stables. The cost of horses has increased, and at the same time the level of domestic veterinary medicine has increased. For example, 15-20 years ago, a broken leg was a death sentence. But today, such injuries are quite treatable on the one hand, and on the other hand, they are less common due to improved conditions for keeping and using horses.

Secretariat and Seabiscuit, several different monuments have been erected to these racehorses.

However, horses are not forever. When the life of a horse does come to an end, some owners prefer not to allow natural death and slaughter the horse, perhaps hours before death. Then its meat can be used, say, for dog food.
But in most cases, they prefer to bury the horse's corpse in the nearest forest or, worse, leave it in a deep ravine. One of the options for self-disposal of a horse corpse, known in practice, is to douse the corpse with a flammable liquid, for example, gasoline and try to burn it, and bury the remains in the ground.

Favorite sausage

How often do you swear at your horse, promising to send him to the sausage? And how many horses actually end up on the table as a smoked delicacy? Here we can reassure sentimental readers - sports, breeding and other expensive horses rarely get to meat processing plants. Sometimes, especially in the past decades, zealous collective farm owners preferred to sell their horses for meat and get a small, but still, proceeds. But basically, “for meat”, in our country, as well as throughout the world, horses of special breeds are raised. When breeding meat breeds do not turn special attention on the exterior and working qualities. The main useful features in this case are the precocity of the horse (how quickly it grows to a marketable mass) and the quality of its meat, which, by the way, is superior in taste to the meat of elderly horses that have been slaughtered.
What awaits a horse doomed to slaughter?
With modern technology, animals are slaughtered at large factories electric shock, after which they are skinned and allowed further along the cutting conveyor. A couple of days after the slaughter, the animal can already turn into a sausage. Do not frown - the products of slaughter of horses are eaten with pleasure by many, including perhaps yourself.

Where can I find a cattle cemetery?

What to do if your horse died, and you are not going to arrange a horse cemetery outside your possessions? Burying in the forest, and even more so throwing a corpse, is not the best way out. Your unauthorized burial can become sources of infection. Moreover, for the burial of dead animals, there are long-established methods.

Frisky and Low Hannover

The oldest of them is a cattle burial ground, this word is known even to people who are far from agriculture. But, let's say right away, animal burial grounds are prohibited on the territory of Russia, as an inefficient and even dangerous way of burial. A cattle burial ground requires a lot of space. Judge for yourself, at least 8 square meters of land should be allocated for the burial of one animal. The cattle burial ground itself was placed on a high place (so that poisonous decay products did not enter the groundwater), no closer than half a kilometer from the settlement. But animal burial grounds were (and still are) especially dangerous in case of burial of animals that died from dangerous infectious diseases. In particular, anthrax pathogens remain active for about 300 years (in case of opening or erosion of an old cattle burial ground, the pathogen enters the environment and becomes a real danger to people and animals). All this led to a ban on the use and construction of cattle burial grounds.

Big Ben

A more modern way (this already fits the concept of "utilization") is the burial of animal corpses in biothermal pits. A biothermal pit is a special engineering structure: a pit with a depth of at least 10 meters with a concrete bottom and walls, with a mandatory extensive sanitary zone around the building. The process of decay of corpses occurs under the influence of microorganisms. A properly equipped pit theoretically ensures complete decay of the corpse and prevents decay products from entering the groundwater. But in practice, this method is not very economical. In addition, during the construction of such pits, miscalculations were often made - they dug a shallow, no more than 3 meters, pit, refused to complete concreting, or “for warning” strong disinfectants were poured into the pit, which killed bacteria that decomposed corpses. As a result, from a biothermal pit, the burial turned into a " mass grave"- the source of infection for the district. In this regard, in last years old biothermal pits are still used in some regions, but new ones are practically not being built.

The most modern version

The most progressive, economical and environmentally friendly is the processing of animal carcasses in special factories. If your horse fell in the city or in a densely populated countryside, you simply have nowhere to bury it, and you want to get out of the situation in a civilized way, contact the factory. There are similar factories in many regions, in the Moscow region - this is "Ecolog", located near the city of Lyubertsy.
At the recycling plant with modern technologies the carcass of the animal is processed into meat and bone meal, which is fed to farm animals. If an animal has died from a dangerous infection, it will be burned in an incinerator, and the remains (about 7% of the animal's original weight) will be buried at a special landfill.

How to do it right?

Is it possible for a horse owner to bury his horse in a civilized way? As we have already said, in Russia you are unlikely to find a cattle burial ground. It is not economically feasible to organize your own biothermal pit even for a medium-sized farm (and sanitary authorities may not allow it), but it is quite realistic to look for them in the district by contacting the territorial veterinary and sanitary authorities. True, for burial in a biothermal pit, you are probably obliged to perform a post-mortem autopsy and obtain a veterinary and sanitary certificate on the causes of death of the animal and also to conduct research on the subject of dangerous infectious diseases, primarily anthrax.

What will happen to the horse after its death - in the end it will have to be decided by the person - the owner, the breeder, the veterinarian. And let this decision be humane in relation to the horse, competent in relation to environment- that is, ultimately, civilized.

Noble animals were buried next to their owners in full combat ammunition.

Photo: Natalia FEDORENKO

Fancy patterns are engraved on the richly decorated bridles of the horses.

Until recently, to study the life and way of life of those who settled in the territory modern Kuban of ancient peoples, local archaeologists could only look at burial mounds (only representatives of the nobility were buried in them) and the remains of settlements. The churchyard discovered not far from Novorossiysk is unlike any previously explored object. It is possible that this is the first soil burial ground of the Early Bronze Age found in Russia (unlike barrows, ordinary soldiers and farmers were buried in it). Another surprise for scientists during the excavation of a prehistoric cemetery was a whole herd of horses. The horses have lain in the ground for more than four thousand years at a depth of only one meter!

So far, we have found the remains of 20 animals, - Alexander Shishlov, head of the archeology department of the Novorossiysk Historical Museum-Reserve, told Komsomolskaya Pravda. - In accordance with the funeral rite of that time, animals were buried next to the ashes of their owners. True, nothing is left of the horsemen, but the well-preserved remains of horses are a very interesting object for research.

Horses were slaughtered in full combat ammunition. Almost unchanged, bronze bridles have survived to this day. All of them are decorated with rich ornaments with bizarre patterns. Among the finds in the burial ground discovered a little to the west in the village of Natukhaevskaya are sabers and arrowheads.

Information about the early Bronze Age burial found in the vicinity of the hero-city is not yet available in any reference book. Researchers stumbled upon a unique archeological monument in the area where the South Stream gas pipeline branch passes.

The area of ​​the burial ground is about six thousand square meters, - Alexander adds. - Artifacts will allow you to learn even better about the life of our ancestors.

PS At each Scythian mound, archaeologists find a burial place for a horse along with a groom. This is a visiting card of the Scythian burials of noble princes.

The Scythians, as we learn from their own proud and defiant response to Darius' scathing remarks, valued the burial places of their ancestors above all else, worshiping them with a passion that may have been increased by their lack of temples and holy places. For them, the burial ceremony was an extremely mysterious and majestic ritual, but it was also an extremely expensive affair, considering not only the physical costs, material resources and household items, but above all human life. Horse losses were especially great. Recent discoveries show that horses with leg defects were sometimes disposed of in Hungary, and some of those buried in Altai graves suffered from the same defects. But many of the horses found in Pazirik were in excellent condition at the time of their death. As for the south of Russia, there are no data on this issue, but the number of horses killed during the funeral of important people in the Kuban was enormous. There, the numbers reached tens and hundreds of heads, and the largest recorded figure refers to the burial in Ulsky, where about four hundred horses were buried.
...
A large bronze cauldron, three feet high, was also found in the grave, around the rim of which were lined up six superbly made goats, which served as its handles. There was also a smaller bronze cauldron, many small objects of gold, a large, ornamented gold plate that had once been torn from the royal quiver, five magnificent swords and many shards of elegant Greek ceramics. Outside the burial chamber, but in the same mound, lay ten horses in full harness. The harness of five horses was decorated with gold, and the equipment of the rest with silver..

fragments of horse harness and ritual objects of the Scythian era

Scythian on horseback, Altai

Polovtsian horseman - fragments of jewelry and weapons, below is a reconstruction of the burial of a war horse

From the topic of horse harness

In 1927, Rudenko and Gryaznoye were able to inspect another group of graves, in many ways similar to this one. They were located in Sheba near the Ursul River. The largest of these mounds resembled Pazyryk burials. It was about 130 feet in diameter, but again the stone mound was only about 6 feet high, and the burial chamber was about 21 feet deep. It was the old man's grave. His body rested in a wooden coffin, next to which lay the body of a boy. The bodies of fourteen horses were placed in the northern part of the grave., but this burial was plundered in antiquity, and little of value remains in it. In 1934, Kiselev excavated another barrow that belonged to this group. He kept in himself the bodies of an old man of the Mongoloid type and a woman wrapped in a red silk shroud trimmed with gold plaques. She was wearing a golden diadem, and next to it lay a mirror and various other valuable items that had a strong resemblance to the Pazyryk finds. In 1950, several more burials, strongly reminiscent of Pazyryk, were explored. They were in Basadar, located in the same area. In this case, the body lay in a wooden coffin, the sides of which were decorated with carvings depicting four tigers walking in a row from left to right. They reappear on the lid of the coffin, along with two deer, two boars and three mountain goats, rendered in a more flexible style than those found at Pazirik. Sixteen horses were buried in this grave, which, despite unusual view The coffin probably also belonged to a tribe similar to the one that lived in Pazyryk.

Bridled and saddled horse of a herdsman from the Chertomlyk vase (4th century BC)
Chertomlyk vase. Images of a hobbled horse. Scientists point to the existence of two types of horses among the Scythian-Saks: small horses (130 cm) - such a campaign is shown in the picture, and the second - riding horses are mostly bright red (146-150 cm).

Horses are also found in America. How did they get there? Weird question. Just like people! Along the Bering Bridge (Isthmus of Anian).

The first people settled on the northeastern outskirts of the North American continent between 22 and 16 thousand years ago. The latest genetic and archaeological evidence suggests that the inhabitants of Alaska managed to penetrate south and quickly populate the Americas about 15 thousand years ago, when a passage opened in the ice sheet that covered most of North America. The Clovis culture, which made a significant contribution to the extermination of the American megafauna, originated about 13.1 thousand years ago, almost two millennia after the settlement of both Americas.

As you know, the first people entered America from Asia, using the land bridge - Beringia, which during the glaciation period connected Chukotka with Alaska. Until recently, it was believed that about 13.5 thousand years ago, settlers first walked along a narrow corridor between glaciers in western Canada and very quickly - in just a few centuries - settled throughout the New World up to the southern tip South America. They soon developed extremely effective hunting weapons (Clovis culture; see also Clovis culture) and killed most of the megafauna (large animals) on both continents (see: Mass extinction of large animals at the end of the Pleistocene).

However, new facts obtained by geneticists and archaeologists show that in reality the history of the settlement of America was somewhat more complex. Consideration of these facts is devoted to a review article by American anthropologists, published in the journal Science.

In addition, the cult of the horse was spread throughout Eurasia. For example, stylized images of horses serve as security symbols both in ornaments and decorating the tops of houses.

And what is a Russian hut without a skate? ;)

northern hut

And I will complete the topic with a monument of literature that has come down to us through the millennia:

May the warhorse bring us beautiful cows, beautiful horses,

Male children, as well as wealth that feeds everyone!

The most ancient, described in detail ritual of sacrificing a white horse is, perhaps, the Vedic Ashvamedha ("Yajur Veda"). The horse was introduced into the magic circle, decorated and gratified, then released into the wild for exactly a year, and no one dared, under pain of death, stop this horse on its way. Exactly one year later, the horse was slaughtered in the same circle. The ritual as a whole is quite complicated, those who wish can read more about it on Wikipedia. In the structure of the Ashvamedha ritual, elements of a cosmogonic nature are clearly visible - the horse practically personifies the Cosmos and its sacrifice symbolizes/reproduces the very act of Creation. The ritual was intended to cleanse the entire country from sin and ensure fertility and prosperity. Traces of this ritual can be found among the Germans and Iranians, Greeks and Slavs, in Rome there was a similar ritual of the "October horse".

The horse is also the embodiment of the god Agni - the god of Fire, the mediator between the two worlds, who accompanies the souls of the dead in the sky. In the Rigveda, the sky itself is compared to a horse adorned with pearls.
Ashvins ("possessing horses" or "born from a horse") are the divine twins of Vedic mythology, solar deities. They - "omniscient", "divine doctors" - help in trouble, bring wealth, give vitality, and ... return life to the dead.