Here Comes the Cavalry

For more than 30 years, the 11th Cavalry Regiment thrilled Soviet audiences with their cinematic

interpretations of

historic battles

gone by.

Created by one of Russia’s greatest directors for use in films, the 11th Cavalry Regiment saw

themselves as a living link between Russia’s checkered past and

uncertain future.

Today, the Russian

cavalry’s rich heritage is threatened with

economic ruin. After a century-old journey that has taken them from the battlefields to the cinema and back again,

the  11th Cavalry Regiment seeks a place

for themselves

in the 21st century.

Photos by Alexander Gusev.

In 1961 the famous film director Sergei Bondarchuk, planning his epic masterpiece War and Peace, decided he needed a cavalry unit to ensure his film’s battle realism. Unfortunately, in the Soviet Union at that time, no such regiment existed. With that in mind, Bondarchuk got an audience with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and requested a cavalry unit for shooting. Bondarchuk sweetened the deal by promising that all expenses would be taken care of by the USSR State Cinema Committee (Goskino). Khrushchev, realizing that his government could use Bondarchuk’s horses as artistic enforcers of Soviet propaganda via the medium of the silver screen, agreed.

Such was the creation of the armed forces’ only independent cavalry unit, the 11th Cavalry Regiment. Its soldiers were dressed as hussars and horse-guards and they bravely ‘attacked’ the privates and sergeants of the Grande Armee, adding historical color  to Bondarchuk’s film. By the time shooting ended, Russia’s heads of cinema had perceived the value of this unique unit. New films depicting the cavalry, both Red and White, were planned.

Today the unit has over 800 films under its belt, including such Soviet classics as White Sun of the Desert, a vintage Civil War film set on Russia’s southern borders, and Liberation, a fictional series dealing with World War II battles. Hit films like these and others  justified the Cavalry’s expensive, and some might say anachronistic existence. Besides their vivid on-camera presence, other factors have helped to ensure the Regiment’s longevity: traditionally, the cavalry  played a prominent role in Russian/Soviet history as a ladder on which many rose into the ranks of the country’s political leadership, including Red Army heroes Semyon Budyonny and Kliment Voroshilov.

Meanwhile, times and wars have changed. The colorful cavalry units so immortalized for their decisive action in the Civil War have not trod the Russian earth in battle since World War II, when it became overwhelmingly obvious that horses are not much of a challenge to enemy tanks.

Since there are no longer cavalry schools, today’s cavalrymen enter the 11th Regiment in various ways. All of the soldiers share a love of horses, and some are even descendants of equestrian dynasties, having a Cossack ancestor who rode in earlier times. Most are rural boys who grew up around horses, and were riding almost before walking.

The current commander, Colonel Alexander Gerasimenko, has been in charge of the 11th Cavalry Regiment since 1973. In that year, he was sent to Yevpatoriya, in the Crimea, with a horse named Izvestiya (News), to take part in shooting the now-forgotten film Marina. Gerasimenko fell in love with the life on horse-back and decided to remain in the regiment. He finished his studies at the Moscow Higher Military Command School through a correspondence course.

His fellow officer, First Squadron Commander Lieutenant Alexander Malesh came to the Cavalry from the Urals, where he had served as  deputy to the Commander in charge of political affairs. When Malesh found out about the regiment, he went on bended knee to Gerasimenko, begging to be included. Geraisimenko agreed to take him on, but said that there were no vacancies equal to Malesh’s former position. In his desire to be with his four-legged comrades, Malesh accepted the demotion and in a year’s time rose to become squadron commander.

Besides the many Soviet celebrities who have served with the Regiment, making their mark with cavalry films, today’s Regiment continues to distinguish itself as being the only mixed unit in the army. Private Larisa Myalkina is the Russian army’s only horsewoman. Although her parents wanted her to become a lawyer, Myalkina has loved horses since infancy and decided to study at the Moscow State Academy of Physical Education and Sport, in order to become an equestrian trainer. By chance she heard about the cavalry’s existence, and, finishing her education by mail, she signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense.

As for the horses themselves, their names are testament to the cavalry’s larger-than-life nature: Whale, Dragon and everything in between. In white letters by the entrance to one of the troughs is written the word ‘Lebed’ [‘swan’ in Russian], and beside that in smaller letters ‘kon‘ (horse). This is not a statement of the obvious. On the contrary, cavalrymen, like any other profession, have their own terminology and to them the more common Russian word for horse, loshad, means ‘mare’. Zherebets is a stallion, or stud, and kon or merin is a castrated stallion. So, Lebed may be shorn of his reproductive qualities, but he has lost none of his aggression. He attacks his neighbor Soviet, biting him mercilessly. (A dark horse, that Lebed.)

The horses enjoy a justifiably high status in the regiment, treated by the soldiers as fellow comrades in battle. The horses are boarded according to the rank of their riders. Servicemen’s horses are kept together, and the men are held responsible for their own animals. Officers’ horses, on the other hand, are kept in special stalls and looked after by specially appointed horse-breeders, as in tsarist days.

Early in the morning, the cavalrymen go to the stables to bring out their animal charges for feeding. Any cavalryman worth his oats knows that he must take care of his horse before himself. The horses are fed 6-8 times a day and when they hear the familiar sounds of preparation, they begin to neigh joyously and demandingly. There are about 200 horses in the regiment and each one eats an average of 1,024 kg of hay and 800 kg of oats a year.

All in all, it costs Russia’s beleaguered military service around R200,000 ($36) a day to maintain each horse and rider. The army was recently forced to take full financial responsibility for the cavalry, when the Russian State Cinema Committee could no longer foot the sill. And, when the army’s current financial crisis began, certain voices in the Defense Ministry suggested disbanding the cavalry, claiming that it no  longer played any effective role in the country’s defense.

But, disregarding these opinions, the Land Forces General Staff, to whom the regiment is subordinated, had the horse-sense to retain this rare unit. Aware of the Russian Army’s historical traditions, of the princes and bogatirs who advanced Russia’s cause and culture on horseback, of the Cossacks and Communists, heroes and swine, who rode the length and breadth of Russia’s history, the Land Forces Commander-in-Chief Vladimir Semyonov spoke to the Defense Ministry in the cavalry’s defense.

In response, the high command delayed terminating the 11th Cavalry Regiment, instead issuing the order for it to be used in the defense of important state and industrial sites. To that end, the 11th Cavalry Regiment has welcomed colleagues from China and Western Europe, in order to share and exchange practical information. The Chinese use their horse units in mountainous areas inaccessible to motorized vehicles, while the Europeans favor pack-horse regiments.

The regiment's soldiers offer these examples as proof of the cavalry's continuing worth in a time of nuclear technology and germ war-fare. But in order to remain useful, the 11th needs contemporary military preparation. Their last Field Service Regulations was written in the 1930s, and their drill regulations originate from 1951. Since these manuals were written for an older army and the tactics mentioned are terribly out-dated, the 11th Cavalry have adapted themselves to a program used by motorized units.

On top of this, further complications arise from the lack of proper supplies for both the men and horses: automatic weapons, gas masks for the horses, scrapers, wheelbarrows, shovels for dung and carts for feed.

Naturally, the soldiers are worried about how further reforms will affect them. Will the Cavalry be disbanded? Will all formerly-esteemed army traditions be destroyed? Shall Russia forget all of her momentous victories won with horses, beginning with the formation of Russia right up to the Civil War? Up there, on horseback, the soldiers envision themselves as a living link between Russia's checkered past and unknown future.