Papers reveal saga of horse given to John Major by Turkmenistan

The saga of the prime minister’s horse a stallion called Maksat given to John Major by the then Turkmenistan president, Saparmurat Niyazov was described as worthy of the Russian dramatist Nikolai Gogol, as UK diplomats battled Moscow bureaucracy at its most surreal, documents show.

Memos released at the National Archives in Kew chart Maksat’s tortuous 2,000-mile (3,200km) rail journey from Turkmenistan to Russia, along with another stallion Niyazov gave to the then French president, François Mitterrand.

Major, not knowing what to do with his horse, hoped it could join the Household Cavalry, but British diplomats first had to import it into Russia, clearing customs then quarantine.

His private secretary, Roderic Lyne, forwarding a Foreign Office telegram, wrote: “Prime minister. This is [a] wonderful story worthy of Gogol. You will have to visit the nag when it arrives next year.”

Laura Brady, from the Moscow embassy, was tasked with getting the horse into quarantine stables. Arriving at Moscow’s 12th diplomatic customs post for a pre-arranged meeting, she found the place deserted “apart from two mangy dogs and a receptionist”, and was told to return in two hours.

Brady wrote that she pleaded with the receptionist on behalf of the “two poor Turkmen horses”, who had been “standing up in a railway carriage for four-and-a-half days”, eliciting in response “the sad tale of the Finnish ambassador’s parrot”, whose fate was not further divulged.

Eventually, the by now tearful receptionist led her inside, where Brady discovered the absent customs staff busily engaged in playing poker.

Necessary customs form secured, and after bartering the carriage to cover the inflated price demanded, Brady hotfooted it across Moscow to the railway station, only to be told to return the following day.

The next morning brought fresh challenges as a new vet’s certificate, and incumbent fee, were inexplicably demanded. But eventually, the horses were allowed to be unloaded. Curiously, along with the animals, the grooms travelling with them also hastily unloaded “countless sacks of potatoes, onions, carrots and at least 200 large melons”.

Having no post-1992 banknotes in Turkmenistan, one explained, they needed wares to sell in Moscow to pay for their return tickets to Ashgabat.

The same groom further related how, on their long journey to Moscow with the horses, they had been held up by bandits in Kazakhstan, who upon finding no cash, “made off with as many of the legendary Turkmen melons as they could carry”.

Horses unloaded, the carriage now needed to be cleared for disinfecting. Two highly strung thoroughbreds can produce a lot of manure over five days, noted Brady. Banned from dumping it in the station’s dustbins, “luckily the melons came to the rescue”.

“Bribed with several particularly large ones, the driver of an engine was persuaded to shunt the carriage a couple of miles down the track, where the offending material was unceremoniously scraped out,” she wrote. Clean carriage returned, Maksat was finally allowed to leave the station for his quarantine stables.

Major enjoyed her “splendid account”. “Had I solicited this gift, I would have been embarrassed at the trouble it has caused,” he wrote.

Alas, when Maksat finally arrived in the UK, he was deemed of unsuitable temperament for the solemn ceremonial duties of the Household Cavalry. He was eventually found a home in Wales, where he reportedly became a British show champion, raced at national level in endurance and sired 30 offspring.

Papers reveal saga of horse given to John Major by Turkmenistan

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