ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 3, 1996 TAG: 9603040037
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MIDDLEBURG
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
UPSET OVER EQUINE DECLINE, a duo from the Eastern Hemisphere roll through Virginia as part of a worldwide crusade to save their favorite animal.
In a era when most people jump in their cars to go to the corner grocery, two Russian men are traveling the world in a two-horse shay.
Pytr Plonin, 45, and Nikolay Davidovsky, 40, pass out leaflets from their wagon to curious bystanders that cite a worldwide decline in the number of horses, from 135 million to 64 million over the last half-century. In Russia, old Communist Party restrictions on livestock ownership have resulted in a population of fewer than 1.5 million horses, Plonin said.
``The horse is still a very valuable animal,'' Plonin said through a translator at a farm near Middleburg, where the duo and their two Belgian draft horses had stopped for the night. ``We want to raise the number of horses in the world.''
The faded blue horse-drawn wagon, cobbled together from old airplane parts and festooned with a banner reading ``From Russia With Love and Peace,'' caused a traffic jam last week as it rolled down a Loudoun County highway at 3 mph.
Motorists gawked. Some honked. Others, having seen the wagon in a television news report, rolled down their windows and offered money to the two scruffy occupants. But most people just slowed down. That's just what Plonin and Davidovsky wanted.
Their message struck a resonant chord in Loudoun, the heart of Virginia's horse country, where they were put up at an equestrian center, treated to catered meals and where their horses were given free veterinary service.
``People here know about horses, and they want to help these guys,'' said Chuck Kaster, a Leesburg cable-television producer who befriended the pair.
The two men have been on the road since June 1992. First, they completed a 7,300-mile trek through Siberia, tracing a journey that Russian author Anton Chekhov took in the late 19th century. They braved temperatures of minus 70 and earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records. Next they set out for Europe and America.
As long as they were traveling, they could rely on free meals and lodging from sympathetic residents along the road. But when they arrived in New York last summer without their horses, which they had sold in France because of shipping costs and health regulations, the donations stopped.
After a brief stint in a Bronx circus, where Davidovsky earned some money playing Santa Claus, the pair said they resorted to rummaging through garbage cans for meals and sleeping in stables in Central Park.
Finally, after almost four months in New York, the owner of a horse-carriage operation gave them two draft horses. Only a few weeks later, one of their horses developed an embolism in his leg and had to be destroyed. They sold the second, and an Amish farmer in Pennsylvania gave them two more.
``It has been a very difficult journey,'' Plonin said as he sat in the cramped wagon, which has a small space heater, a minikitchen and room to sleep five. ``We have had our share of problems.''
Despite their Spartan lifestyle, the pair go about their journey with unflagging resolve. Davidovsky videotapes every stop, and Plonin asks everyone he sees to sign their journal.
``We are meeting thousands of people,'' Plonin said. ``We are making many friends. ... And we are showing that anywhere you go with a car, you can go with horses.''
LENGTH: Medium: 67 linesby CNB