Daredevil riders from Ukraine and Russia were crowd favorites
The Cossack riders included five women
The current war between Ukraine and Russia isn’t the first time Ukrainians have been drawn into battles that tested their skills and bravery. Centuries ago it was their skills on horseback, feats like the ‘Cossack drag’ where they would ride their horses into enemy lines while they hung over the side of the saddle, leading the enemy to believe they were no threat, that could turn the tide in a battle. Later it was those very skills that made Cossack riders one of the biggest draws of Wild West shows in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
How did Cossacks find their way to Wild West shows? The answer lies in Buffalo Bill’s never-ending quest to find performers who would help pack his shows. He discovered Cossack trick riders when he took his Wild West to England in 1892, and he asked a troupe of Georgian-Gurian riders to join his show. The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch also imported a troupe of Cossack daredevils for their show.
The Cossacks soon became crowd favorites.
In an article written by researcher and filmmaker Irakli Makharadze and published by the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the usual performance of Georgians began with the riders, each dressed in the chokha (the traditional high-necked wool coat), taking the stage while carrying their weapons and singing. “First, they marched around the arena, and then stopped and dismounted on mid-stage. There, they broke into a new song and started to perform one of the Georgian native dances to the accompaniment of handclaps. Sometimes this dance was executed upon a wooden platform.
“The act was usually followed by stunt riding. It represented the perfection of man and horse, and the Georgians did the most unbelievable stunts while galloping. The riders performed a series of maneuvers including standing on their heads or standing upright in the saddle, riding three horses simultaneously, jumping to the ground and then back up on the horse, and picking up small objects from the ground. One of the tricks most popular with the spectators was the rider at full gallop, standing on horseback, and shooting.”
One of the riskiest tricks had the rider removing his saddle and dismounting while riding at a full gallop, and then remounting to fix the saddle back on a horse.
The Cossack riders included five women who participated in shows in the U.S.: Frida Mgaloblishvili, Kristine Tsintsadze, Babilina Tsereteli, Maro Zakareishvili-Kvitaishvili, and Barbale (Barbara) Zakareishvili-Imnadze. After the Russian Revolution, Barbale and her husband, rider Christephore Imnadze, stayed in America and continued to perform. One of the highlights of Barbale’s act was standing on the shoulders of two riders on galloping horses while she waved the American flag. Barbale Imnadze died in 1988 in Chicago.
Kristine Tsintsadze was born in 1869 in the Caucasus region of the Russian Empire. She learned trick riding as a child, married at 14, and had two sons and a daughter. She was the first female rider hired by Pawnee Bill for his show and was one of the riders retained when Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill merged their shows in 1908.
During her career she suffered numerous injuries from her performances and was once the victim of an attempted kidnapping. A crowd favorite, she continued riding with the Wild West and Great Far East show until 1912.
After her return to Lanchkhuti, Tsintsadze continued to perform as a rider. She also developed a medical practice, using herbs and extracts as a folk healer, following recipes from a Karabadin, a medical guide.
The Georgians’ voyages abroad ended with World War I and the 1917 Bolshevik coup. Some of them were stranded in the U.S., settled here, and lost ties with their homeland. Those who did return to Georgia, like Tsintsadze, were labeled American spies, and the Bolsheviks either imprisoned or exiled many of the riders. Like most of her fellow Wild West riders, Tsintsadze burned all the evidence of her involvement with the Wild West shows. Any of the precious gifts or souvenirs that the Bolsheviks could find were confiscated. Some of the riders were forced to sign documents in which they promised to never mention America or Europe again.
Tsintsadze died in 1956 at Lanchkhuti, in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Though largely forgotten until scholarship rediscovered their stories in the 21st century, Georgian riders, like Tsintsadze, were largely responsible for the development of trick riding in the United States, according to historians Dee Brown and Frank Dean.
Trick riding has been called the most daredevil of horsemanship, where gymnastic skills of strength and balance are needed. Using a special stunt saddle, the rider performs physically demanding stunts such as the classic standing hippodrome, the shoulder stand, the tail drag, and the suicide drag, and other stunts all while hanging to the side of the saddle, or standing on the saddle, or twirling on the saddle horn or swinging under the belly of the galloping horse from one side to another.
“Intrigued by the Cossack stunts on their galloping horses, western cowboys soon introduced variations to American rodeo,” says Brown. “Colorful costumes seem to have become a necessary part of trick riding, and it is quite possible that the outlandish western garb which has invaded the rodeo can be blamed directly on Cossacks and trick riders.”
Up to the mid 1930s, trick riding was a popular rodeo contest, with prize money and world champions declared. Riders continued to push the limits of their tricks at faster and faster speeds, and the competitions became more and more dangerous. Riders were going to extreme lengths to win the prize money on offer. Trick riding competitions ceased during the 1940s, although riders were still tapped for stunts and as doubles in the emerging motion picture industry.
Some historians believe that the daredevil Cossack riders who performed in Wild West shows could be viewed as the first Georgian ambassadors to the United States and the connection between Buffalo Bill and Georgian trick riders represents one of the oldest known relationships between Georgia and the United States of America, a relationship that is sorely tested today 130 years later.
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Read more:
Buffalo Bill Center for the West: https://centerofthewest.org/2021/06/18/points-west-georgian-horsemen-wild-west/
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I knew of the trick riding, but not the Cossacks!