Telega

Telega 

a horse-drawn four-wheel vehicle for transporting freight. Sometimes oxen, buffalo, mules, or other draft animals are hitched to telegas. The draft animals may be harnessed to a center pole or between shafts. The harnessing of oxen and buffalo to a center pole of a telega or a wagon of the telega type is characteristic of the southern European USSR and the Caucasus, as well as Turkey, Spain, India, and other countries. The harnessing of horses between shafts, with a cheressedel’nik (a strap running from one shaft to the other through a saddle), is found in China, Mongolia, and certain regions of Middle Asia and Eastern Europe. Special types of telegas include the following: the drogi, a kind of dray; the polok, a drogi with a platform of boards over the frame; and the telezhka, a wagon with seats for the driver and passengers.