As darkness fell over a military airfield outside Moscow on Tuesday evening, an elephant, two camels, a kangaroo called Skippy, two St. Bernard dogs, a pony, a python and three chickens emerged from their Ilyushin-76 cargo plane and breathed the crisp Russian air for the first time in more than a year.


The animals of the All-Star Russian Circus were almost home after being stranded for seven months in the Philippines.


The head of the circus, Boris Fedotov, climbed back into the cargo bay in which he and his wife had sat with the animals throughout the 11,000 kilometer flight, picked up the python and slipped it into a bag. Most of the other animals were already loaded onto trucks.


It has been a very long and ill-starred trip home from a visit to the Philippines that should have ended seven months ago. First the donkeys died, then the ponies died, then the llama, the zebra and several dogs died and finally, on the day before the troupe was to leave has returned to haunt the troupe. For lack of the vet's stamp, the animals are stuck in customs.


Chani, a notoriously irritable 4-ton elephant, had been standing for more than 24 hours in the aircraft's cargo hold when the Il-76, sent especially to the Philippines to rescue the circus, touched down at Zhukovsky airfield at 11:30 on Sunday night.


Forty-three hours later, on Tuesday night, officials were still struggling with red tape in order to get the animals out of the airport. A solution of sorts was found, and the animals were to be ferried late in the night to Moscow's VDNKh exhibition center, where they could at least be attended to by vets and released from their metal prison.


From there, once the customs imbroglio is over, they will be trucked out to their hometown of Tver and quarantined.


In an interview with The Moscow Times on Monday night, an exhausted Fedotov blamed the delay on his nemesis Vladimir Khromov, the circus vet, who Fedotov said was still seeking revenge from an old vendetta.


When the All-Union Soviet circus was disbanded in 1991, Fedotov said Khromov became uncontrollably jealous of his success in founding the independent All-Star circus.


One night, Fedotov said, he discovered an inebriated Khromov covering the circus camels -- Buran and Altin -- in red and blue paint. Khromov's aim, Fedotov said, had been to make the animals look as though they had been beaten and then take pictures of them to discredit Fedotov.


Caught in the act, Khromov has been hostile to him ever since, Fedotov charged. But Sunday night, Khromov appeared to be getting even. Not only was he unavailable to defend himself against Fedotov's accusations, he was also unavailable to stamp the animals back through customs.


Fedotov was furious.


"These are live animals, not a box you can store away in a warehouse," he said. "And this man's a vet who's supposed to care about animals."


Churikova was still more furious.


"We have no more strength," she said. "Khromov knew exactly what was going on but now he's hiding and we're going to sue him as soon as we get the animals out of here."


The circus' traumas began seven months ago, when its Filipino promoter abruptly stopped providing the troupe with promised financing.


Stranded, with nowhere to live and a food bill that amounted to $14,000 a month for Chani the elephant alone, the troupe was reduced to virtual destitution, Fedotov said. They relied on local charity and on proceeds from their own impromptu animal show at the bazaar in Davao in the southern Philippines. They were close to despair when a Russian banker and friend of Fedotov's offered to send a chartered plane to bring the circus home.


When they left Davao on Saturday evening, Fedotov said hundreds of Filipinos had cheered and waved banners in their honor, while city officials promised to rename the street on which they had lived "Russian street."


"I'm happy that you are finally going home. We sympathize with your agony," Reuters quoted Davao's Mayor Rodrigo Duterte as saying as the animals boarded the plane. "I hope the agony of your experience with one person will not affect how you feel for our people," he added, referring to the promoter whom the troupe had accused of abandoning them last spring.


"When I came here, no friend. Now have many," Reuters quoted Fedotov as saying at the time.


Acknowledging that the welcome which the circus received on its arrival in Moscow was chilly in comparison to the farewell in Davao, Fedotov has mixed feelings about his return.


"I've done everything in my power over the last few months to save my animals and be back here," Fedotov said. "I'm not sure that we're really needed here, but in any case we're on home territory."