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Cossacks
An interesting group, with a long military history, intertwined with the expansion of Russia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CossackCossacks (Ukrainian: козаки́, kozaky; Russian: казаки, kazaki), are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military and semi-naval communities in Ukraine and Southern Russia. They inhabited sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper, Don, Terek, Ural basins, and played an important role in the historical development of both Ukraine and Russia. Today self-identification "Cossack" is an important part of cultural heritage of people in modern Ukraine, Southern Russia, Volga, Ural, Siberian regions and the Russian Far East. Cossack societies exist throughout Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and worldwide.
The Don Cossack Host, which had been established by the 16th century, allied itself with the Tsardom of Russia. Together they began a systematic conquest and colonisation of lands in order to secure the borders on the Volga, the whole of Siberia (see Yermak Timofeyevich), the Yaik and the Terek Rivers, the two latter rivers having had their own Cossack communities as well before the arrival of Don Cossacks.
By the 18th century, Cossack hosts in the Russian Empire served as buffer zones on its borders.
By the end of the 18th century, Cossack nations were transformed into a special military estate (Sosloviye), "a military class". They like medieval knights were to come to the military service with their own expensive knight horse and own arms and supplies at their own expense, for exception of firearms and supplies to them, provided by the government, and Cossack service was the most hard one. Because of their military tradition, Cossack forces played an important role in Russia’s wars of the 18th - 20th centuries such as the Great Northern War, the Seven Years' War, the Crimean War, Napoleonic Wars, Caucasus War, numerous Russo-Turkish Wars, and the First World War. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Tsarist regime employed them extensively to perform police service (for example both to prevent pogroms and to suppress the revolutionary movement, especially in 1905–7.) They also served as border guards on national and internal ethnic borders (as was the case in the Caucasus War).
In Russia's 2010 Population Census, Cossacks have been recognized as an ethnicity.
A group of Yaik (Orenburg) cossacks from Sakmara settlement (1912). Standing on the left side is Pogadayev Alexander Martemyanovich:
Kuban Cossacks during the Moscow Victory Parade of 1945:
Modern Don Cossack family near Novocherkassk:
Siberian Cossack family in Novosibirsk:
A Ukrainian Cossack (Ostap Kindrachuk) playing the bandura and wearing traditional clothing:
Other pics:
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