Читать книгу The Red Reign. The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia онлайн

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The swift-running tawny Terek had been left far below and to the west. The trail passed into the forest, where the chill of winter struck at our marrow, and we closed our bourkas tighter about us. Suddenly the forest ended abruptly and the open revealed the high valley and the snowy mountain, now overtopping us. “Here the Cossack country begins,” shouted my Cossack driver as we passed on to the plateau. As if in joy at coming once more unto his own, he lifted his rifle and, pointing to a tree fifty yards behind us, fired. The bullet sped true. Presently the trail forked with another trail, and the two became a rough road. A verst farther on the road passed under a crude wooden arch supported by gate-posts and entered the village—a Cossack stanitza, the first Cossack village I had ever visited, and, as it happened, this particular village had never before within memory of the oldest Cossack there been visited by any stranger.

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A Cossack village—An exhibition of horsemanship—An accident—How Cossacks are trained for service—Cossack local government—Basis of Cossack loyalty—Their attitude toward massacres—Cossacks of the Caucasus, like other tribes of the mountains, still unconquered—Back to Vladikavkaz.