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

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Each Cossack stanitza is provided with a government riding-master, who drills young Cossacks in rough riding. All young Cossacks eligible for military service are obliged to spend one month each year in rigorous training, so that when the call to arms comes to them they shall not be like new recruits. A Cossack soldier is never a recruit, really. He enters the service hardened by the experience of much training—and with the blood and spirit of the Cossack free and easy soldiering urging him to meet the expectations of his masters.

During the two days that I lingered at this village I found the meals were jolly times, though the food was neither delicate nor varied. The women did not sit at table with us, though in other houses I sometimes saw the women and men eating together. Nor did the children have places with us. The season being Lent, when a strict fast is prescribed, there was no meat on the table. Black bread, cakes of maize and chopped cabbage were the chief foods, followed by a kind of pie or tart. This consisted of an upper and lower crust with preserved grapes between. Tea was drunk freely. Likewise a light beer. Before meals, vodka. It must not be gathered from this, however, that moderation in drinking is the rule. When I asked several men if they were fond of drink, they laughed and replied: “We drink vodka at a birth, at every feast, during every fast, at every marriage, and every meal.” There appear to be no sentiments whatever with regard to temperance. There is a famous Cossack ballad ascribed to a Cossack leader named Davidoff, which runs,