camera slung over his shoulder he has slightly jugged ears sunken eyes and a cellphone that never stops ringing there are 1000 cossacks in town and he seems to be in charge of them allhe assured me that he also had all the standard accouterments of a cossack including a horse which he had been riding since childhoodi also have a saber and a dagger which is part of our uniform he said through nikolay but we realize that these weapons they are more part of a traditionperenizkho had ordered tea and lunch for the three of us he had also ordered a carafe of vodka or what looked like vodkaits actually moonshine nikolay said smiling be preparedso lets start with an easy one what is a cossack exactlyin the law of the russian federation perenizkho said cossacks are referred to as a culturalethnic group and that is probably the most accurate description in my opinionanyone can ride a horse and wear a cossack uniform he said but that wont make him a cossackthere are also certain traditions ways of life and mentalities he saidit was time for the first toast perenizkho said filling three shot glasses and by cossack tradition the first was always delivered by the oldest person at the table which would be nikolayas strange as this may sound nikolay said glass raised to a cossackamerican friendshipperenizkho downed his glass in a gulp and we did the same the stuff had little flavor but plenty of burn and an emboldening aftermathperenizkho was dismayed by the idea that if youre raised in a jewish home cossacks are basically one notch above barbarianimagecreditjames hill for the new york timesi dont understand why such a stereotype developed he said calmly its really difficult to turn a cossack into a state of rage actually because they are hospitable people people who would give you their last shirt but if a cossack is treated badly when hes enraged there is no stopping himhe then went on to mention a story by nikolai gogol about a settlement of jews near a cossack camp and the harmonious relationship between them it was economic the cossacks needed boots and clothing and traded amicably with the jewsthere was a peaceful coexistence between them he saidi was about to dig out some of my notes on pogroms but perenizkho wasnt finishedbut when the cossacks were in action when they were losing comrades in arms of course after the combat they would come back and they had violence in them he said they were hurt by the death of their friends they were fighting the stress with this stuff he pointed to the moonshine and its true that after that they had to turn their rage and pain on somebody and they turned it on these jewish quarters and there were pogromshe didnt seem particularly bothered by this unprovoked cruelty perhaps because he didnt regard it as unprovokedyou know the idea was that while were fighting the jews