Music
GRIFFITHS: Their battlefield skills are legendary. These horsemen have been filling the hearts of their enemies with fear for centuries.
Kalyakin: For me, that is the best experience in life: a horse, a sabre and the wind blowing on ones face.
What can be better for a Cossack? That is really great.
GRIFFITHS: Though long repressed under Communism, Russias Cossacks have returned as defenders of their motherland.
Bezughlich: Decency, honesty, diligence and a war-like spirit that is how Id characterise a Cossack.
GRIFFITHS: But just as they once led the charge in anti-Jewish pogroms under the Tsars, today they are accused of persecuting Muslim refugees on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tederov: They come to our houses and beat people up, not just in public places, but at their homes.
They come armed with guns and take people away, destination unknown.
Kalyakin: Platoon, how did you sleep?
Platoon: Thank God!
GRIFFITHS: Its an old Cossack greeting between a commander and his soldiers. Alexander Kalyakin and his charges are more than just skilled equestrians.To be a Cossack is to embody an ideal. They are neither a racial group nor a nationality.
Kalyakin: Stand to attention, please!
GRIFFITHS: This Cossack unit was initially raised as an unofficial militia. Their self-anointed role: to protect the homeland.
Kalyakin: I command you to start securing public order in Rostov-on-Don. Platoon, march!
GRIFFITHS: Rostov-on-Don in Southern Russia is the hub of the Cossack lands. A city of one million people, its streets are patrolled by Kalyakins Cossacks. They now have the legal power to question and detain.
Kalyakin: We try to maintain the brand of our forefathers.
At the moment, we are happy to be of use to our society, helping to bring order to the streets of the city.
GRIFFITHS: Public drunkenness is enough to warrant arrest.
These men are lucky to be let off with a warning, any resistance could quite literally -- be trampled.
Cossack Patrolman: If I face a tough situation I simply let my horse loose onto a person.
GRIFFITHS: In pre-revolutionary Russia, the Cossacks were some of the Tsars most feared enforcers.
Under the Communists, they were condemned as enemies of the state. Entire Cossack communities were wiped out. Now theyve been re-enlisted by a Kremlin facing new threats.
Troshev: The Cossacks are real defenders of the motherland, even if they dont serve in the army. If the alarm is raised, they can be a vanguard, the first echelon. They require no training, they are ready to defend their Motherland.
GRIFFITHS: General Gennady Troshev is President Vladimir Putins Cossack envoy. The President has ensured the Cossack resurgence by formalising their status in law.
Troshev: He [Putin] trusts the Cossacks and he believes in their future. And it is with the revival of the Cossack movement that he links the revival of Russia.
GRIFFITHS: There is a new generation of fighters ready to swell the ranks. Theyre taught the ways of their ancestors at dozens of Cossack schools across Russia.
These students at the Don Cossack Cadet Academy are being groomed for a military career. In a country where many young men go to extremes to avoid conscription, Cossack youngsters are eager to serve.
Vezik: Patriotism means that ones soul should feel the pain of his motherland. He should help his country. And military service means helping his country.
GRIFFITHS: For the Cossacks, defending the Motherland is a sacred duty.
Their actions on the battlefield are blessed by the Russian Orthodox Church. The modern Cossacks stand guard at a religious frontier.
Beyond their Orthodox Christian lands lies a patchwork of Muslim republics the nesting grounds of violent extremism.
GRIFFITHS: The Cossacks live on the edge of turmoil. Chechnya is just a days drive away. The war there is close, and for those in the Kremlin that makes the Cossacks Russias front line soldiers in their war on terror.
Ivan Bezughlich is a retired army Colonel. These days he leads a new army a force of fifteen thousand Cossacks in the Southern region of Krymsk.
Bezughlich: When will you be in the Anapa region? Im leaving, too.
GRIFFITHS: He might have foregone the sabre and horse in favour of a mobile phone and a beaten up Lada, but he hasnt given up any other Cossack traditions.
Bezughlich: Mind the bus. Dont hit it! Dont drive any more. You should not be allowed to drive.
GRIFFITHS: Today, he is presiding over a meeting to vote in a new Cossack officer.
The Cossacks wont allow foreigners to witness the proceedings.
Cossack: No no. You go. Thats it.
Cossack: Goodbye.
GRIFFITHS: Their disdain for outsiders has a sinister side as this video filmed by Bezughlichs men reveals. It records the revival of another Cossack ritual organised racial persecution a pogrom.
Cossack: Well turn the whole house upside down.
GRIFFITHS: Using their official powers, they harass a little known Muslim minority the Meskhetian Turks.
Cossack: Turk. Officially registered.
GRIFFITHS: Turkish families are ordered to hand over their documents.
Cossack: Where are your documents? Give them to me!
Old Woman: They took them.
Woman: People came here, theyve already taken them.
GRIFFITHS: But there is no remorse from the Cossack leading this campaign; to him the Turks are second-class citizens.
Bezughlich: They say there are no bad nationalities. But we have never met such a mean nation as the Meskhetian Turks.
GRIFFITHS: Most of the Meskhetian Turks fled from conflict in Uzbekistan in the early 90s. Their original homeland is in another corner of the former Soviet Union -- Georgia but Stalin ordered them out of there more than 60 years ago.
Now, in Cossack territory theyre banned from schools, they cant get work, a pension or medical treatment.
The Tederov family has lived uneasily among the Cossacks for fifteen years.
Sarvar Tederov: Our children cannot be eternal outcasts. Stalinist methods of repression have been carried out for sixty two years up to now.
GRIFFITHS: Sarvar Tederovs family bears the scars of Cossack threats and violence. His nephew was beaten to death two years ago. A Cossack was convicted of the murder and given a sentence of just three years.
Sarvar Tederov: His body looked terrible. There were bruises everywhere. His clothes were covered in blood. It was obvious he was beaten in a circle; we counted thirteen blood spots on the snow on the road. We could re-enact how he was beaten. It was a group of people and only one was caught.
Bezughlich: Are you Turks? Thats it. Dont interfere! Go away!
GRIFFITHS: In this Cossack video Colonel Bezughlich directly confronts Turkish community leader Sarvar Tederov.
Tederov: You shut up about your civilised society, damn it! You grabbed everything, you deprived our children. We will get you!
GRIFFITHS: The Colonel claims a Turkish man has attacked a Cossack child.
Tederov: We will find the culprit. If hes ours, well punish him.
GRIFFITHS: The Cossacks arrest two Turkish men whove tried to run away. The men counter with accusations of Cossack intimidation and theft.
Man: They took everything - my mobile, my keys, my documents.
GRIFFITHS: Another video this one recorded by the Meskhetian Turks shows the aftermath of an earlier incident.
Turkish Man: Yesterday I was attacked by the Cossacks. I was beaten.
Turkish Man 2: A guy pushed me and I grabbed him by the hand but he used the gas spray on me and since then I havent been able to see anything.
GRIFFITHS: Colonel Bezughlich is unrepentant. He says the Turks occupy strategically important lands. They are a danger to the Russian state and must leave.
Bezughlich: Even if it hadnt been for the military strategic situation, the Turks would just keep living here and reproducing. At some time there would be a large ethnic conflict. Much blood will be spilt here.
Prayers
GRIFFITHS: The Meskhetian Turks have been desperately searching for a way out. Their prayers have been answered. The United States has offered asylum to ten thousand Turks. Its recognised their situation as unbearable, and taken them in as refugees of humanitarian concern. Some have already emigrated. Many more are preparing to leave. Sarvar Tederov says its a matter of their very survival.
Sarvar Tederov: It is the correct word: survival. We are not going to sit around
waiting for everyone to be shot. This lawlessness is deliberate. You have to be blind not to see it.
GRIFFITHS: He says Cossack harassment is escalating, and that the orders are coming from above.
Sarvar Tederov: Open threats have started coming from the authorities in the last couple of years. If before it was performed by drunks or so-called Cossacks, now it is the official powers doing it.
GRIFFITHS: But Vladimir Putins Cossack advisor plays down any claims of a state-sponsored pogrom.
Troshev: This is trivial bullying at the kitchen sink level, as we say. You should not draw any conclusions from it.
GRIFFITHS: Across Russia, the Cossack spirit is being handed down to a new generation. Its a volatile mix of nationalism and religious duty. For the Cossacks, there is no place in their lands for those who dont share their vision.
Kalyakin: If you have even a drop of Cossack blood, it will show itself,
that it why there is no end to the Cossack family. It will always show up somewhere. We were, we are, and we will be.
GRIFFITHS: With Vladamir Putin in the Kremlin, they have no reason to doubt that they will prevail.
Reporter: Emma Griffiths
Camera : Louie Eroglu
ACS Producer : Olga Pavlova
Editor : Garth Thomas
GRIFFITHS: Their battlefield skills are legendary. These horsemen have been filling the hearts of their enemies with fear for centuries.
Kalyakin: For me, that is the best experience in life: a horse, a sabre and the wind blowing on ones face.
What can be better for a Cossack? That is really great.
GRIFFITHS: Though long repressed under Communism, Russias Cossacks have returned as defenders of their motherland.
Bezughlich: Decency, honesty, diligence and a war-like spirit that is how Id characterise a Cossack.
GRIFFITHS: But just as they once led the charge in anti-Jewish pogroms under the Tsars, today they are accused of persecuting Muslim refugees on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tederov: They come to our houses and beat people up, not just in public places, but at their homes.
They come armed with guns and take people away, destination unknown.
Kalyakin: Platoon, how did you sleep?
Platoon: Thank God!
GRIFFITHS: Its an old Cossack greeting between a commander and his soldiers. Alexander Kalyakin and his charges are more than just skilled equestrians.To be a Cossack is to embody an ideal. They are neither a racial group nor a nationality.
Kalyakin: Stand to attention, please!
GRIFFITHS: This Cossack unit was initially raised as an unofficial militia. Their self-anointed role: to protect the homeland.
Kalyakin: I command you to start securing public order in Rostov-on-Don. Platoon, march!
GRIFFITHS: Rostov-on-Don in Southern Russia is the hub of the Cossack lands. A city of one million people, its streets are patrolled by Kalyakins Cossacks. They now have the legal power to question and detain.
Kalyakin: We try to maintain the brand of our forefathers.
At the moment, we are happy to be of use to our society, helping to bring order to the streets of the city.
GRIFFITHS: Public drunkenness is enough to warrant arrest.
These men are lucky to be let off with a warning, any resistance could quite literally -- be trampled.
Cossack Patrolman: If I face a tough situation I simply let my horse loose onto a person.
GRIFFITHS: In pre-revolutionary Russia, the Cossacks were some of the Tsars most feared enforcers.
Under the Communists, they were condemned as enemies of the state. Entire Cossack communities were wiped out. Now theyve been re-enlisted by a Kremlin facing new threats.
Troshev: The Cossacks are real defenders of the motherland, even if they dont serve in the army. If the alarm is raised, they can be a vanguard, the first echelon. They require no training, they are ready to defend their Motherland.
GRIFFITHS: General Gennady Troshev is President Vladimir Putins Cossack envoy. The President has ensured the Cossack resurgence by formalising their status in law.
Troshev: He [Putin] trusts the Cossacks and he believes in their future. And it is with the revival of the Cossack movement that he links the revival of Russia.
GRIFFITHS: There is a new generation of fighters ready to swell the ranks. Theyre taught the ways of their ancestors at dozens of Cossack schools across Russia.
These students at the Don Cossack Cadet Academy are being groomed for a military career. In a country where many young men go to extremes to avoid conscription, Cossack youngsters are eager to serve.
Vezik: Patriotism means that ones soul should feel the pain of his motherland. He should help his country. And military service means helping his country.
GRIFFITHS: For the Cossacks, defending the Motherland is a sacred duty.
Their actions on the battlefield are blessed by the Russian Orthodox Church. The modern Cossacks stand guard at a religious frontier.
Beyond their Orthodox Christian lands lies a patchwork of Muslim republics the nesting grounds of violent extremism.
GRIFFITHS: The Cossacks live on the edge of turmoil. Chechnya is just a days drive away. The war there is close, and for those in the Kremlin that makes the Cossacks Russias front line soldiers in their war on terror.
Ivan Bezughlich is a retired army Colonel. These days he leads a new army a force of fifteen thousand Cossacks in the Southern region of Krymsk.
Bezughlich: When will you be in the Anapa region? Im leaving, too.
GRIFFITHS: He might have foregone the sabre and horse in favour of a mobile phone and a beaten up Lada, but he hasnt given up any other Cossack traditions.
Bezughlich: Mind the bus. Dont hit it! Dont drive any more. You should not be allowed to drive.
GRIFFITHS: Today, he is presiding over a meeting to vote in a new Cossack officer.
The Cossacks wont allow foreigners to witness the proceedings.
Cossack: No no. You go. Thats it.
Cossack: Goodbye.
GRIFFITHS: Their disdain for outsiders has a sinister side as this video filmed by Bezughlichs men reveals. It records the revival of another Cossack ritual organised racial persecution a pogrom.
Cossack: Well turn the whole house upside down.
GRIFFITHS: Using their official powers, they harass a little known Muslim minority the Meskhetian Turks.
Cossack: Turk. Officially registered.
GRIFFITHS: Turkish families are ordered to hand over their documents.
Cossack: Where are your documents? Give them to me!
Old Woman: They took them.
Woman: People came here, theyve already taken them.
GRIFFITHS: But there is no remorse from the Cossack leading this campaign; to him the Turks are second-class citizens.
Bezughlich: They say there are no bad nationalities. But we have never met such a mean nation as the Meskhetian Turks.
GRIFFITHS: Most of the Meskhetian Turks fled from conflict in Uzbekistan in the early 90s. Their original homeland is in another corner of the former Soviet Union -- Georgia but Stalin ordered them out of there more than 60 years ago.
Now, in Cossack territory theyre banned from schools, they cant get work, a pension or medical treatment.
The Tederov family has lived uneasily among the Cossacks for fifteen years.
Sarvar Tederov: Our children cannot be eternal outcasts. Stalinist methods of repression have been carried out for sixty two years up to now.
GRIFFITHS: Sarvar Tederovs family bears the scars of Cossack threats and violence. His nephew was beaten to death two years ago. A Cossack was convicted of the murder and given a sentence of just three years.
Sarvar Tederov: His body looked terrible. There were bruises everywhere. His clothes were covered in blood. It was obvious he was beaten in a circle; we counted thirteen blood spots on the snow on the road. We could re-enact how he was beaten. It was a group of people and only one was caught.
Bezughlich: Are you Turks? Thats it. Dont interfere! Go away!
GRIFFITHS: In this Cossack video Colonel Bezughlich directly confronts Turkish community leader Sarvar Tederov.
Tederov: You shut up about your civilised society, damn it! You grabbed everything, you deprived our children. We will get you!
GRIFFITHS: The Colonel claims a Turkish man has attacked a Cossack child.
Tederov: We will find the culprit. If hes ours, well punish him.
GRIFFITHS: The Cossacks arrest two Turkish men whove tried to run away. The men counter with accusations of Cossack intimidation and theft.
Man: They took everything - my mobile, my keys, my documents.
GRIFFITHS: Another video this one recorded by the Meskhetian Turks shows the aftermath of an earlier incident.
Turkish Man: Yesterday I was attacked by the Cossacks. I was beaten.
Turkish Man 2: A guy pushed me and I grabbed him by the hand but he used the gas spray on me and since then I havent been able to see anything.
GRIFFITHS: Colonel Bezughlich is unrepentant. He says the Turks occupy strategically important lands. They are a danger to the Russian state and must leave.
Bezughlich: Even if it hadnt been for the military strategic situation, the Turks would just keep living here and reproducing. At some time there would be a large ethnic conflict. Much blood will be spilt here.
Prayers
GRIFFITHS: The Meskhetian Turks have been desperately searching for a way out. Their prayers have been answered. The United States has offered asylum to ten thousand Turks. Its recognised their situation as unbearable, and taken them in as refugees of humanitarian concern. Some have already emigrated. Many more are preparing to leave. Sarvar Tederov says its a matter of their very survival.
Sarvar Tederov: It is the correct word: survival. We are not going to sit around
waiting for everyone to be shot. This lawlessness is deliberate. You have to be blind not to see it.
GRIFFITHS: He says Cossack harassment is escalating, and that the orders are coming from above.
Sarvar Tederov: Open threats have started coming from the authorities in the last couple of years. If before it was performed by drunks or so-called Cossacks, now it is the official powers doing it.
GRIFFITHS: But Vladimir Putins Cossack advisor plays down any claims of a state-sponsored pogrom.
Troshev: This is trivial bullying at the kitchen sink level, as we say. You should not draw any conclusions from it.
GRIFFITHS: Across Russia, the Cossack spirit is being handed down to a new generation. Its a volatile mix of nationalism and religious duty. For the Cossacks, there is no place in their lands for those who dont share their vision.
Kalyakin: If you have even a drop of Cossack blood, it will show itself,
that it why there is no end to the Cossack family. It will always show up somewhere. We were, we are, and we will be.
GRIFFITHS: With Vladamir Putin in the Kremlin, they have no reason to doubt that they will prevail.
Reporter: Emma Griffiths
Camera : Louie Eroglu
ACS Producer : Olga Pavlova
Editor : Garth Thomas