THE URAL COSSACKS AND THEIR FISHERIES. 767 



THE URAL COSSACKS AND THEIR FISHERIES. 



BY DR. N. BOKODINE, 



FISH COMMISSIONER OF URAL DISTRICT, RUSSIA. 



THE Ural Cossacks, who live on the boundary between Euro- 

 pean Russia and Asia, along the middle and lower part of 

 the Ural River, have been known in Russia for a long time, not 

 only as brave soldiers in war time, but also as peaceful fishermen, 

 carrying on the fishing industry on a very large scale and in quite 

 a peculiar manner. 



More than three hundred years ago the first band of the so- 

 called " free people " Cossacks appeared on the Yaik River, the 

 original name of the Ural River.* 



Who were this people ? They were pioneers of liberty, peo- 

 ple tired of cruel serfdom and discontented with subordinate life 

 in Russian czardom, who tried to organize their life on a basis of 

 absolute freedom and after their own ideas in the vast steppes 

 of southeastern Russia. 



The free colony grew rapidly, thanks to large additions of 

 discontented people from all neighboring provinces of Russia and 

 from foreign countries. A careful examination of an early census 

 of the Ural Cossacks made by order of Peter the Great (1723) 

 shows us that among the immigrants were Poles, Hungarians, 

 numbers of peasants from different parts of Russia, many dissent- 

 ers from the Russian Orthodox Church, prosecuted by govern- 

 ment, a great number of Don Cossacks, etc. Differing in nation- 

 ality as well as in language, one thing was common to all, the 

 ardent longing for freedom and independent life. Is it not a 

 counterpart of the earliest .period of immigration to this country, 

 when those who were persecuted in Europe sought freedom else- 

 where ? An old Cossack, when asked once about the origin of the 

 Ural Cossacks by a well-known folklorist, answered, "The bee 

 gathers from every flower its best, and what is the result ? " 



" Honey," replied the astonished man. 



" Well," said the Cossack, " in such a manner grew our com- 

 munity : from everywhere came the best and brightest men and 

 organized our society." 



Do not you think that this simple and witty simile well illus- 

 trates the history of early colonization in this country as well as 

 the origin of the small community of which I speak ? 



* The names of Yaik River and Yaik Cossacks were changed to Ural River and Ural 

 Cossacks by imperial order in 1775 after PugachefFs rebellion, in which the Yaik Cossacks 

 took a very active part, the order stating that the old name should be abolished and en- 

 tirely forgotten. 



