The United Cossack Army will bring together the now dispersed Cossack communities in the Khabarovsk Territory, the Amur Region, and the Jewish Autonomous Region.
Attending the session were Cossack troops atamans (commanders) from all parts of the Russian Far East, and federal presidential adviser Gennadi Troshev, says Evgeni Anoshin, press secretary to envoy Konstantin Pulikovsky.
Terrorism is the most formidable enemy today, Mr. Pulikovsky said to the conferees. It takes close and smooth teamwork to fight that enemy. "Terrorists and criminals will go on attacking us from all sides till we join hands. Cossacks have every opportunity to make a force that will protect the Far Eastern people from the underworld and from terrorists," he stressed.
Mr. Troshev called Cossack community leaders to set up in Khabarovsk a Cossack secondary school with curricula to include military training. Other parts of the Russian Far East ought to have prospects for similar schools, he added.
The Russian Far East has more than 15,000 Cossacks for today, and over two hundred Cossack units. A half of them, however, are not yet on the federal register.
As the session was on, Messrs. Pulikovsky and Troshev tried to coax atamans into registering their units with administrative bodies. "Once they appear on the federal register, Cossack communities will enhance their chance to serve the nation. Administrations, in their turn, will see how much Cossacks can do for their country," pointed out President Vladimir Putin's envoy.
The Amur Cossack Army was established in December 1858. Its territory divided in four military-administrative areas. Regiments were responsible for two of them, along the Amur River, and battalions for the other two-one on the Amur bank, the other on the Ussuri. The Amur and Littoral territorial governors supervised the Cossack army for military, economic, police and judicial affairs. An administrative statute of the Amur Cossack Army, adopted November 3, 1879, bestowed the title of High Ataman on the Amur Region's military governor. The two regimental areas merged into one, while both battalion areas were downgraded to semi-battalion. A military office was established for army military command and economic management. It based in Blagoveschensk, present-day administrative center of the Amur Region, on the Russian-Chinese frontier.
