MOSCOW, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- The Kremlin's envoy to the North Caucasus has been granted admission to the Terek Cossacks, officials said.
Alexander Khloponin was sworn in as a Terek Cossack in a ceremony in the spa Town of Khloponin Saturday, RIA Novosti reported.
The Cossacks were a group of fierce warrior horsemen who once defended Russia's borders for the czars. The party was suppressed by Communists as a "counter-revolutionary element" but emerged to reassert themselves as an influential political group after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
"I serve Russia, the Terek Cossack Host and God," Khloponin said at the ceremony.
The Cossacks' fervent patriotism and belief in discipline and authority won support from the Kremlin, with President Vladimir Putin getting his own Cossack adviser in the early 2000s, the report said.
UPI
