Russia's Cossacks welcome census recognition

[Presenter] The all-Russian population census is a special event for the residents of the Cossack villages of Rostov Region. They can now answer the census's question about ethnic origin with the word "Cossack". For the first time since the 1917 revolution, the original inhabitants of the Don have
gained the right to use this proud title.

Aleksandr Chernytsov:

[Correspondent] Many look on Yelizavetinskaya as a moribund Cossack village. Many, but not the local Cossacks. They are convinced that the population census under way in Russia will prove that it is too early to erect headstones on the historic Cossack settlements scattered along the length of the quiet Don. Rather, according to the village atamans, it is time to take serious thought as to how to revive them.

Their historic roots are the pride of the local Cossacks.

[Mariya Neskubina, an elderly Cossack] I'm a Cossack and so were my grandfather and grandmother and my dear mother and father and my children.

[Correspondent] The Don natives have won the right to call themselves Cossacks in the census with the support of President Putin. For Vladimir Voronin, the ataman of Yelizavetinskaya, this isn't just a political issue.

It's personal, too. His grandfather, a well-off Cossack, who was 30 years old at the time and the father of four children, fell victim to the red terror immediately after the Revolution.

[Vladimir Voronin, ataman of the village of Yelizavetinskaya] There is a decree on the rehabilitation of the Cossacks but there is no people as such. The census, in other words, will show that we do exist and that here we are. To start with, to us, this means definitive rehabilitation. We're Cossacks and our grandfathers were Cossacks and we cannot disown that.

[Correspondent] According to preliminary data at the Rostov Region statistics committee, in some rural regions up to 70 per cent of locals have said they are Cossacks in answer to the census question about ethnic origin. This, experts believe, may be yet another discovery made by the all-Russian census.