[Announcer] President Putin's representative plenipotentiary in the Southern Federal District, Vladimir Yakovlev, and Putin's adviser on Cossack matters, Gen Gennadiy Troshev, have met atamans [chieftains] of the Cossack Hosts of the Don, Kuban and Terek areas. The Cossacks have put before the authorities the problems they have been unable to settle for the last 14 years. The venue of the meeting was the Ataman Platov Hall at the Cossack Museum in Novocherkassk. The place is reminiscent of the glorious Cossack past and is a reminder of the fact that modern-day Cossacks have failed so far to occupy a worthy position in the Russian community. It is not their own fault. They have regained their status as people of the state over years of revival and they have been sincerely performing their service. However a law obliging officials to respect the status of Cossacks has never come into being. The absence of such a law is one of the reasons why Cossacks have failed to hold together the Russian speaking population of southern Russia. Russians are drifting en masse from the North Caucasus republics. The authorities are seriously concerned about it.
[Vladimir Yakovlev, captioned as presidential representative plenipotentiary in the Southern Federal District] Not only Cossacks but Russian speakers in general have quit many republics of the North Caucasus. There are reasons behind this. Our task now is finding ways of keeping the remaining population [there]. Indeed, there are very few of them left, including in the Naurskiy District [Chechnya]. Currently the Russian speaking population accounts only for 10 per cent in Naurskiy District compared with 80 per cent some 10 or 15 years ago. We certainly have a lot of decisions to fulfil. In this context, we should remember that it is wrong to pay compensation [for lost property] only to people of the republic's major ethnic group, leaving out Russian speakers.
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Vote for the stars of Yahoo!'s next ad campaign! http://advision.webevents.yahoo.com/yahoo/votelifeengine/