Osip looked at the map given to him by the Emperor and drew a line on it with a pencil.
- "Yes, there is a swamp? From the Danube to the dry bank it will be about twenty miles!" said the Emperor.
- “This place, Your Majesty,” said Osin, “no one knows except us Cossacks. Here the bank of the Danube is overgrown with reeds and flooded with water. The width will really be twenty miles, or even more. You can’t go here in boats, and the ford is deep. We alone know this place well: there we hunted for There is an earthen rampart running across it; in some places it is covered with water, but in others you can walk through the ford. In one the rampart widens into a clearing, where you can place several regiments hidden from the Turks.”
“Why aren’t you in the ataman’s caftan?” The Emperor suddenly asked.
- “The Sultan confirmed me as a Kosh Ataman, Your Majesty. Will I be able to appear before the face of Your Majesty as an Ataman? For my Sovereign, I am the last Cossack, like everyone else.”
The Emperor liked this answer, and he said: “You will be a good servant of Mn and your homeland. Kosht chose you, and I affirm you.”
Osip fell at the feet of the Emperor and shook his hand.
That same night, Osip and two Cossacks quietly crept into a shuttle to the Turkish coast. They wandered through the swamps for three days until they found that river, where the shaft abutted the solid bank of the Danube. Osip walked with the Cossacks along the rampart to a familiar clearing, taking notes on the reeds along the way. Having finished this, Gladyui hastened to return to the Russian shore.
On the night of May 26-27, Zaporozhye boats stood off the bank of the Danube, ready to transport our troops. At exactly four o'clock. The first cannon shot rang out in the presence of the Emperor, and the crossing began.
The crossing was completed quickly, despite the destructive fire of the Turkish batteries, strong flows and gusty winds. The Cossacks amazed everyone with their courage and skillful handling of the boat. Everything that Osip said about the shaft was true. The crossing went on non-stop, and soon the victorious Russian banners fluttered on the Turkish fortifications.
Then the Emperor got into the boat, on which the Imperial Flag was displayed. The helmsman was Glady himself, and the rowers were five kuren atamans. and seven foremen. The boat quickly brought the Emperor to the other side; On the same boat, the Emperor, after inspecting the taken captives, returned back.
Upon his return, the Emperor personally placed on Osip Gladky the colonel’s epaulettes and the St. George’s cross of the fourth degree and said:
- “Thank you, chieftain! I saw your courage and stewardship with my own eyes!”
- “Congratulations to you too, well done,” he turned to the rest of the atamans and elders, “Georgesk cavaliers!”
The loud “hurray” of the Cossacks was a response to the merciful words of the Emperor.
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
On behalf of the Sovereign Emperor, in 1829, Colonel Glady went to the Caucasus to select lands for the settlement of the Cossacks and then appeared to the Sovereign
Petersburg.
Gladyui asked to take the land not to the Caucasus, but along the shore of the Sea of Azov, near the city of Berdyansk. The sovereign agreed to this and, in addition, gave Gladky himself a rich estate in the Aleksandrovsky district of the Ekaterinoslav province (the village of Poltavets). But the Sovereign’s mercy did not end there: He promoted Gladky to general and appointed him ataman of the Zaporozhye army, renamed Azov.
After conquering the Caucasus, the Azov army was resettled to the conquered lands so that, keeping the holy covenants of the old Cossacks, the Cossacks could, as in the old days,