A few weeks ago, Alexander Khloponin, the Russian President’s special envoy to the North Caucasus Federal District, said that his first task should be to support and rely on a Cossack revival as part of Moscow’s effort to return ethnic Russians to that troubled part of Russia. When Pouchkine and Tolstoi wrote about the Caucasus, the Cossacks were described as the fiercest enemies of the peoples of the Caucasus. For example, Chechens and Cossacks had already had long talks, as long as their mutual knives. To re-establish Russians today in the region might be like some kind of Crusade to Jerusalem for Mr. Khloponin, but it will certainly not bring peaceful results. The world is looking at the incapacity of the Russian authorities to bring something other than violence to this once-paradise for Moscovites in the south.