URALIAN COSSACS, a people that inhabit the Russian province of Orenburg in Asia, on the south side of the river Ural. These Cossacs are descended from those of the Don: they are a very valiant race. They profess the Greek religion; but there is a kind of dissenters from the established religion, whom the Russians called Roskoiniki, or Separatists, and who style themselves Staroveriki, or Old Believers. They consider
Uralian
Urceola.
der the service of the established church as profane and sacrilegious, and have their own priests and ceremonies. The Uralian Cossacs are all enthusiasts for the ancient ritual, and prize their beards almost equal to their lives. A Russian officer having ordered a number of Cossac recruits to be publicly shaved in the town of Yautik, in 1771, this wanton insult excited an insurrection, which was suppressed for a time; but, in 1773, that daring impostor, Pugatchef, having assumed the name and person of Peter III. appeared among them, and taking advantage of this circumstance, and of their religious prejudices, roused them once more into open rebellion. This being at last effectually suppressed by the defeat and execution of the impostor (See Suworow, (Suppl.)), in order to extinguish all remembrance of this rebellion, the river Yaik was called Ural; the Yaik Cossacs were denominated Uralian Cossacs; and the town of Yautik, Ural'sk. The Uralian Cossacs enjoy the right of fishing on the coast of the Caspian Sea, for 47 miles on each side of the river Ural. Their principal fishery is for sturgeons and beluga, whose roe supplies large quantities of caviare; and the fish, which are chiefly salted and dried, afford a considerable article of consumption in the Russian empire. In consequence of these fisheries, these Cossacs are very rich.