In the Kuban village of Kursk, at one of the meetings of the Cossack circle, the head of the convoy of a drilling enterprise, Nikita Egorovich Zhuk, volunteered to become an Ataman, and not a formal one, but a real one. The village residents, tired of the dominance of drunkards, drug addicts, hooligans, general disorder in their native village and not relying on the authorities, unanimously elected a new Ataman. They knew well the active character of the hereditary Cossack and were not mistaken - together with the same caring people as himself, Zhuk began to restore order in Kursk. The author of the novel “Ataman” Sergei Milshin, a correspondent for the corporate newspaper of Gazprom Burenie LLC “Burovik Gazprom”, a member of the Union of Writers of Russia, talks about all the vicissitudes of Cossack self-government, the revival of good traditions and the formation of civic consciousness in the village. For many years he collected material during business trips to a branch of the Krasnodar Drilling company and met with the prototypes of his heroes. The novel is the result of his searches and reflections. Perhaps for some it will become a guide to action. Human behavior in the face of death is an eternal theme in world and Russian literature. The author, as an “Afghan” warrior, shares his understanding of the tragic collision with readers in the story “Heroes.” Its everyday, somewhat “mundane” development can also be traced in the story “Sashka’s Storks.”

The author thanks Gazprom Burenie LLC and its General Director A. G. Rossinsky for their help in publishing this book. “Thank you for assistance in the creation of the book by Sergei Viktorovich Timoshin, in the early 2000s, the Ataman of the Temirgoevskaya village of the Krasnodar Territory, the chief of staff of the Temirgoevskaya hundred, Viktor Ivanovich Usanov, as well as other Cossacks of the village, whose images you will find on the pages of the novel “Ataman.” Sergei MILSHIN p>