There are only a few photographs of the Cossack captain Kozlov, and between each of them a decade has passed. These are a few photographs of a man who has become a legend... Among them, three were taken before the Revolution, we see a Cossack with a long moustache, surrounded by his friends, his family...
The last one was taken after his death in 1930. He is holding the rifle that his executioners had slipped into his hands, especially for the photo, he is wearing simple clothes, his eyes closed, as if he had fallen asleep.
Children were frightened, forced to go to bed at the mere mention of his name. Despite the punitive expeditions that were sent to the Kuban region to find him, everyone was afraid of him. He fought the power in place almost single-handedly for more than ten years. Some respected and helped him, others feared and hated him, but all participated in building his legend...
But who was this Nikita Kozlov? A bloodthirsty bandit or a Robin Hood, according to one of the legends that circulated about him, guardian of the Cossack gold in the Kuban caves? Although after the defeat in the civil war he could have left or done like the others and accepted this new power, he preferred to stay in the Kuban... Why did he condemn himself and his family to suffering and martyrdom?
