Girls with their smocks tucked up and twigs in their hands run chatting merrily to the village gates to meet the cattle that are crowding together in a cloud of dust and mosquitoes which they bring with them from the steppe.

The well-fed cows and buffaloes disperse at a run all over the streets and Cossack women in coloured beshmets go to and fro among them.

You can hear their merry laughter and shrieks mingling with the lowing of the cattle.

There an armed and mounted Cossack, on leave from the cordon, rides up to a hut and, leaning towards the window, knocks.

In answer to the knock the handsome head of a young woman appears at the window and you can hear caressing, laughing voices.