This website is dedicated to the Georgian trick riders who participated in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show and other American shows and circuses. The riders were wrongly named “Russian Cossacks”; in fact they were Georgians from the western part of Georgia (then part of Russian empire), Guria.
  
     
 
 
 
  Compared to all other parts of Georgia, Guria is a comparably young region, with its history dating back to the 8th century BC (Georgia itself is 3 thousand years old. It is an Orthodox Christian country since 337 A.D.). Bordered with an aggressive Muslim world, Gurians always had to be prepared to fight the enemy. Once, in the middle of the 19th century, a Gurian nobleman Bolkvadze came across six armed Turks in the woods. Bolkvadze didn’t get lost: he attacked the Turks, who obviously did not expect such an action. Before the enemy could realize what was happening, Bolkvadze killed two of them, injured one and caught another. Only one of the Turks escaped.

Gurian people were well known around Georgia for their courage and audacity. According to the famous Georgian poet Akaki Tsereteli (1840-1915): ”It’s hard to find people as lively, dynamic and open to innovations and progress as the Gurians are”. As to the Gurian songs they are just as hot-tempered, quick and mysterious as the Gurian character itself. When a famous American composer Igor Stravinsky first heard the Gurian song “Krimanchuli,” he became amazed by the singular vocal technique and exclaimed that this was the best thing he had ever heard.