Each host had a territory consisting of affiliated villages called stanitsa. The various Cossack groups were organized along military lines, with large autonomous groups called hosts. The rulers of the Russian Empire endowed Cossacks with certain special privileges in return for the military duty to serve in the irregular troops (mostly cavalry). They inhabited sparsely populated areas in the Dnieper, Don, Terek, and Ural river basins, and played an important role in the historical and cultural development of both Ukraine and Russia.
The Cossacks were particularly noted for holding democratic traditions. They were a semi-nomadic and semi-militarized people, who, while under the nominal suzerainty of various Eastern European states at the time, were allowed a great degree of self-governance in exchange for military service. The Cossacks are a predominantly East Slavic Orthodox Christian people group originating in the steppes of Ukraine.
