Pirate Cossack of the Black Sea.

Cossacks became maritime pirates, every bit as deadly and colorful as their counterparts on the Spanish Main. Their raids and campaigns against the Ottoman Empire remain the stuff of legend in Ukrainian folklore and literature.

Cossack board a Turkish vessel full of Cherkassk women off the Black Sea coast, in a 19th-century engraving by Adolphe Bayot and Leon Sabatier. Besides plunder, the Cossacks struck at the Turkish merchant ships to free the slaves they carried.

Upon reaching the Cossack base, the Turks were surprise to learn that the Cossacks. with the exception of a small garrison, had returned home to their families for the winter. Rather than make a futile stand, the garrison
retreated onto the steppes, leaving the Turks with only a few huts and some disabled vessels. Loathe to leave
empty handed, the pasha returned to Constantinople "in triumph" with abandoned vessels and proclaimed that the Cossacks has been destroyed.
Darting among larger Turkish Vessels in their rustic but swift and agile chaiky. Cossack raid a fortified Ottoman port in the early 17th century, when such activities reached their high-water mark.