The ceremony gathered delegates of Russia's Central Cossack Army, members of the cantonal top, municipal dignitaries and activists, and spokesmen of the Swiss Defense Ministry.
The memorial was erected on a Cossack initiative with support from Russia's Foreign Ministry and embassy to Switzerland.
"The memorial is to pay tribute to the fallen soldiers' valor. It is a landmark in the long-established friendship between our two countries," said Dmitry Cherkashin, Russian Ambassador to Switzerland.
The monument is a huge granite rock bearing a bronze plaque that reads, "To fallen soldiers" in Russian and German, and representing the Russian and Swiss national coats-of-arms. The bronze pedestal repeats the shape of a horseshoe.
"History is not unlike water circulation in nature. All things come back on their track, and we are to know just where Russians helped other countries' people to survive and lead on a decent life," Boris Ignatyev, Ataman (commander) of the Central Cossack Army, said to Novosti.
A liturgy of three Christian denominations-Greek, Roman Catholic and Protestant-followed the unveiling. An orchestra of Russia's Suvorov secondary military schools and a Cossack song-and-dance company were performing at the gala.
All who appeared at the gathering were treated to buckwheat porridge with canned meat, cooked in a field kitchen on the spot, with a tumbler of good old Russian vodka to wash it down.
Switzerland had another gala dedicated to Russian participation in the Napoleonic wars yesterday, as it commemorated the 205th anniversary of Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov's daring crossing of the Alps with a big army.
As for the Battle of Zurich, it was one of the most tragic Russian defeats throughout the sanguinary 18th century. A corps under General Rimsky-Korsakov, with several Cossack units attached, clashed single-handed with a manifold-superior French force under General Andre Massena in a losing battle.
Cossacks are ethnic-cum-social groups within the Russian and certain other peoples. The etymology of the word Cossack is vague. Cossacks of the 14th-17th centuries were freemen hiring out or doing military service along the Russian borders. The 18th century made them a privileged military estate. Cossacks retained that honorable status into the early 20th century. The government used them for martial missions of tremendous responsibility. Thus, Cossacks covered themselves with glory in the Napoleonic wars, and suppressed several predatory peasant mutinies in Russia.
Cossack custom and tradition revival started late in the 1980s. Cossack folk culture and routine have come back, and several public organizations were established.
