the Northern Azov between Berdyansk and Mariupol, forming the Azov Cossack Host. Finally in 1862 they too migrated to the Kuban and merged with the Kuban Cossacks. The Kuban Cossacks served Russia's interests right up to the October Revolution, and their descendants are now undergoing active regeneration both culturally and militarily. The 30,000 descendants of those Cossacks who refused to return to Russia in 1828 still live in the Danube delta region of Ukraine and Romania, where they pursue the traditional Cossack lifestyle of hunting and fishing and are known as Rusnaks. Legacy Although in 1775 the Zaporozhian Host formally ceased to exist, it left a profound cultural, political and military legacy on Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Turkey and other states that came in contact with it. The shifting alliances of the Cossacks have generated controversy, especially during the 20th century. For Russians, the Treaty of Pereyaslav gave the Tsardom of Russia and later Russian Empire the impulse to take over the Ruthenian lands, claim rights as the sole successor of the Kievan Rus', and for the Russian Tsar to be declared the protector of all Russias, culminating in the Pan-Slavism movement of the 19th century. Today, most of the Kuban Cossacks, modern descendants of the Zaporozhians, remain loyal towards Russia. Many fought in the local conflicts following the dissolution of the Soviet Union and today, just like before the revolution when they made up the private guard of the Emperor, the majority of the Kremlin Presidential Regiment is made up of Kuban Cossacks. For the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Khmelnytsky Uprising and the fall of the Zaporozhian Cossacks effectively marked the beginning of its end with the Deluge, which led to the gradual demise of the Commonwealth ending with the Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century. A similar fate awaited both the Crimean Khanate and the Ottoman Empire; having endured numerous raids and attacks from them both, the Zaporozhian Cossacks aided the Russian Army in ending Turkey's ambitions of expanding into northern and Central Europe, and like Poland, after the loss of Crimea, the Ottoman Empire began to decline. The historical legacy of the Zaporozhian Cossacks shaped and influenced an idea of Ukrainian nationalism in the latter half of the 19th century. Ukrainian historians, such as Adrian Kashchenko (1858–1921), Olena Apanovich and others suggest that the final abolishment of the Zaporozhian Sich in 1775 was the demise of a