Kid because either a) I'm an arrogant young punk or b) I haven't lost that youthful zest for wondering what's over that way . . . or maybe a little from column a and a little from column b!

Cossack because of Central Asia. The Russian Cossacks have an occasionally dark reputation for participating in/organizing pogroms. That part, I have ZERO sympathy for. The original (Russian) cossacks were serfs that ran away to the frontier to escape their serfdom, and that part I have plenty of sympathy for. The Russian word Каза́к comes from the Central Asian nomadic herdsmen of the, well, Kazakh and Kyrgyz peoples. I'm fluent in Russian (well, pretty good anyway!) and met my (Russian) wife in Kazakhstan when I was working there.

So . . . I an arrogant punk kid/who hasn't lost his zest for life, and a Russian speaker who feels the tug of Central Asia. Ah, the silk road, Tashkent and Samarkand and Khokhand and Khiva!