in the campaign “Muhajirism: the expulsion of Chechens to the Ottoman Empire, the ban on return, and population replacement (1858-1872)”
General Kundukhov, until then himself head of the Chechen okrug, received from the Viceroy "a most delicate assignment – to conduct unofficial negotiations with the Turkish government on carrying out a mass resettlement of the Chechens" and a written instruction "to proceed to arouse among the Chechen population a striving to leave for Turkey"[1]. For the agitation he received 5 thousand rubles from the treasury[1]; the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova writes of 10 thousand "for the 'discreet remuneration' of three or four persons most popular among the population, that is, for bribing influential figures"[2]; Kundukhov personally was paid 45 thousand rubles "ostensibly for property left behind in Russia," with the treasury's total expenses exceeding 130 thousand[1]. Kundukhov himself described in his memoirs the recruitment of the Chechen leadership in February 1865: having invited the naib (an administrator of a district installed by the authorities) of Lesser Chechnya Sadulla Osmanov (in other sources - Saadula Osmayev) and the elder of the Karabulak society Tsugov, he achieved that "They all agreed to resettle without the slightest objection... and swore to prepare for resettlement"[3]. Osmanov was no outside appointee: in the consolidated list of the Imamate's naibs he stands as "Saadulla Osmanov of Nikhaloy (naib of Lesser Chechnya)"[1] - a man who had fought alongside Shamil, and who for an imperial salary and land drove his own people to Turkey. The price of the purchase is visible on him too: he governed his naibstvo for eight years, received 550 desiatinas of land for his service, swore on the Quran to assist the resettlement "to the end" and undertook to lead the second wave of those departing - going ahead of the first was a condition of payment of the reward[2]. He worked in such a way that even the head of the Terek oblast, General Loris-Melikov, admitted the naib was "overdoing it," spreading distorted rumours, and wanted to rid himself as soon as possible of the too-hotheaded agitator[2].