in the campaign “Destruction of the Refugee Aul of Uzeni-Yurt, Extortion of Hostages from Geldigen, and Capture of Samashki Residents at Harvest (1826-1827)”
On January 10, 1827, during the razing of the village of Uzeni-Yurt, the troops of General Laptev, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, destroyed the inhabitants' livestock — the basis of a peasant household's sustenance. The imperial historian Potto recorded: the village, "with all its property and even its livestock, was destroyed to the ground"[1]. In the summer of 1827, the Cossacks of General Engelhardt, commander of the left flank of the Caucasian Line, after seizing the population of Samashki, destroyed the standing crops of the Galgai who lived near the aul at mills and farmsteads. Potto wrote: "beforehand they ordered that they be shown the fields belonging to those Galgai who lived at the mills, and burned their grain where it stood"[1]. The destruction of livestock in winter and of ripened grain at harvest time deprived people of sustenance for a year ahead.