in the campaign “Coercion of Devastated Zandak into Subordination and Tribute by Colonel Pullo (1836)”
On 27 August 1836, Colonel Pullo accepted at the Groznaya fortress the forced "submission" of the aul of Zandak on the Yaman-su river, devastated by his detachment on 23 August 1836 (campaign C1156). The subordination was engineered by the devastation itself: in a report to General Petrov dated 27 August 1836, Pullo admitted: "Being certain that the inhabitants of Zandak, following the common custom of the Chechens, would ask for submission after punishment, and considering such submission useful for the government, I did not order the village burned"[1]. The same report recorded the state in which the village went to its subordination: the devastation "brought both the inhabitants of the village and all those living in its vicinity into fear and despondency"[1]. The elders sent "a plea to be accepted into submission to the Russian government", and subjecthood was formalized on terms dictated by the empire: loyalty, a complete break with Tashu-Hadji, the leader of the Chechen resistance, a ban on assemblies, the handover of Russian captives in exchange for the inhabitants of Zandak seized during the devastation, and the established tribute[1]. Rozen recorded the fact and the date of the formalization in a dispatch to the Minister of War: "On 27 August the Zandak elders appeared before the commander of the Sunzha Line declaring their submission, which was accepted from them in the established order"[2].