in the campaign “Annihilation of Lesser Chechnya by Feze's Expedition: 92 Captives, More Than a Thousand Saklias Burned (January 1837)”
In the course of the annihilation of Lesser Chechnya by Feze's expedition in January 1837, the troops took hostages from auls faced with the choice between subjugation and the fate of their neighbors. According to the expedition journal presented by Rozen to Minister of War Chernyshev on 11 February 1837, on 26 January 6 amanats "from the families of the most honored elders" were taken in Achkhoy, and 4 in Phan-kichu (amanat - a person whom the empire took from a community as a guarantee of subjugation; the journal frames the seizure of people with the word "handed over")[1]. Hostages from the most influential families made every community answerable to the empire with the lives of its own people.