in the campaign “"Constriction of Chechnya from all sides": blockade, secret war, punitive expeditions and the Sunzha Line (1840-1846)”
In 1841-1846 expeditions wiped out Chechen settlements by the dozen. The Aukh village of Kishen the troops of general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), destroyed over three days: the imperial historian Yurov recorded - "by evening the village and its orchards existed no more; out of the heap of charred ruins rose only two mosques and two saklias... spared at the request of Dukai-qadi" (saklia - a highlander's house; qadi - a Muslim judge)[1]. In the march to the Assa river at the end of September 1841 the detachment, according to Yurov, "took by fighting and destroyed 8 auls" - among them Gapurgoy-Yurt, Adilgeri-Yurt, Sha-Yurt - and "the stores of maize and hay were burned"[1]. In the October expedition of 15-30 October 1841 Phan-Kichu, Shalazhi, Magoma-Irzau, Magoma-Yurt, Terga-Yurt, Shuaib-khutor and the auls near Goyta were burned; on 16 October Nurikoy-Yurt was destroyed - Yurov calls it "the most populous and richest Chechen aul"[1]. In December 1846 the troops burned out the Aldy hamlets and the auls of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya). The imperial officer Poltoratsky, a participant of the expedition, recorded on 15 December 1846: "at the order of the column's commander all the saklias around us burst into flame" (saklia - a highlander's house)[2]. The result of the sweep he summed up thus: "The goal of the expedition in Lesser Chechnya was achieved in full... the plain of Lesser Chechnya in the triangle between the fortresses of Groznaya, Vozdvizhenskaya and Zakan-Yurt has been cleared completely of dwellings and forests"[2].