Economic Blockade

In 1841-1846 the empire held Chechnya, which had not submitted, under a trade blockade. On 7 May 1841 general Grabbe, commander of the troops of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), sent to six sector commanders of the line an instruction "to take the strictest measures so that no gunpowder, sulphur, lead or any other supplies be passed to the unsubmissive highlanders, and on our side to keep unflagging and constant watch over the execution of this"^[1]. The blockade's effect was admitted by the imperial memorandum "On the political condition of Chechnya" attached to the report of general Neidhardt, head of the empire's troops in the Caucasus, of 20 November 1843: the Chechens lack cloth, iron and salt, and "the cause of this must be sought in the cessation of trade ties with the Russians, and not in a shortage of means of subsistence"^[1]. The historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that the Chechen naibstvos (districts of the imamate governed by the imam's deputies, the naibs) became its economic base: the grain and other farm produce of Chechen peasants gave "the imamate the possibility of living for almost two decades under conditions of a complete economic blockade"^[2].