Destruction of the Natural Landscape

In the winter of 1845-1846 the empire moved from cutting individual clearings to the destruction of the Chechen forests - the living environment and protection of the Chechen communities. Historian N. I. Pokrovsky cites the imperial survey by captain Nikolai: "From the end of 1845 our winter marches in Lesser Chechnya began", - and describes the acts: "from 4 to 24 December 1845 the expeditionary detachment of general R. K. Freitag cut a great clearing through the Goyta forest, one of the densest in Lesser Chechnya. The clearing connected the river Goyta with Urus-Martan"; "In January 1846, from the 18th to the 29th, the joined detachments of R. K. Freitag and P. P. Nesterov were already cutting. This time the object of annihilation was the Gekhi forest, and the clearing established communication between the rivers Gekhinka and Valerik"^[1]. Historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov record the escalation: "from the beginning of 1846 the troops passed from the cutting of individual clearings to the literal annihilation of the dense Chechen forests"^[2]. The goal was formulated by Vorontsov, viceroy in the Caucasus: to destroy the influence of Shamil (the imam, leader of the resistance of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest) and to "tear the Chechens away from him", without whom he would mean nothing^[1].