in the campaign “"Constriction of Chechnya from all sides": blockade, secret war, punitive expeditions and the Sunzha Line (1840-1846)”
Against the religious authority of the Imamate (the state of the highlanders of Dagestan and Chechnya headed by imam Shamil, leader of the resistance to the Russian conquest) the empire fielded Islamic clerics loyal to itself. On 13 March 1845 Vorontsov, viceroy and commander-in-chief in the Caucasus, in a memorandum to emperor Nicholas I reported the dispatch of a Crimean Muslim judge (qadi) to Chechnya: "Qadi Esker Seid Halil Efendi came to me and declared his intention and wish personally to assist our righteous cause in the Caucasus mountains by admonishing the tribes in the name of the Mohammedan faith itself... I gave him for expenses... 400 rubles in silver in all and post-horses for four horses to the Groznaya fortress, charging this expense to the extraordinary sum"[1]. The empire paid for the service with a decoration as well: historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write - "In 1845 the Crimean Tatar qadi Qadiasker Seid-Halil Efendi was sent to the Groznaya fortress; his efforts were soon marked by a high decoration - the Order of St Anna, third class"[2].