The land of the evicted communities of Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) passed to the empire. General Sleptsov, in a report to General Ilyinsky of 4 October 1850, summed up the displacement of the mountain auls: "the rich lands between the Sunzha and the Russian road have passed into the unaccountable possession of the government, so that the entire plain of Lesser Chechnya is now completely cleared of the hostile population"[1]. "Unaccountable possession" is the report's own formula: the land was taken without any registration of the former owners' rights.