The strikes on Lesser Chechnya (the lowland-piedmont western part of Chechnya) in 1847-1851 were accompanied by the annihilation of unarmed inhabitants, documented by the perpetrators themselves. On 6 March 1847 a detachment, led by a bribed guide, burst at dawn into the sleeping hamlet of naib Duba (a deputy of Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance to the Russian conquest); imperial officer Poltoratsky, a participant in the assault, wrote: "the majority, caught by surprise half-naked, old and young, women, children and nursing infants, drowned in their own blood from the sharply honed bayonets that pardoned no one, spared no one"[1]. On 15 June 1851 in the gorge of the Gekhi river, according to historian N. I. Pokrovsky, the detachment of General Sleptsov "annihilated a series of hamlets and auls. The inhabitants who had not managed to flee were slaughtered"[2]; Sleptsov's own report of 20 June 1851 puts it more mildly - "those who resolved to defend themselves were killed, or a very few were spared and taken prisoner"[3]. On 15 September 1851, at a crossing of the Sunzha river, the slaughter of those surrendering was admitted by the commander himself. Baryatinsky, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), described in a report to General Zavadovsky of 18 September 1851 how Chechens who had recognized the empire's power ("pacified") and Cossacks cut down the fleeing: "The pacified Chechens and our Cossacks, pursuing them along narrow paths, slashed without mercy. No one thought of defending himself... I myself and my officers tried to restrain the killings, but it was almost impossible"; he counts the dead at "more than 200 bodies"[3]. On 16 November 1851 General Kozlovsky reported, in a report of 21 November 1851, on the annihilation of the aul Dakhin-Irzau: "I resolved to annihilate this aul, which I carried out at dawn on 16 November with complete success" - more than 40 killed, more than 100 wounded[3].