in the campaign “"Neither plow nor sow": the pogrom of Chechnya, organized famine, the buying-up of elites and the institutions of subjugation (1852-1857)”
The empire starved the inhabitants of the Khankala gorge out by an openly formulated plan. Imperial historian Volkonsky recorded the design of the summer of 1852: Baryatinsky, who commanded the left flank of the Caucasus Line (the chain of imperial fortifications on the land of the Nokhchi), "resolved... to smoke the inhabitants out of the gorge, precisely - to smoke them out, because it was necessary to annihilate with fire everything that gave them subsistence"; the calculation Volkonsky recorded thus - "And to seek food from us means to humble oneself, submit, and willy-nilly resettle"[1]. The same calculation stood behind the razing of Khan-Kala - the inhabitants were to be torn away from Imam Shamil, leader of the highlanders' resistance of Dagestan and Chechnya to the Russian conquest: "the inhabitants, deprived of shelter and sustenance, instead of running over to Shamil, would seek refuge with us"[1]. During the siege of Khan-Kala the detachment cut the aul off from water as well: "the enemy was deprived of the possibility of covered access to the river, and he was left without water"[1].