in the campaign “Forest clearings and famine: Yevdokimov's conquest of Chechnya (1857-1859)”
The proseka - a wide swath cut through the forest to deprive the defenders of cover and send troops along it - was the load-bearing instrument of the conquest of 1857-1859: the forest that protected Chechen societies was felled systematically. The "Journal of Military Operations of the Chechen Detachment" from 15 January 1857 records the daily routine: "on the 21st all the troops... were engaged in the annihilation of auls, orchards and forest"; "on the 22nd the same occupations. The auls have been finally destroyed, the orchards felled, and the Geldygen clearing laid out 750 sazhens wide" - about one and a half kilometers (a sazhen is just over two meters)[1]. The purpose of the clearings was reported by General Yevdokimov, who commanded the Chechen Detachment, to Minister of War Sukhozanet in a report of 25 March 1857: the clearing "took away from the unsubmissive their broad fields, the places of their crops", and confronted the population with a choice - "to seek salvation either by flight into the mountains or by coming out to us onto the glades"[1]. On 19 March 1857 General Nikolai seized the Goytemir Gates - the passage into Aukh and Ichkeria (Chechen regions in the northeast and southeast): the report explains the task - "To destroy this nest of brigands and open the approaches into Aukh and Ichkeria, it was necessary to take possession of the Goytemir-Kapu tract and build a clearing there"[1]; historian D. A. Khozhayev confirms from the regimental history: "on 19 March 1857 these fortifications were captured by the tsarist troops and destroyed"[2]. In February 1859 the forest was already being felled at the walls of Vedeno - the capital of the Imamate, Shamil's state: "on 8 February 1859, despite the resistance of the Chechens and Dagestanis, the numerous tsarist troops, having cleared of forest the whole space between the villages of Tevzan and Elistanzhi, came out to the fortification of Vedeno"[2].