in the campaign “"Military-Popular Administration": the Colonial Regime of the Terek Oblast (1858-1917)”
Historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova writes: from the 1860s the administrative apparatus in Chechnya and Ingushetia "was maintained chiefly on funds collected from the people"[1]. The empire did not trust the highlanders with military service - and taxed them in money instead: by the laws of 2 and 9 June 1887 a monetary levy in place of military service was introduced for the Muslims of the Terek oblast, its size "did not exceed 22 kopecks per 'dym'"[1] ("dym" - a separate household, homestead)[1]; historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov confirm: "in 1887 the Russian government introduced a special monetary levy for them"[2]. From then on the levies only grew: "From 1887 to 1905 the sum of taxes rose from 228.1 to 678.8 thousand rubles, that is, it nearly tripled over these years", while the podymnaya tax - the tax on each household - "in the Terek oblast reached in the 1890s up to 70 kopecks per desiatina, while at that time in the interior provinces of the country it was no more than 17 kopecks, or four times less"[1]. On top of the levy, village communities bore obligations in kind: maintaining the elder and the village board, the roads, ditches and watch posts[2].