in the campaign “Land plunder: the colonial repartition of land, land hunger and Cossack colonization of the Terek oblast (1860-1917)”
In 1895 the Cossacks leased out 420 thousand desiatinas (a desiatina is a little over a hectare) of "yurt" (stanitsa allotment) lands, the official rent for which came to over 140 thousand rubles a year; on top of that, "reserve" lands went out on lease - up to 65 thousand desiatinas annually[1]. By 1913 the stanitsas were leasing out 424 thousand desiatinas of host lands and collecting 806.5 thousand rubles in rent, and the main tenants were Chechens - up to 77 percent of peasant households[1]. Leasing became so widespread that the administration of the Terek oblast grew alarmed: historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that the authorities "seriously feared that, by renting the same plots for many years, the highlanders might in the end lay claim to them", and, besides, sought to attach to the oblast as many "out-of-town" peasants as possible, "and therefore at the end of the 19th century an ordinance came out forbidding Cossacks to lease their land directly to the highlanders"[1]. The use of land taken from the Chechens was made conditional on the authorities' permission, and that permission was revoked as soon as use threatened to turn into right.