in the campaign “Land plunder: the colonial repartition of land, land hunger and Cossack colonization of the Terek oblast (1860-1917)”
According to the summary by historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov, of the 643 thousand desiatinas (a desiatina is a little over a hectare) of lowland and piedmont Chechnya, Chechen villages were left 347 thousand, Cossack stanitsas were handed 222 thousand - a third, officers as private owners got 28 thousand, fortifications 17 thousand, and the treasury about 30 thousand desiatinas of "reserve" land[1]. The same partition was described by the office itself: the Terek land-survey administration, counting only the lowland part of Greater and Lesser Chechnya (a narrower scope than the lowland and piedmont Chechnya of the historians' summary), summed up: "The entire lowland part of Greater and Lesser Chechnya, with the adjoining Lesser-Chechen forest, comprises an area of 271086 desiatinas. Of it, at various times, 650 desiatinas went to 6 Cossack stanitsas, 1560 desiatinas of forest to the Terek Cossack Host, 8645 desiatinas were granted into private ownership for the services of individual persons, 8266 desiatinas were given to towns and settlements, 234970 desiatinas were allotted to 43 Chechen auls, and 16965 desiatinas were held by the forestry department. Thus, there is no free land left…"[2]. The forests were confiscated wholesale: "in Chechnya and Ingushetia tsarism appropriated forests with a total area of 225.5 thousand desiatinas (they became 'state' forests) and handed another 33.5 thousand desiatinas along the Sunzha and its tributaries to the Cossack host. The forests were placed under armed guard, and the unfortunate peasants caught felling wood were pursued with heavy penalties"[1]. From the mountain auls, according to historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "50989 desiatinas of pasture were confiscated to the treasury", and the same pastures were then handed back to the communities "on terms of quitrent use"[2]. What people had cleared with their own hands was taken too: in 1874 in the Vedeno okrug the owners of 250 desiatinas of plots cleared from under forest were told to swear on the Quran that the clearing had been done with the permission of the communities - "in the whole okrug only Sh. Dolatmurzayev, a resident of the village of Belgatoy, was able to swear... all the other plots, whose owners to their honor did not risk giving a false oath, were declared communal"[1]; after the uprising of 1877 the residents of Dyshni-Vedeno had 74 certificates for cleared plots taken away "as punishment, for support of the insurgents"[2]. In 1888 the Chechen communities petitioned the emperor: building materials and firewood they were "forced to buy from private owners or from the treasury, whereas formerly they had used them free of charge"[2]. In 1891 the Vladikavkaz Railway Company received a concession for a branch line from Beslan station through Grozny to Petrovsk[3]. On 15 June 1891 Alexander III, by a personal decree to the Minister of Ways of Communication, ordered the expropriation of land for the route: "Having authorized the construction of the Petrovsk railway, in place of its previously indicated direction from Vladikavkaz to Petrovsk, along the direction from Beslan station... to Petrovsk, we command: 1) that the proper arrangements be made for the expropriation... of the lands necessary for this purpose"[4]. The trackbed, the station and the entire railway infrastructure landed on lands that by then were registered to the Terek Cossack Host and the Groznenskaya stanitsa - the very lowland land that had been taken from Chechen auls and handed to the host: historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write that "the railway trackbed (and, accordingly, the station and all the railway facilities) passed over lands belonging to the Terek Cossack Host", and "the Grozny city railway station was built on the land of the Groznenskaya stanitsa"[1]. The bargaining over the price went on between the railway, the town and the Cossacks: the town authorities demanded "60 rubles for every square sazhen of town land expropriated for the construction of the station, the locomotive depot with workshops, the goods station and the access tracks", while the Cossacks of the Groznenskaya stanitsa offered the builders their plot free of charge - counting on oil-refining and other enterprises rising around the station[1]. The money for the expropriation went to the holders of what had been seized; the Chechen communities had no part in that settlement.