Tornau memoirs of a Caucasian officer. Memoirs of a Caucasian officer

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Tornau Fedor Fedorovich

Memoirs of a Caucasian officer

About the author: Tornau Fedor Fedorovich (1810-1890) - Baron, Colonel of the General Staff. A representative of a family that originated from Pomerania and began in the middle of the 15th century, studied at the Noble Boarding School at the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum, after which he entered the military service and participated in the war of 1828 against the Turks, in the "Polish campaign" of 1831, in battles in the Caucasus and etc. For two years, Tornau was a prisoner of the Kabardians. From 1856 (to 1873) he served as a Russian military agent in Vienna and was a member of the military-scientific committee. Tornau is also known as the author of a number of memoirs ("Memoirs of a Caucasian officer", "Memoirs of the 1829 campaign in European Turkey", "From Vienna to Karlsbad", etc.). Information about Tornau is available in the "Encyclopedic Dictionary" of F. Brockhaus and I. Efron (vol. 33-a, 1901, p. 639), in the journal "Russian Antiquity" (1890, book seventh), in the book of D. Yazykov life and works of Russian writers and female writers" (issue 10, M., 1907, p. 76).

Editorial

Baron Fedor Fedorovich Tornau (1810-1890) is one of the remarkable officers of the Russian army who made no less contribution to the study of the Caucasus than scientists. He was born in 1810 in Polotsk and was educated in a noble boarding school at the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum. In 1828 he began military service with the rank of ensign. Having passed the heroic military school in the Turkish (1828-1829) and Polish (1831) campaigns, after a short service in the St. Petersburg office of the General Staff, he voluntarily asked to leave for the Caucasus, preferring "the labors of combat life to parade service and the brilliance of parquet successes."

Next - twelve years of service in the Caucasus. Acting at the disposal of the commander of the Caucasian Line A.A. Velyaminov, Tornau distinguished himself by his stamina and endurance in battle, the clarity in the execution of complex assignments, a sober assessment of events, and the ability to make decisions in extraordinary situations. A.A. Velyaminov highly appreciated the merits of the young officer and wished to see him in his inner circle.

But fate decreed otherwise. In September 1832, Tornau was seriously wounded, was treated for a long time and returned to service only in the autumn of 1834, when the Caucasian command was developing a plan for land communication along the eastern coast of the Black Sea. He is entrusted with a difficult task - "a hidden view of the coastal space to the north of Gagra." The secret goals of reconnaissance required reliable guides and special disguise. Fyodor Fyodorovich had to pass himself off as a highlander. During his first expedition in July 1835, he managed to penetrate into the most inaccessible regions of the Western Caucasus.

In early September of the same year, Tornau, accompanied by the Nogai princes Karamurzins, set off on a second expedition that lasted a month and a half, and, in addition to strategic material, collected rich ethnographic material. His description of the Ubykhs, Sadza-Dzhigets and some other peoples who completely disappeared from the map of the Caucasus in the 60s of the XIX century during the Muhajir movement (migration to Turkey and the countries of the Middle East), and to this day remain almost the only source for the study their culture.

A year later - a new assignment: "a secret review of the sea coast from the Sochi River to Gelendzhik." However, the authorities, instead of the faithful and experienced guides chosen by Tornau, imposed unreliable fellow travelers on him, who sold him as a prisoner to the Kabardians. The highlanders demanded a fabulous ransom - five quarters of silver or as much gold as the prisoner could afford. The negotiations lasted two years, because Fedor Fedorovich resolutely refused the terms of the ransom, confirming his reputation as an "ideological scout" who was ready to "sacrifice himself for the good of the state." Finally, in November 1838, the Nogai prince Tembulat Karamurzin managed to kidnap the prisoner.

"Memoirs of a Caucasian officer", which tells about all these events, Tornau finally completed only in 1864 in Vienna, where he served as a Russian military agent. The book was soon published and never reprinted, becoming a bibliographic rarity. A new edition of "Memoirs" in the series "Rarities of Russian Literature" is being prepared by the Samara Regional Foundation for Independent Literary Research.

S. MAKAROVA

At the conclusion of the Treaty of Adrianople, in 1829, the Port renounced in favor of Russia the entire eastern coast of the Black Sea and ceded to it the Circassian lands lying between the Kuban and the sea coast, up to the border of Abkhazia, which separated from Turkey twenty years ago. This concession mattered on one paper - in fact, Russia could take possession of the space ceded to it only by force. The Caucasian tribes, which the Sultan considered his subjects, never obeyed him. They recognized him as the heir of Mohammed and the padishah of all Muslims, their spiritual head, but they did not pay taxes and did not appoint soldiers. The Turks, who occupied several fortresses on the seashore, were tolerated by the highlanders by the right of common faith, but did not allow them to interfere in their internal affairs and fought with them, or, rather, beat them without mercy at any such interference. The concession made by the Sultan seemed completely incomprehensible to the highlanders. Without delving into the study of the political principles on which the Sultan based his rights, the highlanders said: "We and our ancestors were completely independent, we never belonged to the Sultan, because they did not listen to him and did not pay him anything, and we do not want to belong to anyone else. Sultan did not own us and therefore could not yield us. Ten years later, when the Circassians already had a chance to briefly get acquainted with the Russian power, they still did not change their concepts. General Raevsky, who at that time commanded the Black Sea coastline, trying to explain to them the right by which Russia demanded obedience from them, once said to the Shapsug elders who came to ask him why he was going to war with them: "The Sultan gave you to pesh-kesh - gave you to the Russian Tsar. “Ah! Now I understand,” answered the Shapsug and showed him a bird that was sitting on a nearby tree. “General, I give you this bird, take it!” This ended the negotiations. It was obvious that with such a desire for independence, one force could break the stubbornness of the Circassians. War became inevitable. It only remained to figure out the means necessary for this and find the best way to conquer the highlanders who occupied the newly acquired part of the Caucasus.

In order to get an idea of our situation on the eastern coast of the Black Sea in 1835, when fate threw me into Abkhazia, it is necessary to get acquainted with the circumstances that accompanied the first appearance of Russian troops here.

Abkhazia was ruled by the Turks for almost two centuries. In 1771, the Abkhaz rebelled against the Turks and forced them to leave Sukhum. Long internecine wars began, during which the Port repeatedly gained power over Abkhazia and again lost it. Finally, in 1808, Sefer Bey accepted the Christian faith and gave Abkhazia under the protection of Russia, which was forced to take advantage of his proposal. The peace of Mingrelia depended on the occupation of Abkhazia by our troops and on the establishment of a certain order in it, recognizing over itself, like Georgia, the power of Russia. In addition, Sukhum, enjoying the only convenient raid on the entire eastern coast of the Black Sea, from Batum to Gelendzhik, promised to bring us military and commercial benefits that could not be neglected, thinking about the future of the newly acquired Transcaucasian provinces. On this occasion, and in accordance with the desire of the ruler himself, Russian troops entered Abkhazia in 1810, ousted the Turks from Sukhum and placed a small garrison in it. This circumstance did not in the least change the order of affairs that existed in Abkhazia. The owner still remained the complete ruler of his people. Not thinking about new conquests, the Russian government did not increase the troops in Abkhazia, which continued to occupy one Sukhumi fortress; did not interfere in the internal administration of the principality and cared only about the destruction of the influence of the Turks on the people, who showed a tendency, following the example of the ruler, to return to the Christian faith, which his ancestors professed. The Turks, who fled from Sukhum, meanwhile scattered throughout Abkhazia and fiercely incited the people against the Russians.

In 1830, when the entire eastern coast of the Black Sea came into the possession of Russia, a detachment of ten companies of the 44th Jaeger Regiment, eight guns and a small team of Cossacks arrived by sea in Abkhazia and occupied Bambory, Pitsunda and Gagra. The first two points, located within Abkhazia, were occupied without a shot, despite the efforts of the Abkhazian nobles to excite the people to resistance and, following the example of previous uprisings, to call for help from the Ubykhs and Shapsugs.

Gagra, lying behind Bzyb, at the foot of a high, rocky ridge adjoining the sea itself, did not fall to us without a fight. Sadzes, Ubykhs and Shapsugs, having gathered in significant forces, resisted the landing and after that several times tried to seize the new fortification by open force. Having lost many people in their unsuccessful attacks, they changed their course of action and began to disturb our troops, not giving them rest day or night, attacking small teams sent out for firewood and fodder, lying in wait from the heights of the mountains for people who went beyond the walls of the fortification, and sending their well-aimed shots at them. The existence of the Gagra garrison became positively unbearable.

Prior to the occupation of Gagra and Gelendzhik, we had no exact idea of the resistance that awaited us, of the bad climate and other difficulties that our troops had to fight on the Circassian coast. The experience with which we were enriched in these cases forced us to suspend further actions on the Black Sea coast. A numerous and well-armed enemy, who met our troops with desperate courage, demanded to repel his numerical forces, which we could not have at that time in the Caucasus. Kazi-Megmet, the first distributor of Muridism among the highlanders, raised Chechnya and all of Dagestan against us, plundered the border towns of Kizlyar and Mozdok, and recently began to threaten the Georgian Military Highway, our closest, if not the only communication with the Transcaucasian provinces. First, it was necessary to pacify the left flank of the Caucasian line, where all free troops were sent, and then think about new conquests.

The military operations of the thirty-second year in Chechnya and Dagestan brought us complete success. The commander-in-chief of the Caucasian corps, Baron Rosen, climbed with a small detachment to Mount Galgai, near the Georgian Military Highway, which was considered by the mountaineers to be completely impregnable for our troops, and again subdued the Kist societies, carried away by Kazi-Megmet in a general uprising. After that, our troops, under the personal command of Baron Rosen and Velyaminov, marched throughout Chechnya, defeating the enemy wherever he showed himself; penetrated through the Ichkerinsky forest into Benoy and Dargo, destroyed these two villages, and in late autumn finally descended into the deep gorge of the Koysu River in order to strike the uprising at its roots with a final, decisive blow. Gimry, in which Kazi-Megmet was born and constantly lived, was taken by attack, and he himself was killed. The resounding successes of our troops, and in particular the death of the imam, the head of the murids, which greatly struck the minds of the highlanders, forced Chechnya and the Dagestanis to submit unconditionally to the Russian will. The left flank of the Caucasian line seemed to be pacified for a long time; after that, it was possible to transfer hostilities again to the western part of the Caucasus and, preferably, to deal with the arrangement of the coastline.

But in 1834 there was an order to immediately lay the first foundation for the construction of the coastline, opening military operations against the Circassians from the Kuban and from the southern side of the mountains, from Abkhazia; and in order to replenish information about the coast between Gagra and Gelendzhik, it was ordered to carry out reinforced landing reconnaissance.

Submitting to a higher will, Velyaminov moved in the spring of 1934 beyond the Kuban from the Olginsky redoubt in order to open a connection with the Sudzhuk Bay. The construction of the Abinsk fortification took all summer. In the same year, under the command of Major General N., a detachment consisting of several battalions was sent to Abkhazia to develop roads and build fortifications necessary to protect communications. The inhabitants showed no resistance; on the other hand, our detachment found so many obstacles in the Abkhazian nature itself that N. did not hope to build roads from Drand to Bzyb before the autumn of the next year, considering, moreover, it was completely impossible to continue moving beyond Gagra by land, because of the rocks blocking the coastal road near this place. This circumstance made still more difficult the question of the path to be taken for the construction of the coastline, and prompted the War Office to repeat the demand for intensified reconnaissance, which had long been ordered.

There was only one means left to replace in a useful way the unpromising reconnaissance: to instruct a sufficiently knowledgeable officer to secretly inspect the seashore. Thanks to the location of General Valkhovsky, remembered by all old Caucasians, the choice fell on me. He was in the Caucasus from the beginning of the thirty-second year, before that he participated in the Transdanubian campaign against the Turks and in the Polish war. Having received a fairly significant wound during the Ichkerin expedition in 1932, I was ill for a long time, and a year later I was forced to spend the summer in the Caucasian mineral waters to strengthen my strength. When I returned to Tiflis, Valkhovsky met me with a proposal to give up society and all its pleasures for a long time, transform myself into a Circassian, settle in the mountains and devote himself to communicating information, which was supposed to be obtained at such a high price: he did not hide from me the dangers I had to contend with; Yes, and I myself understood them very well. Since the business entrusted to me was outside the circle of ordinary assignments, it was impossible to demand from me its execution in an official manner, without my voluntary consent. Therefore, the commander-in-chief instructed General Valchovsky to persuade me to go to the mountains, leaving me to set the conditions on which I considered it advantageous to render the service required of me. Ready to sacrifice myself unconditionally for the good of the state, but not at all disposed to trade my life and freedom, I rejected conditions that could concern my personal interests, and insisted only on delivering to me all those advantages on which, in my opinion, the success of the enterprise depended. . Baron Rosen agreed to give me the right to dispose freely of myself and my time, to enter into relations with obedient and recalcitrant mountaineers, not embarrassed by existing rules, and, within the boundaries indicated to me, to promise them rewards or forgiveness for various crimes, if any of them will help me in my affairs. Secured in this way against extraneous interference by the local Caucasian authorities, I set to work with pleasure and with the confidence of success in my task.

From Kutais itself, I did not use any other room, except for guard wattle huts, spending the night in them, according to the Caucasian custom, on the ground, wrapped in a cloak instead of a bed and a blanket; and therefore I rejoiced not a little when I heard the sound of the sea, which signified the nearness of Redoubt Calais, in which I expected to find some reward for the hardships I had experienced. When we arrived at the Redoubt, it was completely dark, and only this darkness prevented my premature disappointment. Redoubt-Kale - an earthen fortification built on the seashore, near the mouth of the Hopi River, in the middle of impenetrable swamps - was at that time a forgotten corner in which several soldiers, officers, quarantine and customs officials, exhausted by fevers, vegetated. Inside the fortification, lined with a small number of wooden buildings, everything bore the stamp of boredom, longing, dilapidation and poverty.

The next morning I hurried to Bambory, where I was to find General Patsovsky, who, in the absence of N., commanded all the troops in Abkhazia. He was the only person who had the opportunity to help me in my enterprise with deed and advice, knowing the region and using a good influence on the Abkhazians.

On the first day of my departure from Redoubt-Kale, with great difficulty, late at night, I reached the first post, having traveled no more than twenty miles. The next day I moved to Ilori, on the border of Abkhazia, where last year our troops built a fortification on the banks of the Galizga. The real border of Abkhazia began on the right bank of the Ingur. Galizga previously served only to separate the two Abkhaz districts - Samurzakan and Abzhiv. For reasons that I could never understand in a clear way, the Samurzakan district was attributed by us to the possessions of the Mingrelian prince, and the Abkhazian border was pushed back from Ingur to Galizga. The consequence of this expulsion was, at least in my time, that the Samurzakans, freed from obedience to their natural prince, also refused to obey the new ruler; and the independent direction of their way of thinking began to be discovered by theft and robbery.

It was difficult to understand for what purpose the redoubt had been built at Ilori. One and a half hundred soldiers stationed in the redoubt were in no case able to either prevent or stop riots if they arose among the inhabitants.

From Ilori to Drand, they counted forty versts, which I traveled in one day, because in this area there was less forest, and therefore the road was better.

The Dranda ancient church, built, as it should be assumed, in the middle of the sixth century, at the same time as the Pitsunda monastery, lies five versts from the seashore, on a hill that forms an open area surrounded by forest on all sides.

The choice of this place for fortification was very successful, it is only a pity that at the same time they touched the church, occupying it with officers' apartments and a storehouse of provisions. In semi-Christian, semi-Mohammedan Abkhazia, it was necessary to preserve such monuments of Christian antiquity, for which the Muslim Abkhazians themselves had an inexplicable feeling of reverence, based on dark legends about the shrine that overshadowed the faith of their forefathers. In military terms, this point offered very tangible benefits: it provided a solid basis for operations against the Tsebelda, which occupied impregnable gorges along the upper reaches of the Kodor, and, due to a healthy climate and good water, provided all the conditions necessary for saving troops. It was pleasant to see the fresh and cheerful faces of the soldiers, clearly testifying in favor of the Drand camp. The number of patients in the battalion of the Georgian Grenadier Regiment, wintering in Drandy, usually did not exceed twelve people out of seven hundred. This was a remarkable fact among the Caucasian troops, who usually suffered and perished incomparably more from disease than from enemy weapons.

From Drand, the road descended to the shore through a dense forest and, turning to the right, then led to Sukhum over the very sea, along the deep coastal sand.

Not reaching five miles to the fortress, the Abkhazian village of Kelassuri lay on the way, in which Gassan-Bey, the uncle of the ruler, lived. His chopped wooden house, which looked like a wide quadrangular tower, stood on high stone pillars. The covered gallery, embracing the whole house, to which a narrow and extremely steep staircase led, facilitated its defense. The courtyard was surrounded by a high palisade with loopholes, in which a tight gate opened, capable of only letting one person or one horse through. It was enough to look at the construction of the house, at the palisade that surrounded it, at this small, tightly closed gate, in order to understand the constant state of fear in which Hassan Bey spent his life. The alarming state of Abkhazia in general, the personal enmity that he managed to arouse in many, and several attempts on his life, from which he escaped almost by a miracle, forced Gassan Bey not to neglect any measures of caution.

Opposite his house, just above the sea, there was a long row of wooden shops that belonged to the Turks who crossed from Sukhum to Kelassuri when the fortress fell to the Russians. Turkish merchants, as usual, sat on the doorsteps of the shops and smoked from long chibouks with an air of the deepest calmness. But their indifference was very deceptive. On the one hand, they watched the road, closely examining the passers-by, and on the other hand, they did not lose sight of our military squadron, which was stationed on the Sukhumi roadstead. The Turks frankly hated us - this is in the order of things. Previously, they excelled in Abkhazia and enjoyed the most profitable trade with the Circassians and Abkhazians, from which the merchant enriched himself in three or four voyages; now we have ousted them from this advantageous position and, moreover, have tried to completely destroy their trade, seizing and converting them into court prizes laden with military supplies and Circassian women. Gassan Bey, who ruled the Sukhum district as a specific prince, was considered, not without reason, the most inveterate patron of the Turks living in Abkhazia, and this could not be blamed on him. Religion, the habits of youth inclined him to the side of the Turks, and, in addition, he found a constant source of income in his Kelassur bazaar. Turkish merchants paid him a significant fee for the right to trade and, moreover, delivered to him all the rare goods that could not be found in the whole of Abkhazia.

Arriving with the intention of finding in Abkhazia a means to travel beyond Gagra, to the hostile Circassians, I could not stay long in one place; I had to, making incessant trips, get acquainted with the region and with people from whom, according to my calculation, one could expect help for my enterprise. It seemed to me that it would be best to start with the clever and cunning Hassan Bey, the secret opponent of the Russians, who had great weight among the Abkhazians, who were dissatisfied with the existing order of things. Without counting even on his assistance, it was still better to have him as a friend than an enemy; his enmity would be doubly dangerous to me because of the connections he had in the mountains. Fortunately, I had a pretext for my future wanderings in Abkhazia, and it was supposed not only to calm Hassan Bey's curiosity, but even to interest him, touching on some of his personal calculations. It consisted in the Tsebelda case, about which I was instructed to collect, on occasion, the most accurate information. Mentioning this case, I consider it necessary to explain: what was Tsebelda at that time and what, in the diplomatic language of our time, was the Tsebelda issue, very simple for the highlanders, but extremely confusing for us.

The small Tsebelda, which, according to our then information, consisted of no more than eight hundred or a thousand families, served as an unpleasant hindrance to our affairs in Abkhazia. To pacify her strength, it was necessary to sacrifice time and part of the troops, which, it seemed, would be more useful to use for work that had the subject of the speedy arrangement of the coastline, which promised, as it was then believed, to deprive the highlanders of all means of resistance. At that time, the Mingrelian ruler Dadian offered his services, promising to peacefully persuade the Tsebeldins to live in peace and even submit themselves to Russian power, if they were forever saved from the attempts of the Abkhazian ruler on their independence. His proposal was accepted with great pleasure. Dadian was of no importance among the Tsebeldins and could act on them only through Gassan Bey, whose sister was married to Khenkurus Marchaniy, one of the Tsebeldin princes. Both of them agreed on this matter, hating equally to Mikhail, the ruler of Abkhazia, and having in mind to curry favor with the Russian government at his expense and make him a sensitive nuisance, finally destroying his influence on the Tsebeldins. Meanwhile, Michael also took an indirect part in this matter, resisting, as much as possible, the intrigues of Dadian and Hassan Bey to completely distract Tsebelda from him. As a ruler, he was right in acting in favor of his power, which alone could serve to preserve something resembling civil order in Abkhazia. We Russians had no moral significance in it at that time and could only rely on force alone. Yes, and in the Tsebelda case, he had the opportunity to contribute more to our interests than his two rivals. A special affection for Dadian of Mingrelian and some kind of unconscious prejudice against Michael did not allow us to clearly see the true state of affairs. From all these opposing interests, an impenetrable network of the most cunning intrigues was woven, as is usual among the mountaineers, in which the Russian authorities finally got entangled, not understanding anything. I did not have the presumptuous thought of unraveling this complex, cunningly connected intrigue; but I found it very convenient to use it for my own purpose.

Arriving at the house, I stopped and, without naming myself, sent to find out if Hassan Bey wanted to see a traveler. This is one of the beneficial aspects of Caucasian hospitality. A stranger is accepted without asking who he is, where he comes from and where he is going, until he himself considers it necessary to announce this, sometimes only to one owner, having reasons to hide his name and his affairs from strangers. By the time they were reporting on me, a good half an hour had passed. At this time, I and my escorts were examined from home with great attention. Incessantly different faces appeared at the loopholes, peered at me very intently, and then disappeared. Finally the gate opened, and Gassan Bey came out to meet me, having behind him several Abkhazians with guns in their hands. I saw in him a stout man, of small stature, dressed in a rich Circassian coat, with a high Turkish turban on his head, armed with two long pistols in a silver frame; one of them he held in his hand, ready to fire. Who only knew Gassan Bey does not remember him without these pistols, which saved him from death twice and from which it fired almost without a miss. Leaving the horse, I approached him with a request to allow me to identify myself and explain everything when we were alone. Gassan Bey silently led me into the room, seated me on a low sofa across from him, demanded coffee and a chubuk, as was the Turkish custom, and sent the servants out. I introduced myself, spoke about my appointment to be with the troops and about the reason that prompted me to dress in Circassian style; Having, I added, an assignment to study the Tsebelda case, which required from me incessant trips around Abkhazia, I considered it prudent not to draw the attention of the people to myself. Gassan Bey liked my frankness so much that in half an hour we became perfect friends and confided our most secret thoughts to each other, of course, without due caution. He not only agreed with me, at least in words, in everything that I said about the Abkhazian and Tsebelda affairs, which were of great interest to him, and praised my intention under the Circassian clothes to remain an unknown person for the people, but provided me, moreover, with a lot of very solid advice regarding my personal safety. After a rich Turkish dinner, seasoned with red pepper to such an extent that I singed my throat and palate like fire, Gassan Bey accompanied me to Sukhum with a rather motley crowd of his mounted bodyguards. He did not go to the fortress, having an irresistible disgust from it from the time when he was seized in it unexpectedly before leaving for Siberia.

Fedor Fedorovich TORNAU

MEMORIES OF A CAUCASIAN OFFICER

Part one

At the conclusion of the Treaty of Adrianople, in 1829, the Porte renounced in favor of Russia the entire eastern coast of the Black Sea and ceded to it the Circassian lands lying between the Kuban and the sea coast, up to the border of Abkhazia, which separated from Turkey twenty years ago. This concession mattered on one paper - in fact, Russia could take possession of the space ceded to it only by force. The Caucasian tribes, which the Sultan considered his subjects, never obeyed him. They recognized him as the heir of Mohammed and the padishah of all Muslims, their spiritual head, but they did not pay taxes and did not appoint soldiers. The Turks, who occupied several fortresses on the seashore, were tolerated by the highlanders by the right of common faith, but did not allow them to interfere in their internal affairs and fought with them, or, rather, beat them without mercy at any such interference. The concession made by the Sultan seemed completely incomprehensible to the highlanders. Without delving into the study of the political principles on which the sultan based his rights, the highlanders said: “We and our ancestors were completely independent, we never belonged to the sultan, because they did not listen to him and did not pay him anything, and we don’t want to belong to anyone else. The Sultan did not own us and therefore could not yield us. Ten years later, when the Circassians already had a chance to briefly get acquainted with the Russian power, they still did not change their concepts. General Raevsky, who at that time commanded the Black Sea coastline, intensifying to explain to them the right by which Russia demanded obedience from them, once said to the Shapsug elders who came to ask him why he was going to war against them: “The Sultan gave you to pesh-kesh - gave you to the Russian Tsar. "BUT! Now I understand, - Shapsug answered and showed him a bird sitting on a nearby tree. “General, I give you this bird, take it!” This ended the negotiations. It was obvious that with such a desire for independence, one force could break the stubbornness of the Circassians. War became inevitable. It only remained to figure out the means necessary for this and find the best way to conquer the highlanders who occupied the newly acquired part of the Caucasus.

In order to get an idea of our situation on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, in 1835, when fate threw me into Abkhazia, it is necessary to get acquainted with the circumstances that accompanied the first appearance of Russian troops here.

Under Selim II and Amurat III, the Turks subjugated Guria, Imeretia, Mingrelia and Abkhazia. In 1578 they built two fortresses on the seashore, one in Poti, the other in Sukhumi. By this time, it seems, one can also attribute the construction of a Turkish fortress among the Natukhais, on the shores of the Gelendzhik Bay. In 1771, the Abkhaz rebelled against the Turks and forced them to leave Sukhum. The uprising was led by two brothers, Levan and Zurab Tervashidze. Having quarreled among themselves, one of them, Levan, handed over Sukhum again to the Turks, who stayed there for no more than three years, tired of the incessant attacks of the Abkhazians. Then Kelesh-bey Shervashidze occupied Sukhum, subjugated the Abkhazians by force and surrendered to the supreme authority of the sultan, who recognized him as the ruler of Abkhazia and Sukhumi hereditary pasha. The subordination of Kelesh Bey to the Turkish government also did not last long. Having given asylum to Teger Pasha of Trebizond, condemned to death by Porto, he incurred her indignation and began to seek the protection of Russia, which at that time accepted the Georgian kingdom under its protection. At the same time, he was said to have secretly converted to the Christian faith. The Turks, having heard about the change of faith and about the relations of Kelesh Bey with the Russians, bribed his eldest son, Aslan Bey, to kill his father, whom he was supposed to inherit. The crime was committed in Sukhum; but Aslan Bey did not take advantage of its fruits. His younger brothers, Sefer-bey, Bostal-bey and Gassan-bey, condemned to death like their father, managed to escape and armed all of Abkhazia against him. Aslan Bey fled to Batum from popular vengeance, after which Sefer Bey clearly accepted the Christian faith and in 1808 gave Abkhazia under the protection of Russia, which was forced to take advantage of his proposal. The peace of Mingrelia depended on the occupation of Abkhazia by our troops and on the establishment of a certain order in it, recognizing over itself, like Georgia, the power of Russia. In addition, Sukhum, enjoying the only convenient raid on the entire eastern coast of the Black Sea, from Batum to Gelendzhik, promised to bring us military and commercial benefits, which could not be neglected, thinking about the future of the newly acquired Transcaucasian provinces. On this occasion, and in accordance with the desire of the ruler himself, Russian troops entered Abkhazia in 1810, ousted the Turks from Sukhum and placed a small garrison in it. This circumstance did not in the least change the order of affairs that existed in Abkhazia. The owner still remained the complete ruler of his people. Not thinking about new conquests, the Russian government did not increase the troops in Abkhazia, which continued to occupy one Sukhumi fortress; did not interfere in the internal administration of the principality and cared only about the destruction of the influence of the Turks on the people, who showed a tendency, following the example of the ruler, to return to the Christian faith, which his ancestors professed. The Turks, who fled from Sukhum, meanwhile scattered throughout Abkhazia and fiercely incited the people against the Russians. The parricide Aslan Bey also did not cease to recruit adherents in Abkhazia through various intrigues, and their number increased every day. The first outburst of indignation against him passed, and the Turks constantly repeated to the Abkhaz Mohammedans that Kelesh Bey, as an apostate, deserved death at the hands of his son, who in this case did not commit a crime, being only a blind executor of the will of Allah. Such an interpretation of Aslan Bey's act found faith and approval on the part of the dissatisfied in Abkhazia, who used his name and his allegedly unextinguished rights to the principality in order to produce unrest of all kinds. Under such alarming circumstances, the two Russian companies stationed in Sukhum were hardly sufficient to defend the fortress and could not think of restoring order in the region. In 1821, Sefer Bey died, leaving his eldest son Dimitri, who was brought up in St. Petersburg, as the heir to the principality. Taking advantage of his absence, the Abkhazians, worried by Aslan Bey, the Turks and Hassan Bey, who, for his part, were preparing to seize the principality to the detriment of his nephew, armed themselves against the Russians, who supported the right of a legitimate heir. An expedition was appointed to pacify Abkhazia, which ended with the installation of Demetrius on the princely throne. Gassan Bey was captured and sent to Siberia, where he lived for about five years, after which he was allowed to return to Abkhazia. Dimitri died in 1824 without leaving any children. The uprising in Abkhazia was repeated and caused a new armed intervention on the part of the Russians, in favor of Mikhail, the second son of the late Sefer Bey.

In 1830, when the entire eastern coast of the Black Sea passed into the possession of Russia, a detachment of ten companies of the 44th Jaeger Regiment, eight guns and a small team of Cossacks arrived by sea in Abkhazia and occupied Bambory, Pitsunda and Gagra. The first two points, located within Abkhazia, were occupied without a shot, despite the efforts of the Abkhazian nobles to excite the people to resistance and, following the example of previous uprisings, to call for help from the Ubykhs and Shapsugs.

A year later, a Russian detachment under the command of General Berkhman, consisting of two infantry regiments, including five thousand people, captured Gelendzhik, despite the stubborn resistance of the Natukhai and Shapsugs. The lack of horses, draft animals, and mainly timber, which had to be brought in by ships from Kerch and Feodosia, did not prevent our troops from strengthening and building all the necessary premises in one summer. While the work was being done, and after that, for a whole winter, the enemy did not give rest to our troops.

The memoirs of Fedor Fedorovich Tornau are a unique historical source that tells about the ups and downs of Caucasian life and military operations in the Caucasus in the second half of the 30s of the 19th century. The author, under the guise of a highlander, twice crossed the Main Caucasian Range in the Western Caucasus, and later was captured by the Circassians, where he spent two years, from 1836 to 1838.

Part one. 1835

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The following excerpt from the book Memoirs of a Caucasian officer (F. F. Tornau, 1865) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.

Part one

Prior to the occupation of Gagra and Gelendzhik, we had no exact idea of the resistance that awaited us, of the bad climate and other difficulties that our troops had to fight on the Circassian coast. The experience with which we have been enriched in these cases has compelled us to suspend further operations on the Black Sea coast until such time as it will be possible to prepare all the means necessary to eliminate the noticed inconveniences. A numerous and well-armed enemy, who met our troops with desperate courage, demanded to repel his numerical forces, which we could not have at that time in the Caucasus. Kazi-Megmet, the first distributor of Muridism among the highlanders, raised Chechnya and the whole of Dagestan against us, plundered the border towns, Kizlyar and Mozdok, and recently began to threaten the Georgian military road, our closest, if not the only communication with the Transcaucasian provinces. First, it was necessary to pacify the left flank of the Caucasian line, where all free troops were sent, and then think about new conquests.

The military operations of the thirty-second year in Chechnya and in Dagestan brought us complete success. The commander-in-chief of the Caucasian corps, Baron Rosen, climbed with a small detachment to Mount Galgay, near the Georgian military road, which was considered by the highlanders to be completely impregnable for our troops, and again subdued the Kist societies, carried away by Kazi-Megmet in a general uprising. After that, our troops, under the personal command of Baron Rosen and Velyaminov, marched throughout Chechnya, defeating the enemy wherever he showed himself; penetrated through the Ichkerian forest to Benoi and Dargo, destroyed these two villages, and in late autumn finally descended into the deep gorge of the Koysu River in order to strike the uprising at its root with the last, decisive blow. Gimry, in which Kazi-Megmet was born and constantly lived, was taken by attack, and he himself was killed. The resounding successes of our troops and in particular the death of the imam, the head of the murids, which greatly struck the minds of the highlanders, forced Chechnya and the Dagestanis to submit unconditionally to the Russian will. The left flank of the Caucasian line seemed to be pacified for a long time; after that, it was possible to transfer hostilities again to the western part of the Caucasus and, preferably, to deal with the arrangement of the coastline.

Believing that the highlanders were not able to defend themselves for a long time on their own, without the help of the Turks, who delivered goods, salt and various military supplies to them in exchange for women and boys, all our attention turned to stopping Turkish trade with the Circassians. For this purpose, already in 1830, the Circassian coast was declared in a blockade position, and a permanent cruising was established to monitor it. Despite this measure, Turkish merchants continued to communicate with the Circassians. Our cruisers very rarely had time to capture them, since our sailing keel ships (steamboats did not exist back then in the Black Sea Fleet) had to keep some distance from the coast and, in case of a storm, go to the open sea, while the flat-bottomed Turkish checkterms sailed almost always under the protection of the coast and in bad weather they were pulled out onto it or hid in the mouths of countless rivers flowing into the Black Sea. The small success of the naval blockade led to the conclusion that the communication of the Turks with the Circassian coast would stop only when all the points they were accustomed to visiting were occupied by Russian fortifications. This idea, which seemed very solid and easy to implement at first glance, met in the application of disadvantages and difficulties that only people who were closely familiar with the Caucasian circumstances could fully appreciate. One of the main difficulties for the establishment of the coastline was then the lack of accurate information about the terrain, about the number of the enemy and about the means that he had at his disposal for his defense. In addition, it was highly desirable to remove the inconveniences discovered by the previous landing expeditions, which made the ground forces completely dependent on the sea. But in order to decide whether the locality and the circumstances permit us to proceed preferentially by land, it was again necessary to study more precisely the country in which we intended to establish ourselves in a firm manner. All this prompted Velyaminov to oppose the accelerated occupation of the sea coast by a number of fortifications that were not connected to each other and to the line by good and safe roads. In his opinion, for a thorough pacification of the highlanders, one should beware of recklessness, move in the mountains step by step, leaving no unconquered space behind, and take care to achieve positive results for the future, and not instant brilliant successes, which have more than once attracted a series of unexpected failures.

Submitting to a higher will, Velyaminov moved in the spring of 1934 beyond the Kuban from the Olginsky redoubt in order to open communication with the Sudzhuk Bay. The construction of the Abinsk fortification took all summer. In the same year, under the command of Major General N., a detachment consisting of several battalions was sent to Abkhazia to develop roads and build fortifications necessary to protect communications. During the summer, N. managed to develop a road no further than the ancient Dranda monastery, which he turned into a fortification, and build a small redoubt in Ilori. The inhabitants showed no resistance; on the other hand, our detachment found so many obstacles in the Abkhazian nature itself that N. did not hope to build roads from Drand to Bzyb before the autumn of the next year, considering, moreover, it was completely impossible to continue moving beyond Gagra by land, because of the rocks blocking the coastal road near this place. The indicated obstacle existed in all its strength only for our troops, who were obliged to carry baggage and artillery behind them. It did not prevent the highlanders from passing into Abkhazia by various other mountain routes or passing near the rocks in good weather, which was completely prevented by the surf during the wind from the sea. This circumstance made still more difficult the question of the path to be taken for the construction of the coastline, and prompted the War Office to repeat the demand for intensified reconnaissance, which had long been ordered.

But both Baron Rosen and Velyaminov equally wanted to avoid the need to use this method, which, in their opinion, could not bring the expected benefit from it. For the production of landing reconnaissance at different points, over forty geographical miles of a completely unfamiliar, mountainous coast, covered with a continuous forest, representing an excellent defense for the enemy, it was necessary to use several thousand people and about twenty military and transport ships. The sacrifices in men and money that the government had to make in this case far exceeded the benefits that reconnaissance could bring. Places would have to be taken at random, paying with the lives of dozens of soldiers for every piece of land not exceeding the space under fire from our artillery. The most important information about the roads inside the mountains, about the size of the population, about its livelihood and war, remained completely inaccessible to the troops. All the losses and expenses incurred during the reconnaissance had, moreover, to be repeated once again at the final occupation of the points chosen for the construction of fortifications. In addition, reconnaissance, no doubt, would attract the attention of the mountaineers to the places they examined and would encourage them to strengthen their defenses by artificial means, beyond the natural obstacles with which the Circassian coast is so generously endowed.

There was only one means left to replace in a useful way the unpromising reconnaissance: to instruct a sufficiently knowledgeable officer to secretly inspect the seashore. Thanks to the location of General Valkhovsky, remembered by all old Caucasians, the choice fell on me. I have been in the Caucasus since the beginning of 1932; before that, I participated in the Transdanubian campaign against the Turks and in the Polish war. Having received a fairly significant wound during the Ichkerin expedition in 1932, I was ill for a long time, and a year later I was forced to spend the summer in the Caucasian mineral waters to strengthen my strength. When I returned to Tiflis, Valkhovsky met me with a proposal to give up society and all its pleasures for a long time, transform myself into a Circassian, settle in the mountains and devote myself to communicating information that was supposed to be obtained at such a high price: he did not hide from me the dangers I had to contend with; Yes, and I myself understood them very well. Since the business entrusted to me was outside the circle of ordinary assignments, it was impossible to demand from me its execution in an official manner, without my voluntary consent. Therefore, the commander-in-chief instructed General Valchovsky to persuade me to go to the mountains, leaving me to set the conditions on which I considered it advantageous to render the service required of me. Ready to sacrifice myself unconditionally for the good of the state, but not at all disposed to trade my life and freedom, I rejected conditions that could concern my personal interests, and insisted only on delivering to me all those advantages on which, in my opinion, the success of the enterprise depended. . Baron Rosen agreed to give me the right to freely dispose of myself and my time, to enter into relations with obedient and recalcitrant mountaineers, not embarrassed by existing rules, and, within the boundaries indicated to me, to promise them rewards or forgiveness for various crimes, if one of them becomes me. help in my business. Thus secured against extraneous interference by the local Caucasian authorities, I set to work with pleasure and with confidence in success for my assignment, and in the year 1935 I made two successful trips from Abkhazia to the line and back.

I was not the first Russian to go to the mountains. In 1830, the Shapsug foreman Abat Beslinei spent with the danger of his life a disguised artillery captain Novitsky along the road that Velyaminov developed after that in the thirty-fifth year. Their journey lasted three days, during which they traveled about seventy miles, using the night time. In 1834, the captain of the general staff, Prince Shakhovskoy, crossed the snowy ridge from Svaneti to Bolshaya Kabarda. His journey was very curious, fraught with great difficulties in the wild, but did not pose a direct danger to life. The newly subdued ruler of Svanetia, to whom he was sent with gifts, received him openly, ferried him with his people over the mountains and handed him over to the princes of Kabarda, obedient to us, who escorted him further to the line.

The journey that I was to make along the Circassian coast was undertaken under completely different conditions. The first difficulty was to find reliable guides who, by their courage and their position in the mountains, could take on such a task. Further, I had to penetrate into the middle of the densest Circassian population, alarmed and irritated by the danger that threatened it from two sides, as a result of the appearance of our troops in Abkhazia and beyond the Kuban. I had to inspect not just one road, but a very significant area in the mountains, live and travel for a long time between the enemy, whose sharp distrust was equal to hostility towards us, and not change myself with a single word or movement unusual for a mountaineer. I did not know the Circassian language and could only say a few words in Tatar. The last shortcoming, however, should not have been such an insurmountable obstacle for me, as those who do not know the Caucasus may think.

There are so many different dialects among the highlanders that it was always possible for me to pass myself off as a person belonging to a tribe whose language was not understood by the inhabitants of the place where I was.

For these reasons, many in the Caucasus, who had had the opportunity to get acquainted with the highlanders and, in general, with local circumstances, considered such a trip to be a completely unrealizable business. But the more obstacles and difficulties appeared, the stronger the desire to fulfill the journey contrary to all predictions took root in me; However, I did not at all hide from myself that in case of failure, my position in the mountains became really hopeless.

In order to hide the real purpose of my departure to Abkhazia, from where it was found convenient to start my travels, I received a public appointment to be with the troops of the Abkhazian active detachment. Wasting no time, I left Tiflis in December 1934, although the stormy winter time promised me the most difficult and unpleasant journey.

I will not describe in detail my journey from Tiflis to the borders of Abkhazia; it was very inconsequential. Winter time hid from me the picturesque side of the rich Imeretian and Mingrelian nature. Bad roads, bad lodgings, cold, mud and snow followed me alternately from the beginning to the end of the trip. As far as Suram, I rode Russian mail carts; everyone knows how calm they are. Through the Surami Mountains and further I had to ride on Cossack variable horses. In Kutais, I stopped for several days to report to the governor of Imereti, the head of the Abkhazian active detachment, who knew only about my public appointment to be with the troops in Abkhazia, since in Tiflis it was recognized as necessary not to confide the secrets of my present assignment to anyone in order to protect me from the consequences of any even unintentional indiscretion. From there I continued on my way without rest. Now, they say, a road has been built from Tiflis to Poti, very convenient for travel in the heaviest carriage; then it was not at all the same; in 1834, and for a long time after that, it was not easy to pass on horseback through these places at any time of the year. Especially the last three mails before Redoubt-Calais were unbearable. The road that passed over the swamp was paved with half-hewn logs floating in muddy mud. With every step that the horse took, stepping on them, they sank into the mud. Not hitting a log, the horse fell into the swamp above the knee, fell and often threw off the rider. Then everyone stopped, lifted the fallen one, freed the horse from the trap into which it fell, well still, if not with broken legs. Not an hour passed without a similar incident with someone from our train, which consisted, besides me, of my servant, a pack and the usual team of Don Cossack guards, without whom at that time they did not even travel around Mingrelia. Such adventures and a feeling of constant hunger, since at the Cossack posts there was only bread and sour wine, my travel impressions were limited. From Kutais itself, I did not use any other room, except for guard wattle huts, spending the night in them, according to the Caucasian custom, on the ground, wrapped in a cloak instead of a bed and a blanket; and therefore I rejoiced not a little when I heard the sound of the sea, which signified the nearness of Redoubt Calais, in which I expected to find some reward for the hardships I had experienced. When we arrived at the Redoubt, it was completely dark, and only this darkness prevented my premature disappointment. Redoubt-Kale - an earthen fortification built on the seashore, near the mouth of the Hopi River, in the middle of impenetrable swamps, was at that time a forgotten corner in which several soldiers, officers, quarantine and customs officials vegetated, exhausted by fevers. Inside the fortification, lined with a small number of wooden buildings, everything bore the stamp of boredom, longing, dilapidation and poverty. The rain that had been pouring all day left me wet to the bone and covered in mud, having fallen with my horse several times. I eagerly wanted to warm up and take a break from the road. By order of the commandant, I was shown the best of the rooms designated for the reception of travelers on business. Apart from a table, two chairs, and a wooden bed, without a mattress, there was no furniture in it; on the other hand, many boards, arranged around the room in the form of columns, propped up the ceiling, threatening, without their help, to cover the impudent tenant with their weight. Fortunately for me, there was a huge fireplace in the room, in which a fire was lit, which allowed me to dry off, make tea and roast a skinny chicken, sold to me by the caretaker of the house for dear money. The next day, getting ready to go, I noticed that the house in which I spent the night was also supported from the outside by log buttresses, without which it could easily fall apart in all directions. I hope that they decided to take it apart for firewood before some unfortunate traveler found an untimely death under its ruins.

Burning with impatience to come to Bambory as soon as possible, where I was to find General Patsovsky, who, in the absence of N., commanded all the troops in Abkhazia, I did not extend my rest in Redut-Kale for one hour and set off on the road at dawn of the next day. I was in a hurry to see Patsovsky, because in Abkhazia he was the only person who had the opportunity to help me in my enterprise with deed and advice, knowing the region and using a good influence on the Abkhazians.

Two roads led from Redut-Kale to Sukhum. The first of them, which served as an ordinary communication for the Abkhazians from time immemorial, passed over the very sea along the coastal sand and small stones. Very inconvenient for the movement of artillery and convoys, it, moreover, was flooded with water in windy weather. Another was laid by our troops in the past year, in order to avoid this inconvenience, at some distance from the sea. The sky was covered with clouds, an unusually strong wind blew from the sea, ridges of dark waves, bordered by white foam, measuredly broke on the steep bank that towered above the road to the right, and flooded it for as long as the eye could see. It was impossible to drive along the coast. The Cossacks asked me to wait out the weather better than to follow a new road, along which, as they said, the horses would not reach the first post, which was twenty miles from Redoubt. Time was precious to me, and, not listening to their advice, I went along the upper road developed by General N., believing that I would still find it in a better condition than as the Cossack guards said. But soon I was convinced of the truth of their words. Passing for a long distance through a century-old forest, without choosing a terrain, along deep hollows and through swampy places, it wriggled like a ribbon of thick black mud, in which horses drowned above the knee, stumbling at every step on the stumps and roots of felled trees. In Abkhazia, the snow began to melt, and this circumstance did not serve to improve the ordinary qualities of the road. Finding no way to move forward along it, we were forced to go around it through the forest, slowly making our way between trees that whipped our faces with branches, and frequent thorny bushes that clung to horses and tore at our clothes.

We also spent a lot of time crossing the countless rivers that overflowed their banks, due to the growing weather and the sea surf, which stopped their flow. In Anaklia, a Mingrelian border town, with a mixed population of Turks, Mingrelians, Abkhazians and Armenians, we crossed the wide Ingur. It was the only crossing along the whole road from Redoubt Calais to Bambore, on which I found a ferry, though bad, but which, nevertheless, could transport a small number of horses and wagons at one time, and with it several carriers. On all other rivers, we met only two kayaks, hollowed out of wood and tightly knit together, on which one horse could hardly stand, and a vine, thrown instead of a rope from one bank to another, which we held with our hands during the crossing. It also happened that one small kayak, pulled ashore, marked the place where it was necessary to cross. There was no mention of carriers. The inhabitants, who had the duty to protect the crossings and support carriers on them, performed their duty somehow while the troops were nearby. Following their removal, they themselves scattered and carried away, in addition, ropes, boards and all the iron that was on the ferries. It would be difficult to build posts at each crossing and occupy them with teams and would crush the troops, and it would be dangerous to leave several people to look after the native carriers.

My escort Cossacks, who are well acquainted with the existing order, seeing the river from afar, immediately rushed to look for a ferry or a kayuk in the bushes and in the reeds flooded with water, took off their packs, unsaddled the horses, and the crossing began. Horses were usually allowed to swim, for which one Cossack, having undressed, mounted the best horse and swam ahead, knowing that other horses would not leave her behind. People, luggage and saddles were transported in a kayuk, at the bottom of which two or three people were placed with difficulty, occupied with one thought and one thing - to keep the kayuk in balance, which bounced and spun like a chip under the pressure of a fast river rushing into the sea, and the surf that threw back its course. The Don Cossacks, who maintained horse mail in Abkhazia, were generally good swimmers, like all Russians living on the banks of large rivers; so I was not afraid of drowning, although I myself could not swim.

On the first day of my departure from Redoubt-Kale, with great difficulty, late at night, I reached the first post, having traveled no more than twenty miles. Detours, which we were compelled to look for incessantly in the forest, in order to avoid the torment of driving along the developed road, and frequent crossings completely exhausted us. People and horses barely made it to bed for the night. The next day, having experienced the same misfortunes, I moved to Ilori, on the border of Abkhazia, where in the past year our troops built a fortification on the banks of the Galizga. The real border of Abkhazia began on the right bank of the Ingur. Galizga previously served only to separate the two Abkhaz districts - Samurzakan and Abzhiv. For reasons that I could never understand in a clear way, the Samurzakan district was attributed by us to the possessions of the Mingrelian prince, and the Abkhazian border was pushed back from Ingur to Galizga. The consequence of this expulsion was, at least in my time, that the Samurzakans, freed from obedience to their natural prince, also refused to obey the new ruler; and the independent direction of their way of thinking began to be discovered by theft and robbery.

The Ilori redoubt, if it is possible to call by this name the wrong heaps of dirt, which meant the places where the breastwork should have been, contained in its district line a company of a Georgian grenadier regiment. The soldiers who lived in booths built of poles and reeds literally drowned in mud. The company arsenal, grocery store, stables and kitchens did not have a place in the fortification. Wishing to inspect its inside, I left in the mud the soldier's boots, which I put on instead of galoshes, over thin Circassian shoes, and was very pleased when I freed myself from it with the help of the soldiers who took me by the arms. It was hard to understand why the redoubt was built at Ilori, where it protected nothing but the soldiers defending it; and why they were here, and, moreover, in the number of only one company, even less could be explained. The redoubt itself performed its official purpose very badly, having lost all the defensive strength of its profile under the stream of Abkhazian autumn rains. Looking at him, the thought involuntarily arose why in Abkhazia, extremely rich in timber of all kinds, wooden defensive barracks, fortifications from a palisade, even from wattle, topped with thorny bushes, were not built then, but they intensified to throw up mounds of greasy, silty soil, completely inconvenient for earthen buildings. One and a half hundred soldiers stationed in the redoubt were in no case able to either prevent or stop riots if they arose among the inhabitants.

To supervise the crossing over the Galizga and to change the horses, it would be enough to have a Cossack post here, reinforced by two dozen infantry soldiers. Unfortunately for us, many such mistakes were being made in the Caucasus at that time. They constantly occupied places without any need, built fortifications that were unsuitable for either the terrain or the type of war, placed garrisons in them too weak to keep the inhabitants in fear, thus fragmented their forces, subjected the troops to no benefit to diseases and all kinds of hardships. , and the mountaineers were given by these false measures only a chance to rob and kill Russian soldiers. The reason for this lay in the impossibility of the chief commanders to see everything with their own eyes and discuss with their own minds, and in the inability and inexperience of private commanders, especially those who, having arrived from Russia, received, by their rank or for some other reason, individual bosses and, not listening to the old Caucasian servicemen, they took orders in the mountains or in the middle of the Abkhazian and Mingrelian swamps according to the rules of the military regulations and school fortifications of that time. I will not forget how one of the engineers who strengthened the coastline asked with surprise: from what fortification this rule was taken, when he was advised to plant it with thorny bushes instead of a palisade located on the crown of the parapet, which would not only be cheaper, but also more effective. It must be added that the thorn bush was used with great benefit even in the time of Yermolov, in which all the fortifications on the Kabardian plane were strengthened by this defensive means, and thanks to him they always got rid of the misfortune of seeing the enemy within their walls, which happened with some fortifications of the Black Sea coastline, whose builders were highly learned theorists.

From Ilori to Drand, they counted forty versts, which I traveled in one day, because in this area there was less forest, and therefore the road was better. Through three branches of the Kodor, on which it was not possible to arrange ferries, due to the unusually fast current, we forded, having water above the saddle, so that in places the horses had to swim.

The Drandskaya ancient church, built, as it should be assumed, in the middle of the sixth century, at the same time as the Pitsunda monastery, lies five versts from the seashore, on a hill that forms an open area surrounded by forest on all sides. As a monument of Byzantine architecture, it represented many remarkable things; but I did not then have time to study it and limited myself to the first impression that it made on me with its simple, majestic mass, which solitarily dominated the desert surroundings. Whoever wants to get to know the nature of its construction, as well as other ancient monuments in the Caucasus, will find their detailed description in the journey of the archaeologist Dubois. To the right of Drand one could see the gradually rising wooded buttresses of the main ridge, supporting a series of snowy peaks that cut into the horizon like a jagged, shining wall. To the left, the sea roared, hidden from view by dark forests. Except for this noise, desert silence reigned everywhere.

The choice of this place for fortification was very successful, it is only a pity that at the same time they touched the church, occupying it with officers' apartments and a storehouse of provisions. In semi-Christian, semi-Mohammedan Abkhazia, it was necessary to preserve such monuments of Christian antiquity, for which the Muslim Abkhazians themselves had an inexplicable feeling of reverence, based on dark legends about the shrine that overshadowed the faith of their forefathers. In military terms, this point offered very tangible benefits: it provided a solid basis for action against the Tsebelda, which occupied impregnable gorges along the upper Kodor, and, due to a healthy climate and good water, provided all the conditions necessary for saving troops. It was pleasant to see the fresh and cheerful faces of the soldiers, clearly testifying in favor of the Drand camp. The number of patients in the battalion of the Georgian Grenadier Regiment, wintering in Drandy, usually did not exceed twelve people out of seven hundred. This was a remarkable fact among the Caucasian troops, who usually suffered and perished incomparably more from disease than from enemy weapons. In Drandi I took advantage of the friendly hospitality of the battalion commander with pleasure in order to rest one day and reward myself, for the first time after Kutais, for the increased abstinence to which I was condemned during the whole journey.

From Drand, the road descended to the shore through a dense forest and, turning to the right, then led to Sukhum, just above the sea, along the deep coastal sand. On the one hand, the sea, and on the other, the impenetrable forest took away her space to the point that in places she was no wider than four or five fathoms. Here the Abkhazians blocked the road with a high blockage in the twenty-fourth year and met the Russian detachment from behind it and from the forest with the most deadly fire, marching, under the command of Prince Gorchakov, who ruled Imeretia, to rescue Captain Marachevsky, who was defending, near Bambor, with two companies of the Abkhaz ruler Mikhail from his rebellious subjects. Despite the desperate resistance of the enemy and the disadvantages of the situation, which subjected them to well-aimed shots at close range from invisible opponents, our troops instantly took possession of the blockage and opened their way to Sukhum. The Abkhazians, seeing that the Russians could not be stopped by the fear of death and barred their way with open force, scattered after that at the edge of the forest, ceased fire on the soldiers and began to shoot exclusively at artillery and pack horses. Having killed most of them, they forced the detachment to stop in Sukhum and wait until a sufficient number of ships had gathered to transport it by sea to Bambori, because there was nothing to carry provisions and shells by land. From this, Marachevsky almost died. More than six hundred dead horses lay on the seashore and polluted the air along the way, which made it necessary to dress up two military transports for the next year to transport their remains to the open sea.

Not reaching five miles to the fortress, the Abkhazian village of Kelassuri lay on the way, in which Gassan Bey, the uncle of the ruler, lived. His chopped wooden house, which looked like a wide quadrangular tower, stood on high stone pillars. The covered gallery, embracing the whole house, to which a narrow and extremely steep staircase led, facilitated its defense. The courtyard was surrounded by a high palisade with loopholes, in which a cramped gate opened, capable of only letting one person or one horse through. It was enough to look at the construction of the house, at the palisade that surrounded it, at this small, tightly closed gate, in order to understand the constant state of fear in which Hassan Bey spent his life. The alarming state of Abkhazia in general, the personal enmity that he managed to arouse in many, and several attempts on his life, from which he escaped almost by a miracle, forced Gassan Bey not to neglect any measures of caution.

Opposite his house, just above the sea, there was a long row of wooden shops that belonged to the Turks who crossed from Sukhum to Kelassuri when the fortress fell to the Russians. On the doorsteps of the shops Turkish merchants sat, as was their usual custom, and smoked from long chibouks, with an air of the deepest calmness. It seemed that nothing that was happening around, did not occupy their spirit, soaring in unknown limits - they looked into the distance so lifelessly and indifferently. But their indifference was very deceptive. On the one hand, they watched the road, closely examining the passers-by, and on the other hand, they did not lose sight of our military squadron, which was stationed on the Sukhumi roadstead. Nothing that happened on our ships was hidden from their intense attention. From everything they drew their conclusions, which had one permanent goal: to deceive the vigilance of our sailors and smuggle prohibited goods. Everything that tended to our harm and could interfere with our views pleased them sincerely. The Turks frankly hated us - this is in the order of things. Previously, they excelled in Abkhazia and enjoyed the most profitable trade with the Circassians and Abkhazians, from which the merchant enriched himself in three or four voyages; now we have ousted them from this advantageous position and, moreover, have tried to completely destroy their trade, seizing and converting them into court prizes laden with military supplies and Circassian women. Gassan Bey, who ruled the Sukhum district as a specific prince, was considered, not without reason, the most inveterate patron of the Turks living in Abkhazia, and this could not be blamed on him. Religion, the habits of youth inclined him to the side of the Turks, and, in addition, he found a constant source of income in his Kelassur bazaar. Turkish merchants paid him a significant fee for the right to trade and, moreover, delivered to him all the rare goods that could not be found in the whole of Abkhazia. Dark rumors were circulating about night trading in this bazaar, incomparably more lively than what its daily activities seemed to be, about boats seen in the forest near Kelassuri, to which armed people gathered in crowds at night; but all this, it seems, was just empty talk of Hassan Bey's envious people. Our military launches, sometimes passing by Kelassuri by chance at night, never noticed anything like this: they always found the market in deep sleep, and along the entire coast, at a distance of ten miles from Hassan Bey’s house, there was no corner in which the Turkish checkterma could hide. ; all our sailors vouched for this, surveying the shore with the greatest attention. Therefore, the Kelassuri Turks continued without restraint to sell tobacco, Turkish delight and paper materials and to follow with participation and curiosity our squadron, examining it, when necessary, with their long spotting scopes.

Arriving with the intention of finding in Abkhazia a means to travel beyond Gagra, to the hostile Circassians, I could not stay long in one place; I had to, making incessant trips, get acquainted with the region and with people from whom, according to my calculation, one could expect help for my enterprise. First of all, it was necessary to form contacts and acquaintances among the Abkhazians with whom circumstances forced me to deal, and to find a plausible pretext for my future trips, capable of diverting their incredulous curiosity from my real intention. It seemed to me that it would be best to start with the clever and cunning Hassan Bey, the secret opponent of the Russians, who had great weight among the Abkhazians, who were dissatisfied with the existing order of things. I decided not to pass him home. It was very important for me to acquire his favor and, if possible, to win his power of attorney. Without counting even on his assistance, it was still better to have him as a friend than an enemy; his enmity would be doubly dangerous to me because of the connections he had in the mountains. Fortunately, I had a pretext for my future wanderings in Abkhazia, and it was supposed not only to calm Hassan Bey's curiosity, but even to interest him, touching on some of his personal calculations. It consisted in the Tsebelda case, about which I was instructed to collect, on occasion, the most accurate information. Mentioning this case, I consider it necessary to explain: what was Tsebelda at that time and what, in the diplomatic language of our time, was the Tsebelda issue, very simple for the highlanders, but extremely confusing for us.

Abkhazia, subordinated to Russia in the person of its ruler, occupied the seashore from Ingur to Bzyb and was divided into four districts: Samurzakan, Abzhiv, Sukhum and Bzyb. The Samurzakan district, as I mentioned before, was assigned by us to Mingrelia. In addition, there was in the mountains, between the sources of Bzyb and Kodor, an independent society, made up of Abkhazian immigrants, called Tsebel and, due to its geographical position between the snow ridge and the Abkhazian coast, was supposed to constitute the fifth district of Abkhazia, but which always refused to obey the ruler, finding in the inaccessibility of his position, sufficient protection against his claims. When the Russian troops began to develop roads in Abkhazia, the Tsebelda people took advantage of this circumstance to constantly disturb us, steal portioned cattle, horses and kill single soldiers, however, restraining themselves from attacks by open force. In addition to the direct harm they did to us, their example sometimes fascinated the Abkhazians and, worst of all, gave them the opportunity to carry out thefts and murders under their name.

The small Tsebelda, which, according to our then information, consisted of no more than eight hundred or a thousand families, served as an unpleasant hindrance to our affairs in Abkhazia. To pacify her strength, it was necessary to sacrifice time and part of the troops, which, it seemed, would be more useful to use for work that had the subject of the speedy arrangement of the coastline, which promised, as it was then believed, to deprive the highlanders of all means of resistance. At that time, the Mingrelian ruler, Dadian, offered his services, promising to peacefully persuade the Tsebeldins to live in peace and even submit themselves to Russian power, if they were forever saved from the attempts of the Abkhazian ruler on their independence. His proposal was accepted with great pleasure. Dadian was of no importance among the Tsebeldins and could act on them only through Gassan Bey, whose sister was married to Khenkurus Marchaniy, one of the Tsebeldin princes. Both of them agreed on this matter, hating equally to Mikhail, the ruler of Abkhazia, and having in mind to curry favor at his expense before the Russian government and make him a sensitive nuisance, finally destroying his influence on the Tsebeldins. But Hassan Bey's connection with Dadian could not be frank; acting on the one hand against the benefits of Michael, on the other hand, he interfered at hand with the negotiations of Dadian with the Tsebelda people, not seeing any special benefits for himself in the positive calming of Abkhazia and in the reconciliation of its mountainous neighbors. Meanwhile, Michael also took an indirect part in this matter, resisting, as much as possible, the intrigues of Dadian and Hassan Bey to completely distract Tsebelda from him. As a ruler, he was right in acting in favor of his power, which alone could serve to preserve something resembling civil order in Abkhazia. We Russians had no moral significance in it at that time and could only rely on force alone. Yes, and in the Tsebelda case, he had the opportunity to contribute more to our interests than his two rivals. A special affection for Dadian of Mingrelian and some kind of unconscious prejudice against Michael did not allow us to clearly see the true state of affairs. From all these opposing interests, an impenetrable network of the most cunning intrigues was woven, as is usual among the mountaineers, in which the Russian authorities finally got entangled, not understanding anything. I did not have the presumptuous thought of unraveling this complex, cunningly connected intrigue; but I found it very convenient to use it for my own purpose. She gave me the opportunity to get close to Gassan Bey, who did not favor us at all, and through him to other natives, enemies of the Russian order, among whom I could most likely find helpers for my enterprise, and to learn their thoughts, without revealing any secrets. desires.

Arriving at the house, I stopped and, without naming myself, sent to find out if Hassan Bey wanted to see a traveler. This is one of the beneficial aspects of Caucasian hospitality. A stranger is accepted without asking who he is, where he comes from and where he is going, until he himself considers it necessary to announce this, sometimes only as a secret, to one owner, having reasons to hide his name and his affairs from strangers. By the time they were reporting on me, a good half an hour had passed. At this time, I and my escorts were examined from home with great attention. Incessantly different faces appeared at the loopholes, peered at me very intently, and then disappeared. Finally the gate opened, and Gassan Bey came out to meet me, having behind him several Abkhazians with guns in their hands. I saw in him a stout man, of small stature, dressed in a rich Circassian coat, with a high Turkish turban on his head, armed with two long pistols in a silver frame; one of them he held in his hand, ready to fire. Who only knew Hassan Bey does not remember him without these pistols, which saved him from death twice and from which he fired almost without a miss. Leaving the horse, I approached him with a request to allow me to identify myself and explain everything when we were alone. Gassan Bey silently led me into the room, seated me on a low sofa across from him, demanded coffee and a chubuk, as was the Turkish custom, and sent the servants out. I introduced myself, spoke about my appointment to be with the troops and about the reason that prompted me to dress in Circassian style; Having, I added, an assignment to study the Tsebelda case, which required from me incessant trips around Abkhazia, I considered it prudent not to draw the attention of the people to myself. Gassan Bey liked my frankness so much that in half an hour we became perfect friends and confided our innermost thoughts to each other - of course, without losing due caution. He not only agreed with me, at least in words, in everything that I said about the Abkhazian and Tsebelda affairs, which were of great interest to him, and praised my intention under the Circassian clothes to remain an unknown person for the people, but provided me, moreover, with a lot of very solid advice regarding my personal safety. After a rich Turkish dinner, seasoned with red pepper to such an extent that I singed my throat and palate like fire, Gassan Bey accompanied me to Sukhum with a rather motley crowd of his mounted bodyguards. He did not go to the fortress, having an irresistible disgust from it from the time when he was seized in it unexpectedly before leaving for Siberia.

Sukhum made the most unfavorable impression on me. The bazaar, located in front of the fortress, consisted of no more than twenty dirty taverns, in which wine, vodka, tobacco, saddles, weapons, beef, salted fish, vegetables and the simplest Turkish materials were put up for sale indiscriminately. The hosts were Greeks and Armenians. Several Abkhazians with rifles behind their backs, with caps on their heads tied in the form of turbans, walked lazily along the only swampy street of this market, and sailors in their canvas trousers and dark green jackets ran across, looking into the shops and bargaining with merchants. Only from one dukhan merry voices were heard; in its open window one could see the epaulettes and caps of our naval officers. It was the dukhan of Toganes, chosen by them for a permanent refuge on the shore, the only resting place in Sukhum, which gave them the opportunity to forget the inexpressible longing that he brought to everyone over a glass of porter or marsala. Toganesov's shop differed from other dukhans by a plaster statue placed in front of its doors from a transport shipwrecked in the middle of the Sukhumi bay.

The fortress, built of wild stone in the form of a quadrangle, about a hundred fathoms in front, with towers in the corners, looked like a ruin. Inside it were placed two dilapidated, wooden barracks, a hospital, an artillery storehouse, a grocery store and the commandant's house. The Sukhumi garrison consisted of two infantry companies and a team of fortress artillery. People had the sickly appearance of unfortunate victims, doomed to an eternal fever, from which half of them died every year. They knew this and, one cannot say with a calm spirit, but meekly bore their fate, without ceasing to perform their hard service with the humility characteristic of a Russian soldier. Escapes happened between them very rarely. Under the Turks, about six thousand inhabitants were counted in Sukhum; in the thirty-fifth year it was impossible to count even hundreds, in excess of the garrison. Previously, the fortress was surrounded by beautiful suburbs, distinguished by many shady gardens, and enjoyed excellent water, carried out from the mountains a mile away. The Turks called Sukhum the second Istanbul. Now swamps spread out near the fortress, polluting the air with their rotten fumes; water pipes were destroyed, the soldiers drank stinking, muddy water, and this was the main cause of illness. We could not in the least be blamed for the decline of Sukhum, it was an inevitable consequence of the unfavorable circumstances that accompanied the stay of our troops in Abkhazia. Seeing that we had positively established ourselves in the fortress, the Turks immediately left the suburbs; Abkhazians were not in the habit of living in cities; and the Russian population could not exist in their neighborhood, in the alarming and unsettled state in which the region was. The surroundings of Sukhum were deserted, and only within the walls of the fortress about four hundred Russian soldiers vegetated, of which one hundred were constantly lying in the infirmary. It is quite clear that this handful of people could not at the same time perform the service, defend themselves from the enemy teasing them and carry out cleansing work near the fortress, which previously lay on the entire Turkish population. In this position I found Sukhum. However, if the fortress and its environs did not have anything lively and attractive, then the raid presented a picture of the liveliest activity. Apart from a few dozen Turkish checkterms floating on the water, about ten Russian warships of various sizes, ranging from a beautiful frigate to an ugly tolla, lay at anchor in front of Sukhum. Heavy launches and light boats cut through the bay in all directions, communicating with the shore and with the ships on which work was in full swing. The squadron was in a hurry to recover from the damage caused to it by the last storm, two weeks before my arrival. The statue, placed at the door of Toganes' dukhan, belonged to a transport thrown ashore by this storm, and its captain and four sailors became a victim of the sea. And other ships were about to experience the same fate, if the wind had not subsided. The frigate, on which the rear admiral was, was already touching the bottom: the corvette and the brig had lost their rudders, not counting the broken masts, yards and bowsprits of other ships. All this happened in the Sukhumi bay. Despite the double and triple anchors, the ships carried to the shore. A strong hurricane swooped in with such speed that our squadron did not have time to go to the open sea. I was very anxious to visit our ships and meet the naval officers, who already then enjoyed the reputation of educated people and excellent sailors, but I had to deny myself this pleasure this time, meaning to get to Bambor as soon as possible.

Leaving Sukhum the next day at dawn, I arrived at the Bambor fort for dinner. From Sukhum to Bambor, forty-five versts were considered to be a fairly convenient coastal road, cluttered with stones in only one place, which, however, did not constitute a significant obstacle for foot or horsemen. The ford across Gumista was considered quite dangerous in high water; other small rivers did not deserve attention.

In Bambory, where I was supposed to have my permanent residence, there were located: a battalion of the 44th jaeger regiment, a regimental headquarters and all the main military establishments and warehouses for the troops occupying Abkhazia. General Patsovsky, commander of the Jaeger regiment and chief of all troops during General A.'s absence, lived in Bambory, occupying a long, low house with a small garden in front, which stood near the guardhouse, on a vast square. The fortification looked like a large bastioned parallelogram and consisted of an earthen parapet of ordinary size. Its interior, divided into six regular quarters lined with small, cleanly whitewashed houses, long barracks and shops, was neat and did not inspire melancholy, characteristic of other Abkhazian fortifications. Near the fortress there was a small suburb with the inevitable bazaar, inhabited by Armenian and Greek merchants. The Abkhazians, and under their patronage also unknown enemy Circassians, came here, less for trade than in order to get news and look out for what the Russians were doing. The position of Bambor in the wide and free valley of the Pshandra River, three versts from the sea coast and almost the same distance from the village of Lekhne, or Sauk-su, as the Turks called it, the seat of the ruler of Abkhazia, gave this point a meaning, which Patsovsky used very skillfully to bring the Abkhazians closer to us and to spread our moral influence on them as much as possible. The Bambors had only one disadvantage, common to the entire coast, on which, except for three bays, Gelendzhik, Sudzhuk and Sukhumi, there was nowhere a convenient anchorage place. Vessels could not anchor closer than three miles from the shore in front of the Bambors, which served as a significant difficulty in unloading military burdens brought here in fairly large numbers. Moreover, the ships had to go to sea from the open roadstead of Bambor at the first sign of a future swell, for fear of being thrown ashore before the wind broke out, which would allow the sails to be unraveled. In 1939, a military steamer anchored in Tuapse wrecked before the pairs could be parted. Such unfortunate examples could be counted very many.

Arriving in Bambory, without changing my clothes, I went to report to General Patsovsky. His affectionate reception encouraged me from the first time and disposed me to this respectable person; subsequently, the closer I got to know him, the more my faith in his spiritual kindness increased. By his order, I was placed in the fortress in two bright and quiet rooms, equipped with everything that could be necessary for rest and study. Thinking too little at that time about the conveniences of life, I appreciated this solicitude for me on the part of Patsovsky, not according to the satisfaction of my modest needs, but according to the strength of the attentiveness he proved. This apartment, which I remember as if I had just parted with it yesterday, rarely, however, saw me within its walls. I slept or occasionally studied in it, while the rest of the time I was on the road or in the house of Patsovsky, who, according to the hospitable Caucasian custom, from the first day invited me to visit him and dine whenever I wanted. His wife, three small children and two pupils of ten years old made up his family. Patsovskaya was very good-looking, good-natured, and tried by all means to make her house pleasant for those who visited it, among whom I was an almost daily guest. In addition to her, there were three more officer's wives in the fortification, who, in the absence of others, could be invited to a quadrille or a mazurka. They limited the available women's society, which did not in the least prevent the young officers from dancing and having fun with all their hearts in an unknown corner of the earth that was called Bambor. On the seashore, not far from the fortification, they wintered: a battalion of the Georgian Grenadier Regiment and an artillery battery belonging to the Abkhazian active detachment. This circumstance served to a considerable revival of Bambor society. Throughout the winter, Patsovskaya hosted dance evenings twice a week. Not only the above-named ladies, but also her little pupils took part in them, and for the lack of a female, young officers became and danced until they dropped. Elderly people, not dancing, spent the evening at the Boston table. The ball ended with a supper, more hearty than refined, during which they did not spare the Abkhaz wine, which, really, was very good. All this was very unpretentious, but it occupied the youth, rich in excess of life, and distracted them from the less innocent pleasures that are inseparable from the military winter quarters. It was amusing to see how they were going to the ball on a dark rainy night. From the coastal barracks the officers came on horseback, wrapped in cloaks and hoods, escorted by Cossacks who lit the road with torches, and sometimes by an infantry convoy with loaded guns, without which it was imprudent to go through the forest, which was located between the sea and the fortification. Guests who lived within the walls of the fortress came on foot. The deep mud that flooded all the streets at the first rain did not allow ordinary galoshes, instead of which they were forced to wear heavy soldier's boots over room shoes. It was not easy to cope with them in the mud, so two soldiers escorted each visitor: one led him by the arm, the other shone a lantern ahead; I was then quite young, ready to take advantage of every opportunity that promised some pleasure, and therefore did not in the least neglect the modest Bambore evenings. But the main pleasure I undoubtedly found in the company of Patsovsky himself. With amazing patience and modesty, which belong to true dignity, he explained to me in the most detailed way his previous actions in Abkhazia and acquainted me with the situation of the region. Convinced of his direct character and common sense, not subject to the suggestions of petty vanity, I soon revealed to him the real goal that I pursued in Abkhazia. I was sure of Patsovsky's modesty, because no one understood better than him the danger that one careless word could expose me to. In his opinion, there was no way to travel from Abkhazia beyond Gagra; firstly, because he did not know an Abkhazian who could be my guide, and secondly, because of the redoubled caution with which the enemy guarded the Gagra passage from the time the active troops arrived in Abkhazia. Later, I was completely convinced of the validity of his opinion, but for the first time I did not dare to abandon my undertaking, based only on his words and not convinced myself of the positive impossibility of fulfilling it from this side. I did not hide from him my intention to try with all my might to refute his conviction with a fact, after which he frankly wished me success, promising to help me on his part as much as possible. He kept his word well. The feeling of spiritual respect that I have kept for his memory until now, twenty-seven years after our acquaintance, prompts me to point out his, although not loud, but very useful merits in Abkhazia.

Patsovsky began his service in the Caucasus with a cadet rank, thirty years before we met. Before the eyes of Tsitsianov, Kotlyarevsky and Yermolov, he took every rank from the battlefield and, being a colonel, was appointed under Alexei Petrovich, first as a Tiflis commandant, and then as commander of the 44th Jaeger Regiment. This circumstance already testifies enough in favor of Patsovsky, because Yermolov was not in the habit of giving regiments to people for the sake of a name, connections, friendship, or for the consolation of beautiful eyes, in addition, he had an excellent gift for guessing people and using them according to their abilities and inclinations. Of the considerable number of generals who commanded under me in the Caucasus, I knew only one who was equal to him in this respect: it was Alexei Alexandrovich Velyaminov. The facts that I had before my eyes clearly proved that Ermolov was not mistaken in Patsovsky. In the thirtieth year, he landed in Abkhazia with ten companies of his regiment, with eight guns and a team of Cossacks, occupied Gagra, Pitsunda and Bambora and did not stop working from that time on the organization of the unit entrusted to him. That he succeeded in this more than could be expected from the meager means at his disposal, every person who saw the Bambors and understood military affairs should have confessed. Having strengthened Pitsunda and Gagra and built the necessary premises for garrisons in them, Patsovsky managed in four years to build a Bambor fortification with barracks, officers' houses, all soldier's household establishments with regimental funds and surround it with gardens and vegetable gardens that aroused surprise and envy of the Abkhazians. In addition to the main fortification, he built redoubts from the palisade: on the seashore for a food warehouse, on the Khypsta River, to save the regimental horses that walked in this place on the grass, and on the Mtsyshe River, to protect the saw mill, arranged by him. All these works were done by the hands of the soldiers, without any burden for them. One had to see his solicitude for the soldiers' needs and his condescension to their shortcomings, which did not prevent him in the least from maintaining the strictest discipline between them, in order to fully appreciate his practical mind and kindness of heart. He knew how to attract Abkhazians to himself and seize their power of attorney, adapting to their concepts and not violating this word in any case. Treacherous themselves, they were all the more able to appreciate truthfulness. They believed him implicitly and came to him from afar for advice and help. In such cases, he often helped them with his own money, not caring whether they would be returned to him by the government. The saw mill on Mtsysh served as one of the main ways of bringing the Abkhazians closer to their Russian neighbors. Before Patsovsky, the Abkhaz had never seen a saw mill and made boards from their hands with a saw and an ax or received them by sea from the Turks. Little by little, they began to come to Mtsysha to exchange and beg for boards from Patsovsky, which he gave them under various conditions that had the benefit of the regimental structure in the subject. Relations began, and soon a certain dependence of the Abkhazians on Russian products arose from them. One has to be an eyewitness to such a circumstance in order to understand how easy it is sometimes to get close to an uneducated enemy with the help of the simplest means, if it gives him material benefits that make him forget, at least for a while, the moral oppression that always lies on the conquered people. The significance that Patsovsky was able to acquire in the eyes of the Abkhazians resonated with all Russians. In the Bzyb district, where the Bambors were located, there were no reports of attacks on our soldiers, who went one by one to the most distant villages. The Abkhazians met them as good friends, the children of Patsovsky, whom they loved. Speaking about the good relations that existed in the Bzyb district between Russians and Abkhazians, one must do justice to the ruler, who, for his part, made every effort to maintain these relations. N. looked at things with different eyes, and, really, it was not his fault if our affairs did not take a more favorable turn for us at that time. Having intervened, as the head of the country, in the disputes between Dadian and Hassan Bey with Michael, he too obviously took the side of the former, apparently offended the interests of the latter, offended his vanity and aroused displeasure in him, which had the result of discord in other matters, which, in their essence, , led to a goal as beneficial for the owner himself as for us. Patsovsky now and then reconciled both sides and settled their relations, which was not always easy when the Russian authorities clashed with possessive pride, based on dignity and on their independent rights.

Shortly after my arrival in Bambory, I went with Patsovsky to Lekhna to introduce myself to the owner, who at that time had the rank of colonel of the Life Guards of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. The road led along a wide and completely smooth clearing lined with poplars, mulberry and walnut trees, twined to the very top with unusually thick vines, which constitute one of the main wealth of the Abkhazian villagers. From the grapes growing in abundance on these vines, a very decent wine is obtained, extracted in Abkhazia in the most primitive way. For this, the inhabitants make a hole in the ground, line it with clay and then burn it as much as possible, setting fire in it. Having trampled the grapes with their feet in this pit, they scoop out wine from it when the juice has fermented, and store it in earthenware jugs buried in the ground. The vines stand in the field without a fence; each owner knows his fruit tree and uses a very cheap way to save it from thieves. To do this, they hang a piece of iron slag on a vine, on cattle, or on every other object that they want to protect from thieves' hands. Not every mountaineer dares to touch a thing given under the protection of this talisman, which is believed to threaten violent death to other people's hands that allow themselves to touch it. However, the Caucasian mountains also have their freethinkers, who neglect such threats. One gun saves them, correcting the main police post among the Circassians.

There is no reason to describe the owner's house in detail. In architecture, it was much like the house of Hassan Bey and differed from it only in size, being incomparably higher and more spacious. The palisade was replaced by a high wicker fence enclosing an extremely large courtyard. Instead of a cramped gate, wide gates were opened for the visitor. It was noticeable that Mikhail was less afraid of enemies than Hassan Bey, or more hoped for his associates. To the left behind the fence, at a distance of a rifle shot from the owner's house, was an old church. As I drove into the yard, I examined with great curiosity the house and its environs, which presented many remarkable things to me. Here, two Russian companies and twenty-two Abkhazians, who did not leave their prince, defended themselves in the twenty-fourth year for more than three weeks against ten or twelve thousand jackets, Ubykhs and rebellious inhabitants of Abkhazia. About three hundred and fifty people who occupied the house, services and the yard, fenced with one wattle fence, without a moat and parapet, managed not only to withstand the siege, but successfully beat off several attacks with open force, until Prince Gorchakov, who commanded the troops in Bambory, rescued them by landing in Imeretin. During the siege, the enemy occupied the church, which I mentioned above, commanded over the entire neighborhood, and began to fire from it in the middle of the courtyard. On a dark night, twenty soldiers under the command of a lieutenant (I don’t remember his name) made a sortie, broke into the church and killed all the Abkhazians who had settled in it, except for one who managed to hide in the choir stalls. Having cleared the church, they retreated to the fence of the owner's house, having lost only four people. This lesson affected the enemy so strongly that he no longer dared to occupy the church, which, as experience proved, was too close to the hand and bayonet of our soldiers. The man who survived the massacre in the church was the famous Abkhazian Katsa Margani, who later transferred with all his soul to the side of the ruler, who, it seems, is now still alive and enjoys the rank of general. Katza himself told me about this night incident, confessing that at the mere recollection of it he was trembling and that he had never experienced anything more terrible in his life. Katsa, as everyone knows, was not one of the timid ones and throughout his life more than once looked death in the eyes without fear. At that time, there was no well in the courtyard of the owner's house, and water was used from a stream that flowed near the fence itself. A descent downhill of about ten sazhens led to the stream in a completely open place. During the day, the enemy occupied all the points from which it was possible to fire at the stream, and bombarded everyone who approached the water with bullets. At night, he approached the stream itself. Fearing that the Abkhazians would kill in turn all the people who tried to get water, they decided to come up with another, safer means of stocking it. There was an old wineskin in the house, which they managed to adapt to this need. They put it on wheels, attached a valve to the upper end, and a load to the lower one, and in this form they began to lower it on ropes into the stream, where it was filled with water, after which it was dragged up the mountain. For several days the garrison used the water obtained by this intricate method. At first, the enemy showered the waterskin with shots, but the bullets slid along its thick and elastic shell. Then several enemy daring men crept up to the very fence at night, and when at dawn our people began to lower the waterskin for water, they attacked him and hacked him with daggers. Almost all of them paid with their lives for this brave deed, but there was no other waterskin, and the garrison was left without water. After several days of excruciating thirst, the rain, which fell in time, helped our people. There was no food at all; people were finishing the last corn prepared in the house for the owner's horses, which had already been eaten before. At this time, Prince Gorchakov arrived in time and freed the besieged, forcing the highlanders to leave. It seems that no one wrote about this defense of the owner's house in Lekhna by our soldiers, and I heard about it only in Abkhazia, at the very scene of the action. The commander of the companies belonging to the 44th Jaeger Regiment was Captain Marachevsky, whom Yermolov awarded for this business with the Order of St. Vladimir of the fourth degree with a bow, which was considered at that time an unusual distinction.

Mikhail Shervashidze, the Abkhaz sovereign prince, who bore the name Hamid Bey among his own people, was then a handsome young man, about twenty-four years old, who enjoyed all the qualities that are highly valued among the Circassians, that is, he was strong, shot excellently from a gun, skillfully owned a horse and did not afraid of danger. As a ruler, he was, in spite of his youth, far from worse, if not better than others, many vaunted Caucasian owners; understood the simple needs of his people and knew how to force himself to obey. In relation to the Russians, he behaved properly, without much pride and without servility, acted not secretly and willingly fulfilled all our demands when they were not in complete disagreement with the means and with the benefit of Abkhazia. I got to know him very briefly and sincerely fell in love with him for the participation he showed me and for his frank actions with me. Patsovsky understood him in a real way and, like an intelligent person, defended him against people who accused him of being hostile to the Russian government, because they did not find in him the usual expression of humility, which in essence so rarely proves true devotion. Like a real mountain prince, Mikhail fulfilled the rules of hospitality in the widest possible manner; no one left his house without refreshments and without a gift. At the beginning of our acquaintance, he presented me with an excellent rifle, with which I then never parted until my last, very unsuccessful trip, which deprived me of this thing dear to me.

As for Tsebelda, Mikhail explained himself to me without any tricks. Everything that he said about this case was in full agreement with Patsovsky's thoughts. He considered it not only useless, but even harmful to persuade the Tsebeldins to submit when they themselves did not find any need or benefit in this. It meant giving them an importance they didn't have. Only force could force them to exchange their unbridled will for subordination, painful for every highlander. But he alone could stop their raids, and make them as harmless as possible for the Russians in Abkhazia, with the voluntary assistance of his people. To do this, he had to maintain in full force his power over the Abkhazians, and the importance that he enjoyed in Tsebelda, which depended on him on the occasion of winter pastures, convenient for them only in his possessions. He did not expect to allow Dadian to interfere in his affairs or to give Hassan Bey an opportunity to increase his personal importance at the expense of his possessory rights. It was clear and so fair that there was nothing to argue about.

Patsovsky, taking care, as much as possible, to facilitate relations with the Abkhazians for me, appointed the lieutenant of his regiment, an Abkhazian native Shakrilov, to be constantly with me in the rank of translator. Shakrilov spoke Russian, Abkhazian and Turkish equally well, knew his homeland thoroughly, and to these qualities, which made him a very expensive find for me, he added even greater courage, covered with an air of extraordinary modesty. He and another Abkhazian, Tsonbai, were the first to decide to enter the Russian military service as young men. Patsovsky, wishing in this way to form a new connection with the Abkhazians and lure them with the benefits of service, took Shakrilov and Tsonbai to his house for education, and in a few years formed excellent officers from them, who did not lag behind their Russian comrades in anything. Shakrilov was married, had an old father and three brothers. Father and older brothers remained Muslims; two younger brothers, Muty and my translator Nikolai, who also continued to bear the name of Emin, adopted the Christian faith. In Abkhazia, there were often similar cases when both Christians and Mohammedans were in the same family, which, however, did not in the least harm their family harmony. From the sixth to the sixteenth century, the entire Abkhazian people professed the Christian faith. The church was run by an independent Catholic who had a stay in the Pitsunda monastery; in Dranda there was a bishopric, and, in addition, the whole of Abkhazia was dotted with churches, the ruins of which I met at every step. The Turks, who converted the Abkhazians to the Mohammedan faith, did not have time to completely destroy the memories of Christian antiquity in them. In Abkhaz Mohammedanism, it was not difficult to notice traces of Christianity in conjunction with the remnants of paganism. When Sefer Bey adopted the Christian religion, some Abkhazians followed his example; others were baptized later under his heirs. Newly converted Christians strictly performed all the external rites imposed by the church, without parting, however, with some Muslim habits that became part of the folk custom. They had, for example, no more than one wife; but they allowed themselves to change it on occasion. The Abkhaz Mohammedans did not refuse either wine or the meat of an unclean animal, which is disgusting to every good Muslim. Christians and Mohammedans celebrated together the Nativity of Christ, Holy Pascha, Spirits Day, Juma and Bayram, and fasted during Ramadan and Great Lent in order not to give each other a temptation. Both respected the sacred forests to the same extent and were seriously afraid of the mountain and forest spirits, whom they gained favor with small sacrifices, brought secretly out of old habit, since this was forbidden to them by the priests.

I did not lose much time in Bambory. One of my first trips was directed to Pitsunda, where I went together with Patsovsky, in order to inspect a place for building a fortification, which was supposed to provide communication between Gagra and Bambors. The Pitsunda monastery, occupied by our troops, lay on the seashore, completely away from the direct Gagra road, fenced off from it and from Bambor by a chain of low, but very steep mountains covered with forests. A rather inconvenient pack road led through these mountains to Pitsunda, passable only for troops, and not for artillery and heavy loads, which were forced to be delivered there by sea. From Bambor to Pitsunda it was considered twenty-eight versts, from Pitsunda to Gagra eighteen. The straight Gagra road was twelve versts closer, and there were no mountains on it. On it, near Adjephune, there was a rather convenient ford across the Bzyb. Between Pitsunda and Gagra, crossing this river, near its mouth, was positively impossible in high water, and during the rest of the year it is extremely dangerous, due to the changeable bed, sometimes brought in by sand from the sea, sometimes washed away by a fast river current. The bzyb flowed around the northern foot of the mountain range, which shielded the Pitsunda cape from Bambor. Between the Bzyb and a branch of the main Caucasian ridge, which adjoined the seashore beyond Gagra, a wide plain opened up, belonging in its position to Abkhazia; but the Zagagra jackets took possession of it for pasture, and the Abkhazians silently tolerated this violation of their rights so as not to start an open quarrel with their impudent neighbors. On the banks of the Bzyb, at the turn of the road through the mountains to the Pitsunda Monastery, there was a populous village of Adzhepkhune, in which the Inal-ips lived, who, after the ruler, were considered the richest and most powerful princes in Abkhazia. From Bambore to Ajephune there was already a very convenient road; then there was no difficulty in laying it on a completely flat area to the very Gagrinsky monastery. It was impossible to find a point for the proposed fortification more advantageous for Adzhephuna: it would have guarded here at one time the road from Bambor to Gagra and to Pitsunda and the crossing over the Bzyb, commanded enemy pastures and watched the border Abkhaz population, who had constant relations with the coastal, one-tribe with him jackets. Patsovsky approved of my choice in every respect; I added a drawing of a fortification I designed, adapted to local circumstances: an earthen redoubt with wooden defensive barracks in the middle of the fronts, from which caponiers protruded to defend the moat. Each barracks, representing a separate redoubt capable of defending itself, even if the enemy broke into its interior, had to be divided into two equal halves with the help of a large passage that was in direct connection with the caponier. I proposed turning the windows of the barracks into the interior of the fortification; in the outer wall there should have been only loopholes with latches. Nars would be placed in the middle of the barracks, so that the soldiers, in case of alarm, jumping out of bed, would find their guns near the wall, which they had to defend. I considered this necessary in order to alleviate the painful situation for our soldiers in which the Circassians brought them, forcing them several times at night to run out onto the parapet in one shirt and wait for hours in vain for an attack, which they usually carried out, having first exhausted the garrison with empty nightly alarms sometimes lasting for months. My idea was at that time completely new in the Caucasus, and, it seems, only for this reason did not deserve the approval of the Tiflis engineering department, which should have considered it in detail. In 1840 they began to build, with some modification, fortifications of this kind along the entire coastline, having seen how little protection simple earthen embankments against the Circassian way of waging war, especially in circumstances like those in which our troops were then on the eastern coast of the Black Sea.

The Pitsunda monastery occupied my attention even more than the Dranda church; its position was no less picturesque, and the building was distinguished by its size and some particular merits, which the latter did not have. The church of purely Byzantine architecture, erected at the direction of Prokop in the sixth century, during the reign of Justinian, has been preserved quite well. In one aisle, very curious frescoes were visible on the walls and on the ceiling, which survived the time of the rule of the Turks in Abkhazia. On a large walnut tree, near the church, hung a bell of very skillful work, with the image of the Madonna and a Latin inscription indicating that it was cast in 1562. The respect that the Abkhazians and the Dzhekets, according to legend, had for the remains of the Pitsunda Monastery did not allow them to touch this bell, which belonged to the time of Genoese rule on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Pitsunda was supplied with excellent spring water through an ancient water supply system, which has been preserved in complete integrity. On Cape Pitsunda, in addition, there was a pine grove, the only one along the entire Abkhazian coast, which provided excellent timber. Two companies of the Chasseurs Regiment, which occupied Pitsunda, were placed in the monastery fence, to which Patsovsky attached wooden towers in the corners for flank defense. They enjoyed a healthy climate, good water, but were here without any special purpose. The wooded surroundings of the monastery hid enemy parties that passed through the mountains or landed on the shore in galleys; two companies were too few to seek them out and fight them in the woods; therefore, the Pitsunda garrison limited itself to its own defense, satisfied when it managed to save its cattle and government horses from the enemy. We did not try to get to Gagra, since the space lying between them and Pitsunda was, as I already mentioned, in the hands of the enemy. It was still possible to pass there without being in danger; but back we would have to fight our way through the enemy, who, of course, would not miss an opportunity to cut off our road. This circumstance clearly proved that the Gagra fortification, despite its position, due to which it was considered the key to the coastal road, did not at all open the way for us to enemy possessions and did not block the entrance to Abkhazia for the enemy. What could be expected from other similar fortresses on the seashore?

After that, I continued, not giving myself rest, wandering through the mountainous Abkhazia, inspecting the roads and getting to know people from whom I hoped to learn something useful for my hidden intention. I was incessantly in Sukhum, in Kelassuri at Gassan Bey's, or in Drandy, not to mention my frequent visits to the owner's house. The roads were very unsafe at that time. Robbers from Pskho and Achipsou, two independent Abaza communities that occupied high mountains near the sources of Bzyba and Mdzymta, often appeared between Bambors and Sukhum; between Sukhum and Drandy, Tsebelda adventurers met. It was difficult to protect oneself from them, especially since all the benefits were on their side. Hidden in the thicket, they waited for travelers along the open road that ran between the sea and the dense forest, killed them from their ambush and robbed them without exposing themselves to great danger. The Abkhazian forests were impassable for those who did not know the area and all the thieves' paths laid along them. The tree crowded near the tree; huge stumps and roots of trees, overturned by a storm, blocked the road from all sides; thorny bushes and thousands of threads from climbing plants, equipped with sharp thorns and broad leaves, blocked the path and formed an impenetrable net through which it was possible to break through only with the help of an ax or a dagger. Therefore, sometimes even seeing the enemy, it was impossible to reach him and pursue him. Incessantly received news about soldiers and Cossacks killed from the forest by no one knows who; often the Abkhazians themselves suffered the same fate, and only after a long time did they manage to find out who the killers were. However, each section of the coastal road had its own hero, who arrogated to himself the right to rob travelers mainly along its length. Between Bambori and Sukhum, the Abkhaz fugitive Sofyj Gubliya, who lived in Pskho, usually made ambushes with his gang, whose name inspired indescribable fear in each of his compatriots, who had reason to consider him their enemy. Miracles were told about his cunning and courage. That Sofij hated the Russians and lay in wait for them wherever possible was considered in the order of things and did not surprise anyone. Behind Sukhum and near Drand, the Tsebelda prince Bogorkan-ipa Marshomy, a young, dexterous and courageous rider, robbed more often than others.

Nikolai Shakrilov was my inseparable companion on all trips. The people who met us on the road in mountain clothes, with rifles behind our backs, could under no circumstances mistake us for Russian servicemen. This was the first condition of our security. Knowing that there was no other defense against a chance meeting with Sofidzh, with Bogorkan-ipoy or with another robber, and from a bullet fired from the forest, except for chance and happiness, we cared only about how to protect ourselves from an ambush prepared for us. To this end, I constantly changed my horses and the color of the Circassian; I went on the road either with Shakrilov alone, or with his brothers, or with a larger Abkhaz escort, which was given to me by the ruler or Hassan Bey. I never said in advance when and where I intended to go; never returned to the original path. This last precaution is constantly observed among the highlanders, of whom rare does not have an enemy capable of waiting for him on the way, if he is known to him. My Nikolai Shakrilov was known to many people in Abkhazia. Meeting him often with a stranger in a mountain dress of Kabardian cut and with a beard, adopted by me with the intention of being contrary to the Abkhaz custom, because I did not know the language and could not impersonate an Abaza in Abkhazia, the curious began to inquire who I was and for what reason. so often I visit the owner and Hassan Bey. Finding the answers that the Shakrilovs gave them on this occasion, and Gassan Bey himself (they didn’t dare to ask the owner), displeasedly clear, they began to follow me, and I became, without knowing it, the subject of frequent conversations of Abkhaz politicians. As a result of these rumors and attention, which I could not avoid from people who cared most of all about what happened on the high roads, my trips did not remain without adventures.

At the end of February there was an alarm all over Abkhazia. A rumor spread that the Tsebeldins, restored against the Abkhazian ruler by the machinations of Dadian and Gassan Bey, intended to suddenly break into Abkhazia with the sole purpose of giving clear proof of how little they fear and respect him. The case was pretty well thought out. With one blow, they wanted to put him on a decisively hostile footing with the Tsebeldins and drop him in the eyes of his own subjects, whose blood and ruin on this occasion should have fallen personally on him. Tsebelda was divided into two parties: one wanted to maintain former peaceful relations with him; the other waited only for an opportunity to insult him. For the latter, all pretexts were good. In the first outburst of anger, the ruler wanted to arrest Gassan Bey and attack the Tsebeldins himself before they had time to descend into Abkhazia; to this end, he sent out in all directions to collect a squad of people loyal to him. Before that, he stopped by to consult with Patsovsky, who managed to persuade him not to do anything against Hassan Bey, whose treachery could not be proved and who obviously did not violate his duties in any way, but on the contrary, use him to end the matter without bloodshed. Patsovsky advised first to convene the Tsebelda princes and elders for a meeting in Kelassuri, suggesting that Hassan Bey himself assume the duty of mediator in their strife with the ruler. Patsovsky's calculation was very thorough: if Hassan Bey really raised the Tsebeldins, then he has the opportunity to calm their militant impulse. Patsovsky knew Hassan Bey well and was sure that he would not dare to act openly against the interests of the owner, that, satisfied with the role of an intermediary, out of pride alone, he would try to end the matter in a good way, both in order to clearly oblige the owner, and in order to show before the Russian authorities the weight he enjoys in Tsebelda and Abkhazia. Pacovsky approved the collection of the squad, finding it very prudent on the part of the owner to show his enemies that he has the means and is ready to meet them by force if they do not voluntarily abandon their hostile intentions. It was the best way to finish the job without taking the guns out of their cases.

Having gathered about five hundred Abkhazians on horseback, the ruler went to Gassan Bey in Kelassuri. Patsovsky was unwell and asked me to go to Sukhum in order to follow the progress of the negotiations and immediately let him know if some unexpected circumstance required his personal presence. The next day I arrived in Sukhum with my Emin Shakrilov. Katsa Marganiy was among the nobles who saw off the ruler. I really don’t know why this man fell in love with me very much, and, watching me, it seems that only one guessed that I had a hidden intention. Katsa spoke only Abkhazian, and I was very sorry that I could not explain myself to him without an interpreter; with his subtle mind and with the importance that he enjoyed among the people, I could find from him an aid, or at least very useful instructions for my business; but I was silent, fearing to confide my secret to anyone, not even excluding Shakrilov. Learning that I had come to Sukhum with only Emin, Katsa only shook his head. “Very careless,” he told me, “to travel alone at such a troubled time; take care of your head, you need it for something else; do not be afraid of me, I am your sincere friend and will not betray you, but as proof of my friendship I will say that you are already being watched. Bogorkan-ipa boasted of catching you and bringing you to Tsebelda, dead or alive, if you did not stop traveling around Abkhazia, and added that he allowed himself to put a spinning wheel instead of a gun over his shoulder if he did not keep his word, if only he could manage to meet you . You know what it means for a highlander to have such a vow.” Thanking Margany for his advice and for the friendly notice, I said that I had no secret intentions, and assured him that I travel very often in different directions out of sheer curiosity, and even more so because I do not like to sit in one place for a long time. This did not satisfy Margany, who ended the conversation with the words: “You are a young fox, and I am an old wolf, we will deceive each other in vain.”

Soon the Zebelda foremen gathered in Kelassuri; the ruler obeyed the advice given to him by Patsovsky. I stayed with the intention in Sukhum and only sent Shakrilov to Kelassuri to find out every day what was happening there. At that time, I know, the partisans of Dadian accused me in Tiflis before the commander-in-chief, as if I interfered in the Tsebelda affair and gave it an unfavorable turn. This accusation was unfair if only because the feud between the ruler, Gassan Bey and the Tsebelda people was unraveled in the best possible way, without military alarm, as our interests in Abkhazia demanded at that time. The so-called pacification of Tsebelda through negotiations was nonsense, which could be believed only by people who were completely unfamiliar with the state of affairs in the western part of the Caucasus. In addition, I never interfered in the very course of the case, but only followed it from the side, studying it, as I told the ruler and Hassan Bey. To study the case meant to get acquainted with the position of Tsebelda and her relations with Abkhazia. For this purpose, I could listen to everyone and sometimes even express my personal opinion, which did not bind me in anything and did not oblige anyone to act as I thought.

In Sukhum I spent almost all my free time on the ships of our squadron or in the fortress of Dr. K *, with whom I got to know very closely, finding with him always a ready apartment, a place at the table and a bed, as was customary in the old days in the Caucasus. He was married to a young and pretty black-eyed Armenian woman from Astrakhan, who was the only representative of her sex in Sukhum and in all respects represented him very well. He himself, a good doctor and a very intelligent person, was respected by the entire Sukhumi society, which consisted almost exclusively of our sailors, and had only one drawback: he was poor and could not earn anything with his labors, having no other practice in Sukhum except for a military hospital. Only Hassan Bey sometimes called him to advice when one of his wives fell ill, and paid for visits in kind, sheep or tobacco. In such cases, K* had to prescribe prescriptions in absentia, based on a description of the disease, which Gassan Bey himself did, who strictly observed the Turkish custom of not showing his wives to anyone. On this occasion, K* told a rather original anecdote. Hassan Bey's beloved wife had a knee ache. K*, called to help, refused to positively give advice, not seeing the patient before. Hassan Bey did not even want to hear about this, demanding that the doctor be satisfied with his story. A dispute ensued, from which the doctor finally emerged victorious. Hassan Bey found a way to please the medic without violating the laws of the harem. Screens with a small hole cut into them were placed in front of the sofa on which the sick wife lay. In the presence of Hassan Bey, her leg was pushed through this hole for examination by a doctor, who, however, was not allowed to touch her and who never saw the face of his patient.

I will say a few words about the wife of my doctor friend. In such a remote place as Sukhum, the only decent woman involuntarily had to attract attention and take a prominent place in the large society of men who made up a constant circle of admirers around her. My doctor's wife was able at the same time to perform the duties of a poor woman, attending incessantly to her domestic affairs, and to satisfy the requirements of a society made up, fortunately, of only military men, who under such circumstances are not very exacting and are content with the essential pleasure of a simple but friendly reception, not at all paying attention to panache or to the poverty of the situation. She kept her little household in great order, taking care of it for the whole day, and in the evening, dressed up, as circumstances allowed, she received guests; and, indeed, there was no shortage of guests. The hospitable hosts lived in the old Pasha's house, which stood on the fortress wall. In front of the windows was a large terrace facing the sea and covered with bushes of the best fragrant roses, which constituted the only good inheritance that had come down to us from the Turks. Almost all the officers of our squadron gathered on this terrace every evening, from the venerable commander to the junior midshipman; and all of them, without exception, showered a rich harvest of compliments and the most exquisite courtesies at the pretty doctor's feet, and she answered them only with smiles and glasses of hot tea. On the ships they gave dinners and evenings in honor of her, cleaned the ships with flags, illuminated them with colorful lanterns, arranged fireworks on the water, forced naval music to play on the fortress square - all to please her alone. Few women, I believe, managed to see such a large number of admirers at their feet, devoted to her exclusively.

While I was in Sukhum moving from one ship to another or spending whole days with the doctor and, it seemed, was absolutely not busy with anything, I did not lose sight of Kelassuri and knew everything that was going on there. Things did not go well at first, and there was a moment at which it began to take a rather irritable turn. I was not slow to let Patsovsky know about this, who, as if by chance, came to Sukhum to inspect the garrison, of course, on this occasion had a meeting with the ruler and Hassan Bey, and managed to agree on them and give the negotiations a more favorable direction. Having done his job, he went back to Bambory, and I remained to wait for the final outcome of the negotiations. Five days later, everything was put in order, as far as the circumstances and customs of the negotiators allowed: the Tsebelda people gave a promise not to invade Abkhazia, in return for which Mikhail pledged not to attack them and not to offend those who would come to his possessions without bad intentions. Only one private enmity between some Tsebelda family and the owner's bodyguards remained unresolved, because the former rested on the right to vengeance, and the latter on their police duty to detain and even kill thieves and robbers; Michael himself very thoroughly did not consider it possible to make concessions in this case. Hassan Bey tried with all his might to give the negotiations the most favorable turn for the ruler and end them in the shortest possible time, as much out of pride in order to exalt himself in his eyes, as, I believe, in order to quickly get rid of him and his numerous squad, which he, as a princely vassal, was obliged to feed while she was in his district. In appearance, everyone was satisfied with the outcome of the case and began to disperse to their homes.

On the day of the departure of the ruler, the Sukhum commandant gave a dinner in his honor, which delayed us until five o'clock in the evening. When we mounted our horses, the sky was covered with clouds, the sea was rough, and the wind was blowing with great force. Throwing on cloaks and wrapping our heads in hoods, we drove out in a dense crowd onto the coastal road. I rode near the ruler, surrounded by fifty of my bodyguards, followed by cavalry gathered from different parts of Abkhazia. The weather became worse every hour, the wind increased, and the road disappeared under water. The excitement flooded it more and more, crashing with noise and foam under the feet of our horses, which snored from fright and only moved forward under the blows of the whip. Finally, two people could not ride side by side, and our train stretched into one long thread. It began to get dark when a stranger jumped all of us and, having said a few words to the owner, disappeared into the forest. Mikhail had a light gray horse under him, and both of us were very noticeable by the white Circassian hoods, which the Abkhazians are not in the habit of wearing, preferring dark colors. Following this, Michael moved to another horse, changed his hood and ordered one of his men to give me a hood of a different color, asking me urgently to stay as close as possible to him. All these precautions were explained by the news delivered to him by a man who had caught up with us, that the Tsebelda people, who had a kanlu against him (as the custom of blood revenge is called in the mountains) because of his bodyguards, intended to kill him, taking advantage of the darkness and bad time, which greatly facilitated this kind of undertaking. It was not difficult for them to intervene among the number of people who were seeing us off, stretched out over an extremely large space, wrapped in hoods and not recognizing each other, to make an attempt on the ruler, and on occasion even against me, as he himself warned me, and then, leaving the horses, hide in the forest, where no one would have found them in such weather. For a long time I followed Mikhail, ahead of whom rode on a bright horse his beloved servant, who spoke Russian and Georgian well, without whom he would not go anywhere. The wind had meanwhile turned into a veritable hurricane; heavy rain hit our eyes and blinded us completely. In the darkness, only white foam was visible, flashing under the horses' feet; splashes of water doused me from head to toe; I lost sight of the owner. Shakrilov had not been near me for a long time, and I had to ride between complete strangers, who overtook me incessantly, not paying any attention to me. In one respect, this was perhaps good for me, but, on the other hand, it put me in the most difficult position: not knowing the language, I could not explain myself to anyone and would not have understood what they wanted from me if someone came up to me. Halfway between Sukhum and Bambory, the road went around a cape dotted with huge rock fragments. Here the sea completely seized the road; the excitement was crushed against the stones with a thunderous noise; the horse did not want to go forward, reared up and rushed to the side; I absolutely did not know what to do, but, peering into the darkness, I soon noticed that I alone was struggling to open a passage for myself between the rocks. The Abkhazians disappeared one by one into the forest, which rose to the right of the road like a high black wall. I turned my horse in the same direction, but this was not enough to improve my position. After the first steps in the forest, I noticed that I would not extricate myself from the thicket on a night like this. It was even darker here than on the seashore, the howling of the wind was deafening; the trees cracked and creaked under the pressure of the storm; occasionally flickered near me, like black shadows, mounted Abkhazians riding in different directions, each of them, knowing the area, more or less foresaw where he was supposed to arrive, and I could not even ask about it. At that moment I decided to stop the horse and call Shakrilov at random, although I did not have much hope of calling him. However, my attempt was not in vain: I shuddered, suddenly feeling a strange hand on my shoulder, and my first movement was to grab a pistol, but the voice of the Abkhazian who drove up to me calmed me down, I recognized Katz Margani in him. With signs he called me to follow him. For a long time we made our way through the forest, now downhill, then uphill, in places he led his horse on a leash, finally we came to an open area, in the middle of which a booth was dark, lit from the inside by rare flashes of fire. Near the hut were two horses. "Good! Margani said in Abkhazian when he saw the horses. “The owner is here.” So much I could understand, although I did not know the language. Having tied our horses, we entered the hut and saw in it the owner with one person, who, bending over a pile of damp brushwood, tried to make a fire. They did not notice us, being busy with their own business; and besides, the storm roared so loudly in the forest that they could not hear how we drove up. Quietly, we began to take off our wet hoods and cloaks, when Mikhail said to his friend: “Just fan the fire, you, Yakub, go back to the forest to collect our people from Lekhne and without fail find T. with them; he will disappear that night, not knowing the language. You know what good fellows there are among ours; another of them will not hesitate long to regale him with a dagger in the dark; and ends in the water. “You don’t have to look for me, I’m here,” I responded to the owner’s words. The unexpectedness of my answer struck him so much that he jumped back a few steps and, pale, fixed his wandering eyes on the darkness from which my voice came until I stepped out to the fire, freeing myself from the hood. Then he recovered and breathlessly said: “So it's you; how did you get here? Indeed, I believed that you were no longer alive and that your spirit answered me; They say things like this happen. In the first minutes, it was really difficult to explain how, on a dark, stormy night, in the middle of a completely unfamiliar area, I found the owner’s hunting hut, the existence of which was known only to very few Abkhazians. Having lost the Bambor road in the forest and separated from the people who were seeing him off, Mikhail himself and Yakub, who did not lag behind him, found him with great difficulty. We came together in a hut in the most natural way. Katsa Margani knew about him and took me there, hoping to catch the ruler in him if the storm did not allow him to continue his journey, or at least use him for an overnight stay. Katsa bumped into me by accident and, hearing that I was calling Emin, he understood what was the matter and hurried to help me. At night, several people of the owner's bodyguards gathered at the hut, the wind died down in the morning, and the next day we arrived safely in Bambory. Before our departure from the hut, they came to tell the owner that two people from the Abkhazians who were seeing him off were found killed on the seashore. Mikhail did not doubt who the perpetrators of this case were, and he knew where they were to be found, but his strength did not last so far. These were the Tsebelda people, about whom I have already spoken, who repaid for the blood of their relatives, who were killed some time ago by the rulers. Not finding a chance or not having enough determination to take revenge, as they threatened, on the ruler himself, they turned revenge on two outside Abkhazians, whose relatives were now obliged in turn to lie in wait for the Tsebelda robbers and certainly pay them blood for blood. Kanla is inherited from father to son and extends to all relatives of the murderer and the murdered. The most distant relatives of the murdered are obliged to avenge his blood; even the strength and importance of any kind depends much on the number of avengers he can field. Kanla is terminated only by the court, with the payment of a bloody penalty, when the warring parties so wish. They can be judged by a spiritual court, according to Sharia, or according to adat, which pronounces its decisions on the basis of custom. According to the power of Sharia, all Muslims are equal before the Koran, and the blood of each of them, a prince or a simple landowner, is valued equally; adat recognizes the gradual significance of the various estates; and the life of a prince is worth more than the life of a nobleman, who in turn has an advantage over a simple free man. For this reason, people of higher rank prefer adat, while lower ones try to bring matters under sharia. One agreement between the warring parties to submit the case of the kanla to the decision of Sharia or Adat gives rise to so many disputes and quarrels that the highlanders resort to court only as a last resort, when the kanla threatens to become too large, or when the whole people forces the family to end their feud in this way.

Several times I happened to mention the owner's bodyguards. In Abkhazia, they are called ashnakhmua and constitute a special estate that does not exist in this form in other Caucasian princely possessions. Speaking about them, I consider it not superfluous to say a few words about the Abkhazians in general, about their division into various estates and about the usual rights of these estates.

The eastern shore of the Black Sea is inhabited by two completely different tribes: from Anapa to the Sashe River live Natukhai and Shapsugs, belonging to a tribe known to us under the name of the Circassian, or Adyghe, as they call themselves; from Sasha to the mouth of the Ingur, the seashore is occupied by Abaza, who call themselves “absasua”. The latter are divided into the Dzhekets, or Sadzes, who live between the Sashe and Bzyb rivers, and into the Abkhazians, who make up a separate possession. Circassians and Abaza speak two different languages that have no resemblance to each other. It is difficult to determine the number of the Abkhazian population: in my time, we have not been able to count the highlanders anywhere in an accurate way. All the figures of that time, which meant the Caucasian population, were taken approximately, one can tell by eye. According to the concepts of the highlanders, counting people was not only completely useless, but even sinful; why, where possible, they resisted the people's census or deceived, not being able to resist. In my time, that is, in the thirty-fifth year, about forty thousand male heads were counted in Abkhazia, a figure that I repeat without allowing myself to vouch for its accuracy.

Abkhazians who call their ruler “ah” are divided into five estates: “tavad”, princes; "amista", noblemen; "ashnakhmua", the owner's bodyguards, who make up the middle class; "ankhao", peasants, and "agrua", slaves.

Ownership was at that time very limited. Not receiving a certain tax from the people and using only a constant income from his own lands, the ruler was dependent on the princes and nobles, who were always ready to resist his demands when they did not agree with their class interests. He could force one of them to submit unconditionally to his will only with the help of the same nobles, whom he had to first win over to his side in such a case with requests and gifts. According to a very ancient custom, the ruler enjoyed the right to visit each prince and nobleman twice a year and, on this occasion, receive a gift from him. In addition, he was paid a special penalty for murder, theft and for every other disorder made in the neighborhood of his house or on land constituting his family property. These gifts and penalties constituted the only tribute received by the owner from his subjects.

Princes and nobles are listed in the same category, having the same rights over the people and the same duties in relation to the ruler. They constitute the ruling class of landowners. They own the peasants by the right of citizenship for the land with which they allocate them, they themselves are exempt from taxes and are not subject to any other punishment, except for a monetary penalty. At the call of the ruler, they are obliged to gather to protect the region and his own person, they are also obliged to honor him with a gift when he visits their homes. The value of a gift depends on the wealth and on the will of the owner, who usually tries, out of pride, to keep up with his rich brothers in this case. The Abkhazian nobility, in a sense of their independence, never wanted to recognize a gift made to the owner as an obligatory service, considering it only a way to prove their respect to an honored guest. In general, it should be noted that the rules of hospitality established by the local custom are in all respects very ruinous for the Abkhazians. Their land is covered with forest, their pastures are poor, and consequently they are very poor in livestock; meanwhile, custom requires the host, in honor of each guest of honor, to kill a goat, a ram, or even a bull, and put it on the table at once, and what is served must be eaten, if not by the guests, then by the people who come running to treat the visitors. At other times, the Abkhazian lives extremely moderately, having the habit of eating only once a day, before sunset. Instead of bread, they eat corn or spicy porridge from Mingrelian millet, gommi, and the usual food consists of boiled meat, eggs and milk, prepared in the simplest way. The princely title is used in Abkhazia by: Shervashidze, Inal-ipy, Anchabadze, Emkhua, Chabalurkhua, Marshani and Dzapsh-ipy. The most significant noble families are Lakerbai, Margani, Mikambai and Zumbai. In addition, there are minor nobles in Abkhazia, called forest nobles, “akuatsa amista”, consisting of extremely numerous clans: Tsymbay, Bargba and Akyrtaa.

“Ashnakhmua”, the owner's bodyguards, constitute a special estate, a degree lower than the nobility, but they use all its rights regarding land and peasants. This class was formed partly from the possessing peasants, freed from duties and placed above their former rank for various merits, partly from Circassian natives who resorted to the protection of the owner, who could only give them this class position, without having the right to raise them to noble dignity, other than by birth. They do not pay any taxes, and their whole duty is to guard the owner and his house.

Peasants have the right to own land and even slaves, but they themselves bear the duties established by custom in relation to the master on whose land they are settled. They are obliged to help him in the field work, when their own economic affairs allow, to give him twice a year a full cart of corn or gommi, one cattle and a jug of wine from the smoke. Corporal punishment is not allowed in Abkhazia for peasants, and they are chained in iron only in case of failure to fulfill their duties or resistance to their master. The peasant has the right to call his master to court for insults and for oppression, and when the master turns out to be really guilty, he is freed from his power. In order to save himself from the vengeance of his former owner, a freed peasant is usually forced to settle on the land of another nobleman, subject to ordinary peasant conditions, or to place himself under the direct protection of the owner. In the first case, he changes only the master, in the second he becomes something like a free owner, not exempt, however, from the usual peasant tax.

There are two kinds of slaves in Abkhazia: native “agruas”, born in the region, and new ones, obtained by robbery or war. A slave is the inalienable property of his master, who is obliged to feed and clothe him or provide him with land, like a peasant. Being in the house of his master, the slave is obliged to perform all the work that will be imposed on him; if the master supplies him with land, then he is obliged to work for the master three days a week, and the rest of the time he is free. The daughters of slaves are in the house of the owner, who has the right to give them to whomever he wants, exchange or sell. The wives of slaves cannot be separated from their husbands. The lord may sell the indigenous agrois only with the permission of the owner, who alone has the right of life and death over them; he sells the newly acquired slave wherever and however he pleases. Although slaves are not excluded from corporal punishment, it is almost never performed on them, because the highlanders generally abhor it.

Parental power is unlimited. The father is not responsible to anyone for the life of his child; but Abkhazians, like other highlanders, are so strongly attached to their children that cases of abuse of parental authority are almost unheard of.

Ordinary inheritance laws are quite simple. The estate is divided after the deceased equally among his sons. Daughters have no share in the inheritance, but must receive subsistence before marriage from their brothers, who are also obliged to give them a dowry in accordance with their condition. When the deceased had no direct heirs, the estate is divided equally among his closest relatives, who are equally obliged to support and marry his daughters. The widow does not receive anything from the estate of her late husband, but has the right to demand life support from his heirs. The estate of a person who died without heirs passes to the owner.

All controversial cases are decided in Abkhazia by the court according to custom; Abkhazians resort to Sharia rarely and very reluctantly, since Islamism has not yet taken deep roots between them. Litigants usually choose judges from among the nobles, who enjoy weight among the people. Elected judges appoint, at their own will, the day of judgment, asking for the permission of the owner. In the case of an important matter, the meeting is located in the fence of one of the ancient monasteries, near the ruins of a church or under the shade of sacred trees, in places respected by the Abkhazians according to the legends of Christian and pagan antiquity. The people are going to listen to a case that is discussed publicly. The judges, having taken an oath that they will judge the case in good conscience, in truth and according to custom, listen to the litigants and witnesses and, when all the circumstances are clarified, retire for a secret meeting. Having agreed among themselves, before the announcement of the verdict, they take from both disputing parties an oath and a guarantee for its execution, because the judges have the duty not only to decide the case, but also to carry out the decision. Sometimes the litigants are subject to the court of the owner himself, who in such a case examines the case on the basis of general rules that serve as a guide for an ordinary arbitration court. Similarly, all cases relating to inheritance disputes, to conditions, family matters, theft, robbery, murder and blood vengeance are dealt with.

The death penalty does not exist in Abkhazia. Princes and nobles answer the offended only with their property; peasants with their personal freedom, when their property is not enough to pay the penalty. In this case, they turn into the property of the offended, who can sell them into slavery or keep them until they find a way to pay off. Penalty is paid in money, cattle and all kinds of property or slave boys. For theft, robbery or murder committed in the vicinity of the owner's house or on land belonging to the owner, the offender is subject, in addition to the usual penalty in favor of the victims, to the payment to the owner himself of two boys, not less than four and not more than six palms in height, or a monetary contribution of their value. . To determine the measure of child growth, the palm of the one who charges the fine is used.

Only people who do not have the strength to take revenge on the offender themselves, or when blood revenge threatens to become endless, are called to court for murder.

For dishonor, women or girls are repaid with death, knowing in this case no other way to make amends for shame. In the moment of a wife's proven infidelity, the husband has the right to kill her. According to the court, she turns only into his slave, which gives him the opportunity to sell her. The Circassians, who strictly observe the rules of Islamism, have a completely opposite custom. A husband enjoys the right to sell an unfaithful wife if he does not want to subject her to Sharia law, which inexorably punishes such crimes with death.

The entire Abaza tribe is militant somewhat less than the Circassians. Occupying a very wooded and mountainous area, the Abaza fight mainly on foot and are known as excellent shooters. In domestic life, in clothing and weapons, they are completely similar to the Circassians and differ from them in this respect only in two features that are very noticeable for a highlander. The caftan, with cartridges on the chest, which is a common mountain clothing on the entire northern side of the Caucasus, they wear much shorter than the Circassians and, in addition, they have the habit of wrapping a turban around the hat when the ends are not spread over the shoulders against the rain, which the Circassians do not do.

Coastal Abkhazians are engaged in fishing. The mouths of mountain rivers flowing into the sea abound with salmon, which is a very tasty food and, according to the local custom, is usually fried on a spit. The shores are visited in the summer by an uncountable number of dolphins, which the Abkhazians catch to render fat from them, bought by the Turks and Greeks. Catching dolphins is very interesting. In good weather, they have a habit of staying on the surface of the sea, bouncing incessantly with a wheel. Then the Abkhazians set out on the smallest kayuks, hollowed out of wood, wrap around a rather large expanse of water with a long net, six feet wide, with floats on top and with a weight below, forcing it to take a vertical position in the water. Two or three skiffs enter the interior of the netted space, and the catchers begin to hit the dolphins in it with hooks. This method of fishing is not safe, because the kayuks sometimes sink under the weight of the dead fish and capsize when the dolphins hit them, circling in the water, but the Abkhazians are not afraid of this, swimming no worse than the savages of the islands of the Southern Ocean.

Farming is in Abkhazia, as in all mountains, in the most primitive state and is limited to a small sowing of "gommi", corn, barley, beans and tobacco. Wheat is sown very little. The Russians taught the Abkhaz how to grow cabbage, potatoes and some other vegetables. Abkhazia is extremely rich in grapes and various fruits, especially pears, plums and peaches, growing without any care. The forests are dominated by oak, beech, plane tree, chindar, walnut, chestnut and mulberry. Near Sukhum, a beech tree is found in large sizes and laurel grows. Abkhazians are poorer than other highlanders in livestock. Their horses are small in stature and do not differ in strength; donkeys are in great use. There is so much game in the mountains and in the Abkhazian forests that the farmers do not know how to protect their fields from it. The most common are wild goats, chamois and wild boars. The latter produce very unprofitable devastation in the fields sown with millet, which is why the Abkhazians exterminate them without mercy and sell their heads and hams in Sukhum for several shots of gunpowder. From wild animals there are bears, wolves, forest cats, foxes, martens and jackals in myriad numbers. Sometimes it happens to hunters to catch leopards, but this does not happen often.

The adventure that happened to me on a trip with the owner did not take away my desire to continue my former way of life, which I indulged in not without purpose. I was too careless to think long over the advice of Katz Margani, and mentally hoped for my happiness when I was reminded of Sofidzh or Bogorkan-ip, pointing out their daring and cunning tricks. My confidence did not deceive me in this regard. Chance brought me face to face with one of them, and I came out of this meeting unharmed. I'll tell you how it happened.

Living in Bambori, I saw the owner almost daily, visiting him in Lekhna, and as before continued to appear frequently in Sukhum and Kelassuri. Despite the secret enmity that existed between Mikhail and Hassan Bey, I was on the best terms with both and used their power of attorney to the same extent, using the simplest means for this - never to quarrel between them, but on the contrary, to settle the matter when between they had some confusion. For my own affairs, I needed more than anything personal friends. Often I spent several days at Hassan Bey's in a row, spent the night with him, played chess with him, fed on his fatty Turkish dinners seasoned with red pepper from the first to the last course, or went with him to Drandy to the battalion commander to play Boston. Hassan Bey learned this game in Siberia, loved it very much, played well and firmly remembered the Boston calculation, despite his illiteracy.

Once I arrived in Kelassuri with one Shakrilov, did not find Hassan Bey and, therefore, without stopping at his house, went to Drandy, wanting to learn from the battalion commander the details of the case that happened near the fortification itself. This case consisted in the fact that the Tsebelda robbers stole several lifting horses and killed two soldiers who guarded them. It is not far from Kelassuri to Drand, and two hours later we arrived at the fortification. The first time naturally passed in stories about an unpleasant incident; then sat down to dinner. We were still at the table when the guard officer sent to ask if the Abkhazians belonged to us, who settled down to feed the horses in view of the fortifications. In Abkhazia, as in many other places in the Caucasus, seeing the highlanders in front of you, it was rarely possible to know for sure whether they were friends or enemies. Extremely daring in their thieves' attempts, they drove up quite often in a small number to the fortifications and stopped near them with the air of peace-loving people who had some need; then, after waiting for an opportune moment, they suddenly rushed at the soldiers and cattle outside the fortification, killed one, drove off the other, and left before they could send a chase after them. Therefore, the guards were obliged to follow all the mountaineers who showed up near the posts and fortifications, and immediately find out who they were and why they had come. Answering that we had only come together and that we knew nothing about these people, I instructed Shakrilov to examine them through a telescope. Fulfilling my order, he counted seven people, completely unknown to him, pasturing their horses at a distance of a cannon shot. It was possible to send out the Cossacks, to find out more closely who they were, and even to force them to drive away; but it was a poor means of getting rid of them. It was worse to meet them on the road than near the fortification, if they really made up the enemy party. I was sure that no one knew about my proposal to go to Dranda and did not follow me. On the road, we looked around well in all directions and also did not see anyone. Therefore, I did not believe that these people, whoever they were, were waiting for me actually. It was best to leave them alone, not even showing the appearance that they were being watched, and wait until they themselves leave, noticing only in which direction, so as not to stumble upon them inadvertently. Several times I sent and went myself to find out from behind the parapet whether they had cleared the place; but the horses were still grazing, and the people around them seemed to be fast asleep. Before evening, I was given to know that they had finally left in the direction of Kodor, in the opposite direction from my road. As a precaution, I allowed another half hour to pass and then left the fortification, despite the commandant's persuasion to spend the night with him or take at least a Cossack convoy. I did not stay overnight in order to keep my promise to spend the evening in Kelassouri, for fear of giving Hassan Bey a bad idea of my courage if he knew what had stopped me from coming; and I refused the Cossack escort, wishing to save in the eyes of the Abkhazians the obscurity in which my Circassian outfit clothed me. The road from Drand led through an open clearing, downhill, into a dense forest adjoining the seashore. The forest had to go about three miles. Approaching the edge of the forest, we saw a few hobbled horses aside from our road and people near them, who, noticing us, began to rise from the ground. Shakrilov recognized them as mountaineers who had been feeding their horses for so long in sight of the fortress, and immediately concluded that they were wandering around here not with good intentions. In the forest we quickened our pace, not in the least jealous of fighting them two against seven. The road was so narrow that Shakrilov could not ride beside me. We had not taken two hundred steps through the forest, when a tall young man appeared before us, riding towards us. According to mountain custom, when strangers meet, the one who feels lower in rank or weaker gives way. A nobleman of the Circassian family would rather fight than turn off for an Abaza. The young man was an Abaza, and my Circassian, weapons and an excellent Kabardian horse denounced a Circassian of not a simple rank. I knew the highlanders enough to understand that in this case I had to keep the road or arouse contempt for me in my opponent, which was dangerous. We were driving straight at each other. Before reaching two steps, the Abazin put his left hand on the case of his rifle. As you know, the highlanders carry a gun over their shoulders in a cloak case, from which they snatch it instantly with a wave of their right hand, first throwing the case from the butt with their left hand. This movement, which meant a challenge, proved that he did not intend to give in. Without touching my gun, I swung my whip, and our horses collided head-on. This puzzled him so much that he involuntarily turned aside, but, having caught up with Shakrilov, he suddenly grabbed his horse by the reins, called him by name and began to say something to him in vehemence in Abkhazian. At that very moment I stopped my horse, cocked my belt pistol, and turned on my saddle, ready to shoot him in the back before he could take up arms. When the trigger clicked on the cocking, the Abaza looked around, said a few more words, with an air of restrained annoyance, waved his whip and rode off with a quick step. For some time we moved away from each other, constantly looking back and in full readiness to draw our guns if necessary. At the first turn of the road, Shakrilov announced to me that we had met Bogorkan-ipa, that the people who were in the forest belonged to his gang, and that now we only had to leave, without waiting for him to come to his senses and begin to catch up with us with his comrades. As far as Kelassuri, we rode as much as the horses had strength, and only in the sight of the village did they let them breathe. Then Shakrilov told me how it was. Bogorkan-ipa, puzzled and angered by my intransigence, asked him in a menacing voice, grabbing the horse's bridle: “Who is riding with you? “I won’t let you take a step until you answer!” He recognized Shakrilov when he saw him several times in Mikhail's house.

- Kabardian prince, guest of the owner.

- What is his name, where did you go and why?

“It is not my business to know his name and his deeds. The owner ordered me to escort him to Drandy, and I am fulfilling the owner's order.

- All this is not true!

It's up to you to believe or not.

"What if I decide to stop you both?" My people are two steps away.

- Try! if we give in! - just don't forget that the owner avenges the blood of his guest and that his bullet reaches far.

At that moment, I cocked the pistol.

- What does it mean? asked Bogorkan-ipa.

“That means that the Kabardian does not intend to endure your insolence any longer. Don't you keep my horse? – If not in a foreign land, he would have shown you long ago whether it is allowed to joke with him.

The confidence with which Shakrilov spoke and my pistol at the ready subdued the wrath of the Bogorkan. With the words: “These Kabardians are mad dogs!” he threw the reins of Shakrilov's horse and rode off.

In the evening I told my adventure to Hassan Bey, who congratulated me on the fact that I got off so cheaply, because the strength was on the side of Bogorkan Ipa, and he did not call his people only out of fear of the Kanla, if I really turned out to be a Kabardian prince, for whom Shakrilov gave me. At the same time, I could not deny myself the pleasure of asking Hassan Bey to tell the Tsebeldin that, having met with a stranger whom he so arrogantly promised to bring home alive or dead, and without keeping his word, although he had power on his side, he deserved such a glorious a feat, the full right not only to arm yourself with a spinning wheel instead of a gun, but even to put on a women's skirt. It was impossible to offend the highlander more strongly than this.

While I was traveling, making acquaintances and not finding the people I was looking for, spring came, the roads dried up and the time approached for our troops to start again on last year's work, cut through forests and pour fortifications. At the end of April, General N arrived in Abkhazia. My research and assumptions were not approved by him. The place I had chosen for the Bzyb fortification seemed inconvenient to him, and he left it to himself to find a new point. After examining various places, he finally found it near the mouth of the Bzyb, four versts north of Pitsunda, where he also planned to establish a crossing. In my opinion, the place was equally inconvenient for crossing and for strengthening. An abandoned corner on the seashore, cut off by a high ridge from all inhabited places, away from the road, in the middle of a dense forest, this point did not own anything and did not protect anything. We pass through ordinary water everywhere, but in the three summer months, when the snow melts in the high mountains, or after heavy rains, hollow water floods all the fords. The highlanders call the Bzyb a mad river, because along the entire coast of the Black Sea there is no other river that rises so unexpectedly and so quickly, so often changes its depth and direction, and in which so many people die from the incredible speed of the flow. Near Adjephune and above this village, fords are very convenient in ordinary times, although with danger, but they are possible even in high water, while near the mouth there is no possibility of using a ford or arranging a crossing. N. justified his choice by the fact that the Shapsugs and Dzhekets land in this place in their galleys, making raids on Abkhazia from the sea, and that he hopes to stop these raids by building a fortification here. It was highly doubtful. The coastal Circassians and Abaza, living to the north of Abkhazia, really used to go on sea robbery in narrow, long and extremely light boats, accommodating from thirty to fifty people. These boats, which we called galleys, were already known to the Byzantine Greeks under the name “kamar”.

Their speed is amazing, and they are so light that people take them out of the water on their shoulders, hide them in the forest and then go to robbery. Circassian sea robbers moored near the mouth of the Bzyb, because this place was not visited by anyone and was in complete wilderness, but who could force them to pester him if our fortification was located on it; several hundred sazhens above or below it, and everywhere there were many similar dens on the Abkhaz coast.

No matter how Patsovsky opposed this choice, no matter what the ruler said about him, N. remained unshakable. The naval forces of the Circassians completely occupied his imagination. Part of the detachment, under his personal command, went to build the Bzyb fortification, for which it was first necessary to clear the forest. One and a half battalions were assigned to build a road through the mountains between Ajephune and Pitsunda. To cover the work on the left bank of the Bzyb, it was necessary to move the vanguard to the right bank of the river and arrange for it to communicate with the main detachment. To this end, N. summoned the ruler to the troops with several hundred Abkhaz policemen, whom he placed in the forest beyond Bzyb, giving them two Russian companies as reinforcements. Soon Patsovsky went from Bambor to Bzyb, and I was left in the deserted fortification, alone with Shakrilov, to pursue with stubbornness the goal for which I had come to Abkhazia. The ladies' company that remained in the orphaned Bambores did not interest me enough to divert my thoughts for even a moment from the enterprise to which I gave myself up with all my soul, with the enthusiasm of a young enthusiastic imagination. In Tiflis, I gave my word that I would not miss any chance, no matter how dangerous it might be, to see the seashore beyond Gagra in order to resolve various controversial issues, and I was burning with impatience to fulfill my word, meaning one benefit that I hoped to bring with my self-sacrifice. Meanwhile, every day I encountered new difficulties and became more and more convinced that I would not find in Abkhazia the means to fulfill my instructions. The easiest thing to do was to reject it on the basis of a positive impossibility, and no one could prove otherwise; but not afraid of other people's reproaches, I was ashamed of myself. What could not be found in Abkhazia could be found elsewhere. Day and night I worked mentally, devising new means and other paths for my journey. In addition to this struggle with hostile circumstances, a new misfortune was added for me, threatening to destroy all my plans. The head of the Abkhazian detachment, disagreeing with my view of things and dissatisfied with the fact that I had, in addition to the official, yet another appointment that freed me from his direct supervision, began to harm me in an official way, exposing all my actions as having no positive foundation and not promising no result. Having received a notification about this from Tiflis, I understood very well that I could refute his conclusions not with words, but only with facts, and I must hasten to present it to the eyes of those people who were trying to instill prejudice against me. My position at that time was unenviable, and I decided to free myself from it by drawing up the following plan, based on the information I had collected in Abkhazia. We must not forget that at that time all this information was still very new to us, and no one knew exactly where the people of this or that tribe lived and what language they spoke. The Abkhazians, as I learned, had no connection with the Shapsugs; their relations with the seaside jackets were absolutely insignificant; and since the enemy had been guarding the Gagra road day and night since the arrival of our troops at the mouth of the Bzyb, there was no point in even thinking of passing this way. Meanwhile, Bashilbai, Shegirey, Tam and some other villages on the northern slope of the mountains consisted of a population of pure Abaza origin, with whom the Abkhazians maintained the most friendly relations, finding refuge in these villages when they happened to cross the snow ridge in order to rob the Circassians, with whom they had been living in harmony for a long time. My intention was, taking advantage of this circumstance, to cross the mountains with an Abkhazian who has friends or relatives in one of the aforementioned auls, known as real robber nests, to settle in it and, after waiting for an opportunity, to persuade the first determined daring to take me to the sea. This calculation was not made by me thoughtlessly, and I already had in mind the people to whom I wanted to address my proposal. On the upper Zelenchuk, not far from Bashilbai, the Abaza princes Lova were hiding, who had previously lived on the line in their own village, which lay on the banks of the Kuma. In a fit of offended pride, they killed the bailiff, who was appointed by the Russian authorities over their aul and belonged to the number of their bridles; after that, they could no longer remain within the limits subject to Russian power. They fled to the mountains with a rather large number of devoted bridles, and for more than four years they have disturbed our border with their frequent and very successful raids. Their name gained some fame on the line and among the Circassian abreks; their affairs, according to the mountain view of things, were going well; but they themselves missed their native place and, not carried away by their successes, thought only of how to get closer again and make peace with the Russians. I learned about this from the Abkhazian nobleman Mikambai, who in former times quite often went to the northern side of the mountains. I met him on one of my trips to the mountainous part of Abkhazia and, not knowing what else he could be useful to me, just in case, I began to maintain our acquaintance, inviting him to my place and making him gifts that he loved very much. Not relying on his friendship, I did not reveal to him my real intentions, deciding to believe them only to that highlander who would agree to be my guide. Therefore, I only asked Mikambai to forward from me to the Lovs a Turkish letter written by Emin Shakrilov, in which I offered them my mediation if they really intended to submit, and called them to my place in Abkhazia to discuss this matter. The hunter Khatkhua, one of the peasants of Mikambai, went with this letter through the mountains and brought me an answer in which the Lovs accepted my proposal with pleasure, but refused to go to Abkhazia, fearing to leave their family without protection, which Russian troops could attack in continuation of their absences. They suggested that I myself come to them for a meeting, promising to accept me as an inviolable guest, whoever I may be, since in my letter I announced to them that I would name myself only when our business was settled and they were convinced of my right to speak in the name of a Russian government. Their invitation made me very happy, giving me a very plausible pretext for traveling through the mountains. I decided to use it immediately. With Lov's letter in hand, I suggested that Mikambai take me through the mountains, assuring him that I was undertaking this trip solely in order not to miss an opportunity to reconcile with the Russians such dangerous abreks as the Lov brothers, and at the same time to lead them out of precarious position in which they have placed themselves. Despite my convictions, backed up by lucrative offers, Mikambay refused to go with me to the line, considering such an undertaking too dangerous, especially after the recent incident, which consisted of the following. In the autumn, before my arrival in Abkhazia, a Turkish ship threw up a storm near the mouth of the Bzyb, on which Circassian hajjis were returning from Mecca. None of them knew the Abaza language, and this ruined them. Ordinary Abkhazians from the nearest villages, having heard about the wreck of a ship with strangers speaking some incomprehensible language and having a lot of goods and rich weapons, ran to rob them. The Khajiis began to defend themselves, and it ended with the people killing thirty-three people from their number. Only seven managed to escape from death, thanks to Rostom Inal-ipa, who, unfortunately, rode too late to the place of the massacre. The Circassians he saved, all without exception, were covered with wounds. The owner, who could not look indifferently at this unfortunate incident, took care of the wounded in his house, where he tried in every way to alleviate their bitter fate. Between them was a seventy-year-old Kabardian, Haji Janseid, to whom the Abkhazians added six new wounds to the twenty previous ones that covered his old body. It seemed that his death was inevitable, but, thanks to his care in the owner's house, he was cured and with all his belongings and large gifts was sent to himself. After this inhospitable act of the Abkhazians with Muslims returning from a holy journey to Mecca, the Kabardians, Shapsugs and Abadzekhs, who had their compatriots among the beaten Hajjis, called Abkhazia a cursed country and swore to kill mercilessly every Abkhazian who came across to them, except for Rostom Inal-ipa and the ruler who saved the lives of the wounded khajiys. Mikambay found it too unreasonable for an Abkhazian to go to the other side of the mountains until time had smoothed over, although somewhat, the impression made by this affair on the Circassians, and did not at all want to be one of the first to catch their eye.

Shakrilov accompanied me to Mikambay and served as an interpreter in negotiations with him. These were the last services he rendered to me. Following this, General N. asked him to be his translator, and Shakrilov went to the detachment located on the Bzyb, instructing me not to forget his wife, who lived in a small house on the road from the fortification in Lekhna. With the loss of Shakrilov, I was left without a language and, when the Abkhazians came to me, I had to resort to the obligatory mediation of his wife. She spoke Russian no worse than her husband, and on these occasions she spoke for me with the people whom I brought to her. In Abkhazia, women are hidden, as well as among other highlanders, but she enjoyed, as a Christian and the wife of a Russian officer, freedom that other Abkhaz women did not have, showed herself without a veil and received guests, however, always only in the presence of some old relatives.

Having not settled matters with Mikambay, I went to the Bzyb detachment with the intention of persuading the owner to provide me with another way to go through the mountains to the Lovs. In addition, I was curious to see near the work carried out on the Bzyb, and the crossing of this river, about which various incomprehensible rumors reached me. High water was expected, and it was at this time that it was necessary to study the properties of the river in order to make sure that it was impossible to arrange any kind of permanent crossing on it, except for a natural ford, when the state of the water allowed it. I knew the character of Bzyb quite well, from inquiries, but now I wanted to personally ascertain whether the information I had collected through Shakrilov and which I had already passed on to the commander of the troops was correct. With one of his brothers, I arrived at the detachment at the very time when the water began to rise. Without seeing it with one's own eyes, it is difficult to imagine the strength and speed with which the constantly growing mass of water tore off pieces of the coast, turned over stones and carried huge trees, washed up in roots, into the sea. For the crossing to the other side, a longboat went on a block along an anchor rope drawn across the river at an acute angle. Down he flew with the speed of an arrow shot from a bow; more than a hundred soldiers pulled it up, exhausted and sometimes working for an hour, although the river was not wider than forty fathoms in this place. When the barge was pulled upstream, the water hit its bow with such force that at any moment it could be expected that it would break into chips or be flooded with water. The construction of this crossing cost incredible labor, the ropes were torn, the launches were broken, and we must do full justice to the skill and patience with which our sailors managed to finally get the better of the mad river. I did not understand only the purpose for which all this was done, and I was surprised that some great misfortune had not yet happened. He was expected, however, very soon. During the night the river overflowed its banks and flooded part of the camp where I spent the night; I had to save myself in shirts and move the tents to another place.

End of introductory segment.

From Ilori to Drand, they counted forty versts, which I traveled in one day, because in this area there was less forest, and therefore the road was better.

From Drand, the road descended to the shore through a dense forest and, turning to the right, then led to Sukhum over the very sea, along the deep coastal sand.

Tornau Fedor Fedorovich

Memoirs of a Caucasian officer

Editorial

S. MAKAROVA

At the conclusion of the Treaty of Adrianople, in 1829, the Port renounced in favor of Russia the entire eastern coast of the Black Sea and ceded to it the Circassian lands lying between the Kuban and the sea coast, up to the border of Abkhazia, which separated from Turkey twenty years ago. This concession mattered only on paper - in fact, Russia could take possession of the space ceded to it only by force. The Caucasian tribes, which the Sultan considered his subjects, never obeyed him. They recognized him as the heir of Mohammed and the padishah of all Muslims, their spiritual head, but they did not pay taxes and did not appoint soldiers. The Turks, who occupied several fortresses on the seashore, were tolerated by the highlanders by the right of common faith, but did not allow them to interfere in their internal affairs and fought with them, or, rather, beat them without mercy at any such interference. The concession made by the Sultan seemed completely incomprehensible to the highlanders. Without delving into the study of the political principles on which the Sultan based his rights, the highlanders said: "We and our ancestors were completely independent, we never belonged to the Sultan, because they did not listen to him and did not pay him anything, and we do not want to belong to anyone else. Sultan did not own us and therefore could not yield us. Ten years later, when the Circassians already had a chance to briefly get acquainted with the Russian power, they still did not change their concepts. General Raevsky, who at that time commanded the Black Sea coastline, trying to explain to them the right by which Russia demanded obedience from them, once said to the Shapsug elders who came to ask him why he was going to war with them: "The Sultan gave you to pesh-kesh - gave you to the Russian Tsar. "Ah! Now I understand," replied the Shapsug, and showed him a bird sitting on a nearby tree. "General, I give you this bird, take it!" This ended the negotiations. It was obvious that with such a desire for independence, one force could break the stubbornness of the Circassians. War became inevitable. It only remained to figure out the means necessary for this and find the best way to conquer the highlanders who occupied the newly acquired part of the Caucasus.

Portal for the student. Self-training

Tornau Fedor Fedorovich

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