Paraboch Skirmish

The Paraboch Skirmish was Bey-Bulat Taymievs second attack against the Russian Empire and took place not long after the Terek Cordon Raid, his first raid. The attack was a success, with Bey-Bulat capturing Colonel Ivan Delpozzo and retreating back into the mountains. In the report on this raid by Russian authorities, Bey-Bulat is first mentioned by name.

Skirmish

Not long after his previous raid, Bey-Bulat, this time with 20 men, once again crossed the Terek River on inflated goat skin coats. In a fierce skirmish near the Paraboch village (Modern-day Chechnya, Shelkovskoy District), not far from the Ivanovsky fortress, Bey-Bulat and his fighters killed 3 Cossacks and captured Colonel Ivan Delpozzo, the future major general and commandant of the Vladikavkaz fortress, and retreated into Chechnya, keeping the colonel in Germenchuk.

Captivity and Release of Ivan Delpozzo

With the colonel in his hands, Bey-Bulat Taymiev demanded 20,000 silver rubles for his release. Negotiations that lasted longer than a year ensued. Meanwhile, Ivan Delpozzo was helf in extremely harsh conditions in the village of Germenchuk. According to one of the intermediaries who visited him:“Before him was no a man, but a skeleton. Heavy shackles hung on his arms and legs; A thick iron ring with a huge padlock was placed around his neck, and from this ring a heavy chain passed through the wall of the Saklya and secured outside to a thick and sturdy post. Ivan Delpozzos bed was a tattered piece of sheepksin thrown on the bare floor, and he wore almost no clothing. The old man, as Alikhanov later recounted, would sometimes cry like a child, then, emboldened, would joke about his chains and talk about the vicissitudes of human fate.”

The Russian command engaged mountaineer mediators in negotiations for Ivan Delpozzos release, specifically the Shamkhal of Tarki and the Jara-Belokan Lezgins, whose uprising had been brutally suppressed around this time. The Lezgins were offered the opportunity to free I. P. Ivan Delpozzo themselves, in exchange for which the Russian command promised to release up to 100 Lezgins captured during the uprising. Ultimately, the Caucasus Line command was forced to agree to the ransom payment, but simultaneously decided to punish the Chechens, particularly the villages through which Ivan Delpozzo's captors had passed with their captive. Troops were sent across the Terek, which drove away a total of over 1,500 head of cattle, horses, and other livestock from the Chechens. The proceeds from the sale of this robbery booty were paid as ransom. Colonel Ivan Delpozzo was released in 1804, after more than a year of captivity.

Aftermath

The captured of I. P. Ivan Delpozzo shocked the entire Caucasus leadership. This attack resulted in Chechen fighters joining Bey-Bulats forces in masses, with Bey-Bulat Taymiev being reported as the foreman of Shali and the Chief Chechen horseman in 1807. In the report on this raid, Bey-Bulat is first mentioned by name. The Tsarist command, in its orders to active troops, wrote: An unknown villain — the Chechen Beybulat — crossed the Terek naked and committed a grave atrocity, for which this scoundrel must be captured. Pavel Tsitsianov, the commander of the Russian forces in the Caucasus, who soon after arrived in the Caucasus, decided to take harsh measures against the Chechens and North Caucasians in general. In addition to military action against the mountaineers, Tsitsianov, for the first time in the history of the conflict, applied a new method: systematically, over a period of years, destroying the grain of the Chechens and drive away their lifestock in order to deprive them of their livelihood and suppress them through starvation. This strategy would later be adopted by Alexey Yermolov during his time as the commander of the Russian forces in the Caucasus.

Paraboch Skirmish

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