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 Delpotso and retreating back into the mountains. In the report on this raid by Russian authorities, Bey-Bulat is first mentioned by name.

Paraboch Skirmish
Part of Caucasian War
Map of the North Caucasus Line. The Ivanovsky Fortress can be seen near modern-day [[Paraboch]]
Date 9 October [O.S. 27 September] 1802 Location [[Paraboch]] Village, Russian Empire (Modern-day Paraboch village, Shelkovskoy District, Chechnya) 43°28′22″N 46°17′41″E Result Chechen Victory
Belligerents
Chechens	Russian Empire
Commanders and leaders
Bey-Bulat Taymiev	Ivan Delpotso (POW)
Strength
20	Unknown
Casualties and losses
Unknown	3 KIA 1 POW
Location within modern-day Chechnya

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 Delpotso, the future major general and commandant of the Vladikavkaz fortress, and retreated into Chechnya, keeping the colonel in Germenchuk.

Captivity and Release of Ivan Delpotso

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 Delpotso 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 Delpotsos 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 I. P. Ivan Delpotsos 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 Delpotso 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 Delpotso'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 I.P. Ivan Delpotso was released in 1804, after more than a year of captivity.

Aftermath

The captured of I. P. Ivan Delpotso 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.

See also

• Bey-Bulat Taymiev — Leader of the Chechen Abreks.
• Terek Cordon Raid — Bey-Bulats previous raid.

Sources

Bibliography

Russian sources

• Авторханов, А. Г. (1930). К основным вопросам истории Чечни: К десятилетию Советской Чечни [On the Basic Questions of the History of Chechnya: On the Tenth Anniversary of Soviet Chechnya] (in Russian). Грозный: Чечизд-во «Серло». pp. 1–105.

• Ахмадов, Я. З.; Хасмагомадов, Э. Х. (2005). "Глава V. Выдающиеся деятели Чечни первой половины XIX века" [Chapter 5. Prominent figures of Chechnya in the first half of the 19th century]. История Чечни в XIX-XX веках [History of Chechnya in the 19th-20th Centuries]. История Чечни с древнейших времен до конца XVIII века (in Russian). Москва: Пульс. pp. 240–274. ISBN 5-93486-046-1. Retrieved 2026-09-03 – via eLIBRARY.RU.

• Гапуров, Ш. А.; Товсултанов, Р. А. (2019). "Глава 1. Чечня в начале XIX века. Начало военно-политической деятельности Бей-Булата Таймиева" [Chapter 1. Chechnya at the beginning of the 19th century. The beginning of the military-political activities of Bey-Bulat Taymiev]. In Магамадов, С. С. (ed.). Бей-Булат Таймиев и его время (Российско-чеченские отношения в первой трети XIX века) [Bey-Bulat Taimiev and His Time (Russian-Chechen Relations in the First Third of the 19th Century)] (in Russian). Грозный: АО «Издательско-полиграфический комплекс „Грозненский рабочий“». pp. 293–371. ISBN 978-5-4314-0391-0. OCLC 1143826539. Retrieved 2026-09-03 – via Bavarian State Library.

• Хожаев, Д. А. (1998). "Тайми Биболт" [Taymi Bibolt]. In Мазаева, Тамара (ed.). Чеченцы в Русско-Кавказской войне [Chechens in the Russo-Caucasian War] (in Russian). Грозный–Санкт-Петербург: Седа. pp. 45–59. ISBN 5-85973-012-8. Archived from the original on 22 December 2014. Retrieved 2026-09-03.

• Тесаев, З. А. (2020). "Таймиев Бей-Булат (1779–1831)" [Taymiev Bey-Bulat (1779–1831)] (PDF). In Гапуров, Ш. А.; Магамадов, С. С. (eds.). Исторические личности Чечни (XI–XXI вв.) [Historical Personalities of Chechnya (11th–21st Centuries)] (PDF) (in Russian). Vol. 1, Book 1: Political and Public Figures. Грозный: АО «Издательско-полиграфический комплекс „Грозненский рабочий“». pp. 169–176. ISBN 978-5-4314-0422-1. Retrieved 2026-09-03 – via eLIBRARY.RU.

English Sources

• Gammer, Moshe (2006). "Chapter 4: The Beginning of the Caucasian War". The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 31–44. ISBN 0-8229-5898-8. OCLC 62329896. OL 22724688M. Retrieved 2026-09-03 – via Open Library.