The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus (1800-1864)

Russia founded the fortress of Vladikavkaz ("ruler of the Caucasus") at the entrance to the Daryal Gorge, anchoring its military line across the North Caucasus steppe. The fortress marked the start of a sustained Russian military presence in the mountains, driven by the empire's aim to secure territory between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea and to project power against the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Iran.

Location: Vladikavkaz, North Caucasus

After the death of the last king of Kartli-Kakheti, Russia annexed eastern Georgia and began administering it as a province, taking over its defense against Persian and Ottoman claims. The annexation drew Russia into the wars and politics of the South Caucasus for the next two decades.

Location: Tbilisi, Georgia

The first Russo-Persian war of the 19th century ended with the Gulistan treaty, in which Qajar Iran ceded most of its Caucasian territories — including Baku, Derbent, and the khanates of the eastern South Caucasus — to Russia. The treaty established Russia as the dominant power in the region and left Iran contesting the border for years afterward.

Location: Gulistan, Karabakh

Russian forces under General Alexey Yermolov shifted from periodic punitive expeditions to a systematic campaign of fort-building and forest-clearing against the peoples of the Northeast Caucasus, including Chechens, Dagestanis, and Kumyks. The harshness of Yermolov's methods helped fuel resistance — in Chechen memory, they mark the start of the Russian-Chechen conflict — and opened the phase known as the Caucasian War (1817-1864).

Location: North Caucasus

The second Russo-Persian war ended with the Treaty of Turkmenchay, transferring the Erivan and Nakhchivan khanates to Russia and completing Russian control of present-day Armenia and Azerbaijan. A war with the Ottoman Empire followed in 1828-29, settled at Adrianople, leaving Russia the arbiters of the South Caucasus and free to concentrate on the mountain war in the north.

Location: Turkmenchay, Iran

Shamil, an Avar Islamic scholar, became the imam of a theocratic state in Dagestan and Chechnya that fused Sufi Naqshbandi organization with mountain military tradition. For a quarter-century he fought the Russian army to a standstill, defeating expeditions — including the costly Dargo campaign of 1845, which killed several Russian generals — and running a state with its own administration, taxation, and diplomacy, including contacts with the Ottoman Empire and Britain.

Location: Dagestan and Chechnya

After years of grinding pressure and the defection of many of his lieutenants, Shamil surrendered with his family and remaining followers at the mountain fortress of Gunib. He was treated honorably and settled in Russia; the Russian command turned its full force to the Northwest Caucasus, where Circassian resistance continued.

Location: Gunib, Dagestan

The final campaign of the war ended at Kbaada (modern Sochi region) on May 21, 1864. Russian forces and Cossack settlers then carried out a mass expulsion of the Circassian population toward the Ottoman Empire: hundreds of thousands were deported or fled by sea and land, and a large share died of starvation, disease, and violence. Several countries and the Circassian diaspora recognize these events as genocide; Russia rejects the designation, maintaining that the deaths were not an intentional extermination. The date is commemorated annually by Circassians worldwide.

Location: Northwest Caucasus and the Black Sea coast

With the conquest complete, Russia reorganized the Caucasus into provinces under a viceroy, built railways (including the line to Baku that fueled the late-century oil boom), and settled Cossack and Russian colonists in the north. The memory of the conquest and the expulsion shaped the region's later conflicts, from the Chechen wars of the 1990s-2000s to the annual Circassian remembrance of May 21.

Location: Caucasus