[3] Circassians and Alans made use of both the forests and the mountains, and waged a successful guerrilla war,[1] maintaining their freedom to some extent.

[1] Kypchak Turkic peoples – some of which became future affiliates of Genghis Khan – had been invading and settling areas further and further South and West (a process that had continued since the fall of the Khazars), including the fertile river valleys of the Terek and the Kuban.

[7][8] The people of the Caucasus proved no match for the arrows and flames of the Mongols, and their villages were totally destroyed.

[1] William of Rubruck, the emissary of the Kingdom of France to Sartaq Khan (son of Batu) travelled to the Caucasus in 1253.

[3] The concept of mythical beast known as the "almasti", an evil forest creature with enchanted hair, also dates to Mongol influence with the word almasti being a loan from Mongolian where it originally meant "forest-man"; Jaimoukha also proposes that the Mongol name may have become used in the place of a native name during the sojourn of the Golden Horde over Simsim.