Smuggling and the issue of security in the borders of Qajar Iran and Tsarist Russia

Smugglers were an anti-government movement in the lands of Tsarist Russia. A part of this flow only turned to creating disorder in the society and looting, but a significant part of it, as an active popular force in the South Caucasus region, sought to eliminate oppression and establish stability and peace in this region. Therefore, in order to achieve this goal, they clashed with the rule of Tsarist Russia and the local feudal lords dependent on it, and due to the lack of forces, they chose guerrilla warfare on the borders of Russia and Iran on both sides of the Aras. This escape in the border areas caused them to be referred to as smuggling. This research aims to investigate the problem of smuggling in the borders of Iran in Qajar rera and Tsarist Russia in the 19th and 20th centuries by using library sources and in a descriptive-explanatory way. The findings show that the urgent need for land and water and its lack, the arbitrariness of the rich and those dependent on the government, were the main reasons for the emergence of smuggling in the South Caucasus. The issue of lack of land and soil became a big crisis when the tsarist government pursued its policy of Christianization in the Caucasus and accordingly confiscated a significant part of the land and water of the native Muslims in the region for the benefit of the newly arrived Christian populations.