"Following the annexation of Georgia (1801), Russia in 1803 appointed General Paul Tsitsianov as the Commander-in-Chief and Civilian Governor of Georgia, Inspector of the Caucasian Line, and Military Governor of Astrakhan. Having been given such unprecedented authority, Tsitsianov, himself a Russianized Georgian prince, decided to prove himself to the tsar by completely subjugating the kingdom of eastern Georgia and by bringing the various khanates located south of the Caucasus Mountains, which had been nominally under Iranian suzerainty for some three centuries, under Russian authority. After arresting and exiling most of the Georgian royal family to Russia, Tsitsianov sent messages to the khans of the South Caucasus demanding their submission to Russia. Tsitsianov's intention was to frighten the khans to such an extent that they would turn away from Iran--which, by now had resolved its internal problems and had accepted Fath ʻAli Shah Qajar (the Following the annexation of each khanate, Yermolov commissioned a detailed demographic and economic survey. Only a handful of these surveys, describing the socioeconomic conditions of a former Iranian province in its last year of its existence have survived in the archives of Russia, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The first volume of this series is an English translation, with an introduction, annotations and commentary of the first survey, that of Sheki [Shakki]"--Provided by publisher.