W. E. D. Allen writes, ‘A natural desire to ride all the horses at once was characteristic of the North Caucasian chieftains.’1 Similarly, according to Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, the North Caucasian chiefs played one empire off against the other, and in order to maximise their material and political benefits from the imperial rivalry, they readily changed not only their protector but even their religion. They indeed ‘rode all the horses’, that is to say, they changed their political alliances and religion or sometimes submitted to the Ottoman sultan and Muscovite tsar simultaneously. However, as this chapter argues, while riding all the horses at once, their hands were tied behind their backs.

The arguments and ideas presented here are, to a certain extent, connected with the old question of nomadic ‘greedy or needy’ theories, common among the historians of Inner Asian Turco-Mongol steppe powers and their relations with their sedentary neighbours. In the case of the North Caucasus, as exemplified above, historians, using either Ottoman or Muscovite sources to examine the history of the region, claim that the North Caucasus rulers – be they Western Circassian, Kabardinian or Daghestani chiefs – tried to gain utmost advantage out of the imperial rivalry over their territories between the Ottomans and Muscovites. They were ‘greedy’ and persistently sought higher salaries, loftier titles and more gifts from different powers at different times or simultaneously. Pledges of allegiance meant little to these rulers. They broke their promises easily and even changed their religion whenever it promised greater rewards. However, this was certainly not the case from the perspective of the North Caucasus political elite, as the previous chapters explain.

Can it be argued that it was their ‘need’ to ‘ride all the horses’ then? The North Caucasus peoples and polities were not fully nomadic except for the Nogay hordes, and most of them in the sixteenth century were, in fact, autarkic. Considering that in the early modern period, the North Caucasus was a source of slaves, renowned ironworks, apiculture products and other desired goods with a location that connected several important trade routes, it is evident that the North Caucasus people and polities were giving their resources to outsiders rather than needing any from outside powers. That means ‘needy’ was not precisely the case either.