A captive Cossack girl being sold at a private slave market in Istanbul in 1857
In the 19th century, as Russia consolidated its borders, the mass abduction of Cossack women ceased, yet raids by mountain tribesmen on the Caucasian Line persisted. During attacks on Cossack settlements, Circassian horsemen specifically targeted young Cossack women. With the closure of legal markets in Istanbul, the price of white female slaves in underground harems skyrocketed. Captured Cossack women were hidden in mountain villages before being transported under the cover of darkness across the Black Sea on Turkish smuggling vessels—known as kochermas—to Trabzon or Istanbul. There, wealthy Ottoman dignitaries purchased them for their private households, where the young women were subjected to a thorough nude inspection; within the behind the high walls of enclosed courtyards within these private homes, female slaves were examined completely naked.
If a Cossack woman was being purchased specifically for manual labour, the buyer approached the transaction much like buying a workhorse. Inspecting her completely naked body served as a guarantee that he was not wasting his money.
A visual inspection of the naked woman conducted meticulously, ensured that the "merchandise" brought into the home was clean and healthy. To the slave traders and buyers—whether in the secluded houses of the underground trade or in the open spaces of the Avrat Pazarı—an ordinary Cossack woman was merely a piece of property. Her natural sense of shame and her tears were completely disregarded in the interest of the transaction's commercial precision.
When purchasing a female slave—be it an elite concubine or a simple cook—a man acquired not merely her labour, but absolute ownership of her body. The master had the legal right to engage in sexual relations with any slave he owned; the woman’s own consent was not required by law. A slave’s refusal to submit to sexual intimacy was viewed as rebellion, obstinacy, and defiance of her master—offenses for which she could be severely punished (beaten or locked in a cellar) or resold at the market.
The Cossacks naturally pursued the slave traders and attempted to rescue their captured kinswoman, but once she had been sold at a slave market, the chances of success became very slim.