At almost the same period she remodelled the Land of Free Communes. This was the area to the east where Kozaks who were dissatisfied with the Hetman state took refuge, and which had been spontaneously organized into regiments by the population on the Kozak model. Various hetmans had tried to secure the annexation of this territory to the Hetman state, but the Tsars had persistently refused to allow it and had encouraged the settling of Russians in the same area. Catherine accordingly turned this into a definite province, abolished the Kozak regiments, replaced them with hussars and introduced the Russian system of taxation. The restored Sich was the next to receive the attention of Catherine’s centralizing policy. She had early begun to colonize the south of Russia and she looked with envy at the lands occupied by the Kozaks. Yet they were still very useful whenever a Turkish war broke out. They fought with their usual bravery and received many honors for their courage both on land and sea. They might have expected some real sign of the gratitude of the Empress, but she was not interested in maintaining the organization despite its usefulness. It was in the way of Russian expansion. Finally in 1775, she issued a conflicting statement that the Zaporozhians were neglecting the land and also were abandoning their past mode of life and permitting farmers to settle on their lands to raise grain. The truth seems to have been that the Kozaks, under their koshovy Peter Kalnyshevsky, were trying to develop their own land in their own way and were succeeding too well. General Tökölyi was accordingly sent secretly with a large force of Russian troops and artillery to the Sich. When it was in position, Tökölyi peremptorily announced that the Sich was to be destroyed. The koshovy and several of the officers, including the chaplain, finally persuaded the Kozaks to yield without fighting, as many had wished to do. The fortress was razed on June 5 and the property was entirely turned over to the government. Then as a curious aftermath of this, Kalnyshevsky and the other officers who had led the movement for surrender were all arrested. The koshovy himself was sent for imprisonment to the Solovyetsky Monastery in the far north where he lived until 1803 in solitary confinement and was allowed to leave his cell but three times a year. It was the last ungrateful act of the Empress. The rest of the Kozaks who did not enter certain regiments were reduced to serfdom and the very name of the Zaporozhian Kozaks was ordered wiped out. Many of the Kozaks, however, succeeded in escaping into Turkey where the Turks allowed them to live near Ochakiv and about 7,000 soon gathered there. Later they were allowed to settle near the mouth of the Danube, but they were on the whole dissatisfied with life in the Ottoman Empire.