Although direct contact with native speakers of Russian is limited in the Bezhta Division, the language is widely present, for instance as the language of schooling and as the main language of broadcast media, in particular television. Direct contact with the Russian language is, however, a relatively recent phenomenon in the case of Bezhta, dating essentially from the consolidation of Soviet power in the North Caucasus in the early twentieth century. We have therefore taken 1900 CE as a reasonable terminus post quem for direct Russian loans into Bezhta, with the process of borrowing from Russian continuing up to the present day and likely to intensify in the future. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we have assumed that words of Russian origin were borrowed directly from Russian. Russian is currently the main source of new loans, including internationalisms that enter Bezhta in their Russian form.