In his 1769 letter to Russian diplomat Count P. Panin, the Georgian king Erekle II wrote that "there was an ancient fortress which was conquered, through deceit, by one man from the Muslim Jevanshir tribe." The same information about the 'ancient' fortress is confirmed by the Russian Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov in his letter to Prince Grigory Potemkin. Suvorov writes that the Armenian prince Melik Shahnazar of Varanda surrendered his fortress Shushikala to "certain Panah", whom he calls "chief of an unimportant part of nomadic Muslims living near the Karabakh borders." When discussing Karabakh and Shusha in the 18th century, the Russian diplomat and historian S. M. Bronevskiy wrote in his "Historical Notes" that Shusha fortress was a possession of the Melik-Shahnazarian clan, having been given to Panah Ali Khan in return for aid against the other Armenian meliks of Karabakh. Russian historian P. G. Butkov (1775–1857) writes that "Shushi village" was given to Panah Ali Khan by the Melik-Shahnazarian prince after they entered into an alliance, and that Panah Ali Khan fortified the village. Joseph Wolff, during his mission in the Middle East, visited "Shushee, in the province of Carabagh, in Armenia Major".