by hide in the mountains you mean every third emperor of byzantine was an armenian, all of caucasus was controlled by kingdom of georgia for 6 hundred years from black sea to caspian, and after mongol invasion not a single empire managed to conquer a region with a total population of 7 million at the time? the first empire ever to actually conquer caucasus was russia, after two centuries of war. do i need to also tell you how mamluks in the entire ottoman empire up until egypt were from caucasus? that's not disputed go look it up right now.
Georgia