russia: dagestan: derbent and mahachkhala

One of the official Russian holidays each year takes place near the beginning of November. National Unity Day doesn't seem to mean much emotionally to any of the Russians I know, but everyone loves a day off. It has fallen on a Monday for several years, meaning I get a three day weekend, woo hoo. (I can't wait until it falls on a Tuesday, then I'm hoping for a four day weekend.)

Three days to travel in my mind justifies flying somewhere a bit further from Moscow than my normal weekend trips. Claire had found a place that interested her, and since I didn't care where we went, all three of us booked flights to Mahachkhala, the capital of the Russian Republic of Dagestan.

Before moving to Russia I'd heard of Dagestan, but not for very good reasons. It is right next to Chechnya, which is still not the most stable of areas in Russia. Dagestan has had similar problems, as the history is quite similar to that of Chechnya. Chechnya has gotten a lot more recognition with the fighting in the region, but Dagestan has had some of it as well. Americans will recognize the name Dagestan, but not right away, and for an awful reason: the Boston bombers were both from Dagestan.

Dagestan has European Russia's southernmost point. 

Most of Dagestan is mountainous, the name basically means 'mountain land.' Throughout the entire area are ancient fortresses and abandoned cities. Wikipedia tells me this republic of Russia has the most heterogeneous population, with people from quite a few ethnic origins. All of these groups have their own language, but use Russian between each other.

Civilization has been documented in this region for a long time, nearly 3000 years. With the wide variety of peoples and languages and faiths in the area, much of the history has involved fighting. 

The two main faiths have been Christianity and Islam, though the current majority would consider themselves Muslim.

Dagestan officially became part of Russia in 1806, though that wasn't really confirmed until after the Russo-Persian War, because that is when Iran officially ceded the territory to Russia. Despite being part of Russia, locals haven't always been happy about this. There are regular rumblings about independence, which sometimes break out into violence. The republic is considered semi-autonomous, which helps keep the peace. 

Claire had mention Dagestan and Derbent early in the semester, so we'd been keeping track of the safety issues in the region for a couple months before booking our flights. There weren't any issues before, during, or after our visit, which should settle the minds of anyone who was/is worried about us.

Though Mahachkhala is the capital of the region, Derbent was where we chose to focus most of our time. Derbent is a city on the coast of the Caspian Sea, the southernmost city in European Russia. 

 Derbent considers itself the oldest city in Russia, as they have history going back to the 8^th century BC. (The fact that it wasn't part of Russia back then seems to be ignored when making this claim.)

Derbent currently has a growing population of more than 120,000. Historical fighting here has been mostly between the Persians and the Arabs, with the Russians coming in in later years. While we were there we didn't hear any other English, and we saw very few ethnic Russians.

We took a taxi from the airport to Derbent, which took about 2 hours. 

Though we'd given our driver the address of the accomodation we'd booked, it took another 20 minutes of driving around to figure out exactly where it was. We were fortunate that our driver was willing to call the phone number and get directions straight from the owner.

After hanging out in the flat for a couple hours we went out walking. Derbent is on the Caspian Sea, and there is a beach, but we quickly figured out why there is no major resort part of the local economy. The wind never stopped, which meant fine sand was constantly landing on us. 

Hanging out on a towel on a beach wouldn't be fun if you walk away later covered in sand.

On this particular day the weather was chilly, with dark clouds rolling through really fast. Since it was early November, the water was nowhere near warm enough for swimming, I was the only one of us willing to get her feet wet. I wanted to say I'd been in the Caspian Sea.

We walked on the beach for a while, and that's about it for the day. Something about the red eye flight, waiting in the airport, and taxi ride had exhausted us. We picked up food at a supermarket, then went back to the flat and just relaxed for the rest of the day.

After breakfast the next morning we started walking. The weather seemed better, it wasn't quite as windy and the sky was mostly blue. We started by going back to the beach to be close to the water a bit longer.

The beach doesn't follow the entire coastal part of the city, it's actually a pretty small area, and much of it is not very pretty. We saw one guy fishing, who looked at us like we were crazy. Apparently people don't hang out near the water here. The Caspian Sea has fishing restrictions now, because of overfishing, so I have no idea how successful this fisherman was, or if he was supposed to be there at all.

We saw what might be called an abandoned amusement park, though it was really just three or four rides that had been left to rot. Photogenic in a way, but not important at all.

The first real 'sight' we tried to see was a lighthouse. When it was built, it was on the coast. It is no longer anywhere near the coast, there is no way a ship should be using this lighthouse for anything safety related. We weren't able to get very close to the lighthouse, it is behind several walls, inside a neighborhood. Too bad. I'm not sure why it is listed as something to see, because you can't really 'see' it except for a glance from a distance.

There is a park nearby, where we took a team photo with an I love Derbent sign. We walked out the other side of this park, up the street toward a big platz. On one side of the platz we found a giant city sign, on another side was a Lenin statue, and on a third side was a WW2 memorial.

Moving on, we started heading up the hill as Derbent is basically built on the side of a mountain. We found what used to be a church, but is now a history museum. Neither the exterior or interior of the building were particularly special, but we did notice the lasting evidence of some recent fighting in the facade. Bullet holes and such, hmmm.

Moving up the hill from here took us through the old part of the city. The cobblestone streets were pretty steep, with lots of narrow alleys. Wooden and stone homes everywhere, many of them more than one story tall. A pretty area to wander through, and hope not to get lost. (I have zero sense of direction, I'd never get back to Moscow after weekends traveling if I didn't have GPS to get me going in the right direction.)

At the very top we came to the main reason for visiting the city: the UNESCO designated fortress that used to be the main protection of the city; it is now a museum. Getting to the entry of the citadel meant going up a steep set of stairs; at the bottom of these stairs two local boys harassed us, demanding money. When we said no they called us a very unkind name, sigh.

The best parts of visiting the citadel were the views over the entire area. The walls have been rebuilt to be as they were originally, you can walk along the tops most of the way around. The buildings inside the walls were lacking, to say the least. I don't know if there is a plan to redo the buildings as well.

There was a museum in one of the walls, which was quite nice. Paintings and photos of former residents, culture and life in the area. There was information in both Russian and English, at least part of the time. There were also items on display from life back then.

As we left the citadel and started walking back down the hill we realized just how big the citadel used to be. The best way I can describe it as a walled fortress in the middle of a walled city. The fortress walls still stand, and some of the city walls still stand. The area still inside the city walls has modernized, the area inside the fortress walls has not.

While we were walking Angela noticed a car parked; she pointed it out to Claire and me because the entire car had been bedazzled. Wow, just wow.

The next morning we packed up and gave the keys back to the owner, then used yandex to call a taxi. Since the taxi bringing us to the city had had such a hard time finding the flat, we expected it to be the same on the way out of the city, so we chose a much easier to find pickup spot.

The driver of this taxi was awful. He checked his phone every minute or so, if not more often. He was checking whatsapp, and even Instagram, eeek!

He also asked me to cancel the ride through the app, then pay him the same amount, but in cash. Basically he wanted the entire amount, he didn't want to pay a commission to the app. I pretended I didn't understand what he was asking.

After a scary two hours (since he wasn't keeping his eyes on the road,) we arrived in Mahachkhala. The driver let us out at the main sight of the city: a big mosque. We'd been excited to see the mosque, right up until we walked into the women's area, which was tiny. All the photos online show the men's area, with soaring, beautifully decorated ceilings. We couldn't see any of that from the women's section, it was such a disappointment.

After leaving the mosque we walked across the platz and across the street to a giant I love Dagestan sign and took a team photo. Too bad the history museum behind the sign was closed, as it was a Monday and a national holiday.

At that point we decided we were done with the city, none of us felt like it was worth wandering around, and travel apps I'd seen didn't list anything else really worth seeing. We spent the next few hours in a nearby cafe, the food was pretty good.

We walked back outside after dark, and went back to see the outside of the mosque, because it was all lit up for the evening. Very pretty.

We called another taxi, which had a much better driver, who took us to the airport. We got back to Moscow not too long before midnight, meaning each of us got home around 0130, ugh. Still, it was worth it.

I probably won't go back to Derbent or Mahachkhala, but I'd love to see mountains of the region. I'd also like to see the tiny mountain towns, and the abandoned towns. I'm pretty sure I'll need to do that on a tour, but it would be worth it.

russia: moscow: museum of oriental art

My flight from Malta back to Moscow landed Sunday morning. As soon as I booked it I told Claire and Angela that we definitely had to get together and see or do something that day, so I didn't waste it doing nothing at home.

We didn't sort out where we would go until a couple days before, but that didn't really matter much to me. Claire chose the Museum of Oriental Art, which should probably change its name, given the pejorative meaning of the word oriental. It ought to be called Museum of Asian Art. 

The web page of the museum says it is one of the largest 'cultural institutions in the world for the preservation, research, and display of Oriental art.' I'm not sure if I believe it is really that big, but who knows.

We found the ticket desk, which wanted us to pay what amounts to a foreigner tax, meaning a higher entrance fee. We showed our work visas, and said we live here, we don't want to pay the higher price. They let us pay the local price, if they hadn't we were ready to walk away.

The museum was mostly organized by country/region, with a little bit of chronology thrown in.

There were sections for India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, etc... I'm pretty sure we wandered through every room with exhibits, but I could be wrong. Finding the entrance of the exhibits themselves wasn't obvious, we had to walk past the toilet, and up what looked like a back stairway.

Since all three of us had lived in Eastern Asia (Claire and Angela in China, me in Korea,) we had all seen some of the styles of the exhibits previously. Even so, it was a nice outing, and I'm glad we visited the museum.

malta: malta: blue grotto and haqar qim temples

This was my last day in Malta, I used the day to do another day trip to two more sights on the island. I caught one of the first buses in the morning, hoping to be one of the first people to arrive, thinking there would be fewer pictures in whateva photos I took.

My first sight is called the Blue Grotto. Like the Blue Hole that used to exist on the island of Gozo, this was a natural sight, formed by the action of water over millenia, crashing on rock over and over. People come here to ride boats through the holes that have been created by all those waves.

The bus stop is at the top of everything, you have to walk down a fairly steep road to get to the boats. Go figure, I got all the way down the hill, to find a sign at the boats with the same message as the ferry I'd wanted to ride in Valletta: not working due to wind. Argh.

This time I could see the waves crashing onto the rocks so I could see why the decision was made not to run the boats. I wasn't happy about it, but I could understand. Even so, darnit.

I walked to a viewpoint that lets you see some of the holes in the rocks, but it wasn't as good as what I'd hoped to see. 

Oh well, traveling doesn't always work out the way you want it to.

After the viewpoint I walked back up the hill, and followed the road a bit further, only a 25 minute walk or so. (Uphill the whole way, in the direct sun. I feel this has been a theme of my posts for this trip.)

My second sight of the day was heaps better than the first. It was another set of ancient megalithic temples. This complex was similar to what I'd already seen on Gozo and in Valletta, but it was bigger, with more ruins.

Like the others, these temples of Haqar Qim (sp?) date back to 3600 BC or so, give or take a few years. They are made of limestone, which means they haven't weathered particularly well over the millenia, and that won't get better.

Like the temples in Valletta, these are covered with a giant tent like tarp. I suppose this protects the stones from rain and such, but I don't know how much, if anything, it does against the wind. Since these temples are right on the coast, the wind is constant.

As these temples are also UNESCO sights, there is an entrance fee. Sigh, but I understand why. At least this time I could see that some preservation was taking place.

After wandering around for a while, making sure I stepped into every nook and cranny possible, I headed back toward the entrance, making my way to the bus stop.

It didn't take long for a bus to pull up, and bring me back to Valletta. I'd packed up and checked out earlier in the morning, but was able to leave my bag at my accomodation, so I headed there to pick it up.

If you've read the two previous posts you won't be surprised to know that I had the same dinner as the previous three nights: Indian food, then gelato and pastries for dessert. After eating I caught a bus back to the airport, from which I took off and ended up back in Moscow.

I liked Malta, and I could see myself coming back here, but it isn't at the top of my list for the time being.

malta: malta: mosta and mdina and rabat

Since the island of Malta is relatively small and has good transport to get all over, I decided to sleep in Valletta for three or four nights and do a couple day trips to see sights in other places.

Malta has a lot of history in war, despite being quite small. The most recent war in which fighting happened on the island was WW2. The geographic importance of the island was huge, it was actually under seige for over two years.

I wanted to see a part of that particular history, so I hopped on a bus to the small town of Mosta, which of course has a giant church. The ride was not long, and the bus stop is obvious, right next to the church. Despite being huge, it is 'just' a parrish church.

The name of the church is the Basilica of the Assumption of our Lady, but not one calls it by that name. It is more commonly known as the Mosta Dome or Rotunda of Mosta, because that is the part of the church through which history happened.

The chuch goes back to the early 17^th century, though that building was much smaller. In the 19^th century a new church was built, right around the old church. Wikipedia tells me local citizens helped out with some of the building, on Sundays and holidays.

The dome is huge, it was the third largest in Europe at one point. The interior diameter is 37 meters, not too shabby. The walls holding it up are 30 feet thick! Even though the church is circular, there are side chapels all around the circle.

On 9 April 1942 the Luftwaffe dropped three bombs in the area in the evening. One of them went straight through the rotunda, while a gathering of 300 people was celebrating an evening service inside the church. The bomb didn't explode, it just sat in the middle of the floor. Needless to say, this was considered a miracle.

Engineers from the Royal Bomb Disposal unit defused the bomb and dumped the remains in the sea off the island, and a replica is now inside the church. The story behind the bomb is the reason anyone comes to Mosta, because the town is otherwise unremarkable.

There is an entry fee to this church, sigh. It isn't much, but it's still annoying. It doesn't take long to walk through the church, appreciating what happened, as well as appreciating the artistry of the building itself.

After seeing the church I walked into one of several nearby bakeries to pick up snacks. No, I didn't need the piece of cake, but I have no regrets :)

I went back to the same bus stop to catch my next bus, out to the walled city of Mdina. This bus stop was also right next to where I wanted to go, yippee!

Mdina is an ancient walled city, it was actually the capital of the island from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The walls are still standing, and the whole thing is still really photogenic. 

Continued reading in Wikipedia tells me the current population is around 43.

Like many cities from way back in the day, the streets in Mdina are not straight, and they are narrow. The greatest part of exploring Mdina is getting lost in the many small alleys. You start walking into one of them and you're never sure where you'll end up.

There were of course several churches. One of the churches I passed had locked gates in front, but the doors behind the gates were open. In other words I was able to peek inside, but was not able to go in. 

Another church was part of a monastery, it was actually a chapel with a beautiful ceiling. There was another huge church with an entry fee, I was getting tired of the fees by this point. That being said, the fee on this one included entry in the next door museum, which was quite nice.

After getting completely turned around in the alleys a number of times, I felt like I'd seen most of Mdina, so I walked back out of the main gate, (there is a moat around the city, I wonder what it looked like back in its heyday,) and to the modern city next door, called Rabat.

Even though Rabat is thought of as the 'new' city, it was part of the core of the original medieval city before Mdina was split off, and has plenty of visible history. I found more churches, and well known catacombs. The biggest church in Rabat was free, thank goodness.

Rabat isn't nearly as pretty as Mdina, but there are more than 11,000 people living there. It definitely feels more alive than Mdina. (to be honest, Mdina feels more like an Instagram location now, not so much a real city. There are heaps of people in the really photogenic spots - doors with floral decorations, etc - but no markets anything real.)

After finishing exploring I walked down the main road until I found a bus stop in the shade. I'm not usually such a fan of shade when sun is an option, but the past couple days in the direct sun had gotten to me.
I had to wait a while, but eventually a bus came along and brought me back to Valletta.

malta: malta: valletta

Valletta is the capital of both the country of Malta and the island of Malta. According to the official boundaries, Valletta is the smallest capital city of Europe at only .8 square miles and 6500 residents. That being said, when anyone says Valletta, they are referring to the metro area, which includes the suburbs. When including the suburbs, the number of residents goes up to almost 400,000.

Valletta has been associated with the Order of St John, the French Republic, the Protectorate of Malta, the Crown Colony of Malta, the State of Malta, and the Republic of Malta. 

Because Malta is a set of islands in the Mediterranean Sea, it has been fought on and over many times throughout its history. From what I've learned, many of the cities around the country were founded as forts, and many of those forts are still standing in some form.

Valletta is one of those cities. There are several fortifications around the city, protecting the harbour in particular. I stayed in one of the suburbs, and to get into the city proper it was a long walk or a bus ride, both of which went around a small marina.

When I first looked at my phone to figure out how to get to the city center it said I could take one of the small ferries that leave just as often as buses come by. When I got to the spot from which the ferry was supposed to leave I found a sign saying the ferries were closed for the day due to wind. I looked out at the water and saw small waves, but it didn't seem that bad, but since I'm not the one driving the ferry I don't get to decide. I didn't see the ferries sailing at any time during my four days in the area, I have no clue how smooth everything needs to be for them to sail. 

I took the bus instead, getting off when I saw something interesting. The interesting thing seemed to be an abandoned fort of some kind, I'm a sucker for anything that looks abandoned. I walked around and took a few photos, then kept walking in the direction in which the bus had gone.

Next up was a giant church. By this point I'd figured out that pretty much every church in the country was huge, regardless of whether it was a cathedral, or 'just' a regular church. St Publius had an open door, so I walked in. 

I was going in as a couple was coming out, and about a minute later I realized the priest had shut the door behind them. It turned out the church wasn't really open for the public to be wandering around, but since I'd walked in through an open door it was okay for me to finish up.

St Publius was a lovely church. A great ceiling, a beautiful altar, a tall vaulted ceiling, and stained glass windows. The best part: I had it all to myself. If only I could get lucky like that all the time.

From there I continued toward the city center, to see the sights listed as worth seeing. I finally found the major cathedral, only to find out that there was a steep entrance fee: 10 euro!! Call me crazy, but that's ridiculous, especially when I saw how many people were queued up to go inside. At least you get a brochure with a lot of information about the church.

Even with the queue and and ridiculous price, I paid to go inside St John's co Cathedral. It was just as big as other churches I'd already seen, and just as fancy. Unlike the other churches I'd seen, I was not allowed to wander all over. 

Most of the sanctuary was blocked off by ropes, so I wasn't able to stand under the center of the ceiling.

Another difference was that this cathedral had a whole lot of side chapels. None of them were super amazing, but with how much I'd paid, I took the time to look at every single one. Toward the back of the sanctuary was a set of steps, which I followed up to get to a balcony at the back of the sanctuary. I felt as if I was looking out and down over the rest of the world, which was fun.

The cathedral with crowded, it is not a place I'd go to again.

Much of the central area is a pedestrian zone, which I loved. All my wandering took me past a number of traditional Maltese balconies, which are mostly covered, and painted. When you have a building full of these balconies it catches the eye of every photographer.

Another thing that caught my eye was a reserved parking spot. It was held for members of a convent, with a simple chair.

My self guided tour kept going by heading toward the grand harbour, a sight on many postcards of the city. This is where cruise boats pull in, it's huge. It is better seen from the other side of the water, but you can still appreciate the size when your in the middle of the whole thing.

From there I walked until I found a bus stop where I could catch a bus back to my neighborhood. Earlier in the day I'd noticed an Indian restaurant very close to my accomodation, and it turned out to be an excellent choice for dinner :)

The next morning I got going quite a bit earlier in the day, and started with a long walk. Over two hours I think, to get to my first sight of the day. It was warm and sunny, I wanted to enjoy that as much as possible.

I passed a few churches, walked over a bridge, saw a LOT of sandstone coloured buildings, and small shops along the way.

Finally I got to a proper sight: a set of old temples, a UNESCO designated spot. The Tarxien temples are dated all the way back to 3150 BC.

The temples were 'discovered' in 1914 by a farmer tilling his fields. From what I've been able to find, archaeologists aren't completely sure about the use of these temples either, though they think animal sacrifices might've happened here.

Archaeologists also learned a bit of how these types of temples were constructed because those who did the constructing this time left stone rollers outside. The skills of engineers back in the day were just as good as they are now, and they didn't have computers.

The ruins are now under a giant tarp of sorts, to help protect the stones from the elements. Since I'm not good at imagining how things could've been, all I saw was a bunch of big stones and rocks. (Then again, this is pretty typical of lots of ruins I've seen, though I can always appreciate seeing history, and its value.)

From the temples I walked down toward the water, through the suburb of Birgu. I wanted to get all the way to the edge so I could look across at the Grand Harbour. To get there I passed under one of the old city gates, which stretches across the whole road. Quite impressive.

By this point I was in dire need of shade, which was not anywhere to be found. Am I a horrible person for getting tired of the direct sun and heat by that point? Hee hee. While searching for shade I walked past a marina, which was quite photogenic with all the sailboats lined up. I also saw outside the walls of a fort, which to be honest looked the same as every other fort I'd already seen in Malta.

Finally I found a small tree, which provided a wee bit of shade. I stood there for ten minutes, then found a nearby bus stop and started making my way back to my neighborhood. 

As I'd enjoyed the Indian restaurant so much the night before, I went back for more. After the main course I walked down the street to have dessert: gelato and mini pastries from a gelateria. YUM.

After a day trip the next day I went back to the Indian restaurant and gelateria. And again after the next day trip as well. Why fix something that isn't broken?

I don't know that I feel the need to come back to Valletta in particular, but there is good transport around the island, so if I come back to Malta, this is where I'd start.