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.