Dagestan is a republic of the Russian Federation on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, at the eastern end of the Caucasus range. It is roughly the size of Scotland and home to around three million people, but those people belong to more than thirty distinct ethnic groups — Avars, Dargins, Kumyks, Lezgins, Laks, Tabasarans and many others — each with its own language. Dagestan is, by several measures, the most linguistically diverse place in Europe, and the name itself means "Land of Mountains" in Turkic.
For most of its history Dagestan has been a highland frontier between empires — Persian, Ottoman, Russian — and the landscape still shows it. The highland villages are built like small fortresses, clinging to impossibly steep slopes, with defensive towers rising above the roofs; many of the best known, like Gamsutl (an Avar "ghost village" abandoned in the 2000s) and Chokh, have seen an unlikely renaissance as domestic tourism has discovered them. Sulak Canyon, at over 1,900 metres deep, is one of the deepest canyons in the world. The Caspian coast has beaches and long-vanished khanates; the mountains hold ancient watchtowers, rock-cut tombs, and the stone circles of the Caucasus bronze age.
The capital, Makhachkala, is a busy modern port city and the main transport hub. Most travellers, however, head straight for Derbent — Russia's oldest continuously inhabited city, founded in the 5th century CE, whose UNESCO-listed Naryn-Kala citadel and the parallel walls running down to the Caspian Sea once formed the main gate through the Caucasus between the Persian and the steppe worlds.
Dagestan went through decades of political and militant Islamist unrest in the 1990s and 2000s; the situation has stabilised considerably since then, but the region still requires more caution than most of European Russia, and Western travel advisories may apply. Check current guidance before planning any trip.
Destinations in Dagestan
- Derbent
- Tabasaran
