Dagestan, a Kalashnikov and Poor Mike Tyson

Rod writes: a few highlights of my recent trip to Dagestan. On the journey were Stephen Barrett, two-time US wrestling champion and colleague here in Nalchik, and Ewan and Greg, two friends who live in Krasnodar.

Click on map to enlarge

Makhachkala - population 600,000 - is the capital of Dagestan on the far eastern end of the Caucasus mountain range. Dagestan is a republic of 35 different nationalities, almost all Muslim. Interestingly, there are no Dags in Dagestan. This chaotic but fascinating city is dominated by the Avars, the largest ethnic group in the region. The name means Land of Mountains in local dialect. Highest peak is 14,000 ft. A massive mosque towers over the other structures in the city. It’s been very unstable there over the past decade due to crime and terrorism.

Derbent in the southern region of Dagestan, isn't far from the border of Azerbaijan. It's one of the most ancient cities in the world, continually inhabited since the end of the 3rd millennium BC. A 14th century fortress towers over the town of 120,000 people on the shore of the Caspian Sea.

Derbent

Me, a policeman and a Kalashnikov

On to Tabasarran where the men of the village speak Tabasarran as their first language and Russian as their second. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Tabasarran is the hardest language in world. The villagers live in hand-quarried rock homes held together by clay/mud mortar and seemingly hang on the side of the mountain. Wood stoves, NO tables of any kind (food is prepared, served and eaten on a carpet on the floor), no indoor water or plumbing, a few cows, chickens and some sheep. Temperatures in the bedroom dipped to near freezing at night.

A woman fetches water from a spring at the edge of town

A wooden sled used for transporting manure, rocks, etc.

We visited the local rug factory. Six women sit at a loom and in 8-9 hours weave about 8 inches of rug. We saw one rug which took six women one year to weave. It’s the only industry in the region, besides farming and animal husbandry.


On our way home to Nalchik, our driver was called Ibragim. He looked like a gangster but, in fact, was a great guy. He wanted to know about Mike Tyson and why he was so persecuted in America. Ibragim invited his friend, a detective in the local police to accompany us back. He carried a gun with him "just in case." Against the driver’s advice (and with Margi’s words of warning ringing in my ear), we decided not to drive back through war-torn Chechnya – although it would have cut off five hours of the journey.

Got back to Nalchik at 8:30 pm. It was -6°c and snowing. So, we’re going to have a white Christmas after all. And Margi can stop worrying.

"I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These things I will do; I will not forsake them." Isaiah 42:16