Dagestan

My final destination in the Russian Caucasus was Dagestan. If anyone knows Dagestan, it’s likely because of UFC – and if anyone knows me, they’ll know this wasn’t the reason for my visit. Dagestan is the most populous Caucasian republic within the Russian federation. While I’d say it has a less interesting modern history than Chechnya, it did somewhat compensate for this with an interesting pre-Soviet history.

Unlike Chechnya, Dagestan was not embroiled in separatist wars following the collapse of the Soviet Union; unlike Chechnya and Ingushetia, Dagestanis weren’t expelled from their homelands by Stalin either. A key factor explaining this relatively untroubled recent history is that Dagestan is far more heterogeneous than these other two republics. Essentially, this amalgam of different Muslim tribes is more of a political entity than a nation. Dagestan, particularly Derbent, has also historically hosted Christian and Jewish communities alongside its Muslim majority.

My first couple of days in Dagestan were spent in its mountains. There weren’t many sites of historical interest here. However, it did set the scene for some important aspects of the republic’s history, for Dagestan’s recent quiescence belies its earlier importance as a centre of fierce resistance against Russia in the imperial era.

It is from Dagestan that the most famous Caucasian resistance leader hails: Imam Shamil. For twenty-five years he led a spirited, though ultimately doomed, campaign against tsarist forces to resist the region’s pacification. Today, he is still exalted and, although there aren’t many historical sites per se, the mountainscape is punctuated with statues and plaques in his honour.

This chapter of Russian history is quite unfamiliar to me and I probably should have brushed up a little better before coming here. I can’t really speak to the specifics of his life or campaigns, but what I discussed at length with my guide while touring these sites is why he ultimately failed. Operating in the middle of the nineteenth century, I couldn’t help comparing Shamil’s campaign with a contemporaneous insurgency from mountain Muslims against a modern European empire: Afghanistan. Here, the outcome was ultimately the opposite. The first war ended in the infamous retreat from Kabul, and though subsequent campaigns fared better for Britain, Afghanistan was never brought to heel in the way Russia eventually subdued the Caucasus.

So why did Shamil fail? My sense from the discussions I’ve had and broader knowledge of Russian history is that there was a level of persistence and brutality to the tsarist campaigns – literally razing village by village – that ground down Shamil’s supporters and showed resistance was futile. As I argued in my Chechnya post, an army with superior military capabilities and resources will ultimately prevail if it has sufficient will, and, as the war rages in Ukraine for its fourth year, Moscow has demonstrated quite considerable will. Tsarist Russia must also be given credit for doing an excellent job of integrating local elites into the imperial system. The best example of this is Shamil himself, who was taken prisoner rather than executed, thereby denied the martyrdom that might have prolonged the resistance, and allowed to live comfortably in Kaluga afterwards. Members of his family served in the imperial system up until the 1917 revolution.

Descending from the mountains, I visited Dagestan’s two major cities: Makhachkala and Derbent. Makhachkala is the capital and not particularly noteworthy – fairly soulless, with little to take in beyond the main square – and I was glad to move on to Derbent.

Derbent was fantastic, although unfortunately unplumbed. Arriving on the last day of my Russia trip, what little energy I had left was quickly sapped by the miserable cold and drizzle. I only explored the city for a couple of hours before calling it a day, which was hardly sufficient. In that time, however, I got a good flavour of the city. It felt like a real melting pot of cultures, reminiscent of the great centres of the Middle East, if less grand. Derbent was the northernmost extent of the Persian empire, which brought its wonderful culture and medley of immigrant groups, such as Jews. The old fortress still towers above the city, as it has done for nearly 1,500 years, and is brilliantly well-preserved.

Pottering around the old city afterwards was as pleasant as it could have been considering the weather. It felt far more historic than other cities I’ve seen in the northern Caucasus, which are either sullied by drab Soviet architecture or the scars of conflict. The surviving churches speak to historic harmony between the city’s Muslim majority and its religious minorities. That harmony has been blighted more recently by attacks on one of the churches here, as well as the city’s last synagogue, one of the few remaining in Dagestan. I fear this recent attack has consigned an already diminutive community to oblivion.

I definitely needed one more day in Derbent, but it’s only cemented for me that here, and Russia more generally, needs significantly more unpicking. A truly fascinating country which few can rival. Do svidaniya, Russia!