Dagestan

• 1. Introduction

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  Dagestan holds a distinction that most people would never guess: it is the southernmost tip of Russia, a republic that shares borders not just with fellow Russian regions but with Azerbaijan and Georgia, and opens its eastern flank to the Caspian Sea. The name itself is a clue to the place. The word Dagestan combines a Turkic root meaning "mountain" with the Persian suffix -stan, meaning "land." Land of the mountains. Over 50,300 square kilometers of it, home to more than 3.1 million people spread across more than 30 ethnic groups and 81 nationalities. Fourteen languages carry official status there. More than 20 of Russia's 131 endangered languages identified by UNESCO can be found within its borders. How does a place this linguistically tangled hold together? And how did this rugged corner of the Caucasus become, of all things, one of the world's most formidable producers of combat athletes? The answers reach back through centuries of invasion, resistance, and a terrain so forbidding it has frustrated every empire that tried to hold it.

• 2. A Land of Mountains and Water

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  The Greater Caucasus Mountains cover the south of the republic, and the highest point, the Bazardyuzyu peak, rises to 4,470 meters on the border with Azerbaijan. From there, the land stretches 400 kilometers north to south and 200 kilometers east to west, descending from subarctic mountain zones to warm coastal lowlands along the Caspian. Average January temperatures sit around 2 degrees Celsius; July averages reach 26. Precipitation in the northern plains can be as low as 250 millimeters a year, while mountain zones receive up to 800 millimeters. Over 1,800 rivers thread through the republic, among them the Sulak, the Samur, and the Terek. Five hydroelectric power plants operate on the Sulak River alone, and it has been estimated that Dagestan's total potential hydroelectric resources amount to 4.4 billion kilowatts. The republic's roughly 405 kilometers of Caspian coastline place it alongside the world's largest inland sea, a geographic fact that has shaped trade, settlement, and military ambition for millennia. Because the mountainous terrain impedes travel and communication between communities, Dagestan remains unusually ethnically diverse and still largely tribal in its social organization.

• 3. Empires at the Gates

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  Derbent, the ancient fortified city on the Caspian coast, has passed through more hands than almost any city in the world. In the 5th and 6th centuries, the Sassanid Persians constructed a strong citadel there, and the city became known as the Caspian Gates. During the Islamic conquests, the Arab capture of the region in 643 made the people of the Derbent area the first within present-day Russian territory to become Muslims. In the 8th century, Arab forces repeatedly clashed with the Khazars in the same corridor. Local revolts against Arab rule erupted in 905 and 913, yet Islam continued to spread from urban centers such as Samandar and Kubachi into the highlands. The Mongols raided the territory in 1221-1222 and then conquered Derbent and the surrounding area between 1236 and 1239 during the invasions of Georgia and Durdzuketia. In the second half of the 11th century the Seljuk Turks had already taken part of the region, and the Timurids followed the Mongols. By the early 16th century, the Safavid Persians reconsolidated control, a grip that would hold intermittently until the early 19th century. During the 16th and 17th centuries, mountain communities called djamaats developed considerable legal autonomy. In the 1720s, Russians briefly annexed maritime Dagestan from the weakening Safavids during the Russo-Persian War of 1722-23. A treaty signed between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in 1724 assigned Derbend and Baku to Russia, but those territories were returned to Persia in 1735 under the Treaty of Ganja. Between 1730 and the early 1740s, the Persian ruler Nader Shah launched a lengthy campaign to fully conquer Dagestan. He achieved considerable success but was eventually forced to withdraw because of extreme weather, disease, and relentless raids by the region's ethnic groups. The Juma Mosque of Derbent, built in 733, stands as a physical trace of that layered past: it is the oldest mosque in Russia and one of the oldest in the world.

• 4. Russia's Long Grip

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  Russian control over Dagestan was not settled until after the Russo-Persian War of 1804-1813. In 1813, Qajar Persia was forced by the Treaty of Gulistan to cede southern Dagestan, including Derbent, to Russia. The 1828 Treaty of Turkmenchay removed Persia permanently from the military equation. Russian administration proved deeply unpopular in the highlands. Heavy taxation, the seizure of estates, and the construction of fortresses including Makhachkala drove communities into open revolt. The Muslim Imamate of Dagestan united the resistance under a succession of leaders: Ghazi Mohammed from 1828 to 1832, Hamzat Bek from 1832 to 1834, and then Shamil from 1834 to 1859. The Caucasian War they fought raged until 1864. In 1877-1878, Dagestan and Chechnya rose together against the Russian Empire during the Russo-Turkish War. On the 21st of December 1917, Ingushetia, Chechnya, Dagestan, and the rest of the North Caucasus declared independence from Russia and formed the United Mountain Dwellers of the North Caucasus, with its capital at Temir-Khan-Shura. Tapa Chermoyev, a prominent Chechen statesman, became its first prime minister. After more than three years of fighting the White Army and local nationalists, the Bolsheviks prevailed, and the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed on the 20th of January 1921. The current borders were drawn then with the incorporation of the eastern part of Terek Oblast.

• 5. Faith and Diversity

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  A 2012 survey of 56,900 people found that 83% of Dagestan's population identifies as Muslim. Dagestanis are largely Sunni Muslims of the Shafii school, though along the Caspian coast, particularly in and around Derbent, the population is predominantly Shia. Sufi mysticism first appeared in Dagestan in the 14th century, and two Sufi orders took deep root in the North Caucasus: the Naqshbandiya and the Qadiriya. After the Soviet collapse, an Islamic revival reshaped public life. By 1996, Dagestan had 1,670 registered mosques, nine Islamic universities, 25 madrassas, and 670 maktab, and it was estimated that nearly one in five Dagestanis was involved in Islamic education. Of the roughly 20,000 Russian pilgrims who made the Hajj at that time, more than half were from Dagestan. Prior to Soviet rule, Classical Arabic had served as the literary lingua franca. For much longer, the Kumyk language had functioned as the dominant spoken lingua franca across most of the Northern Caucasus, from Dagestan to Kabarda, right through to the 1930s. Kumyk had also been the official language of communication between the Russian Imperial administration and local peoples. The Russian grammarian Timofey Makarov, writing about the Kumyk language, noted that he prized it above others for what he called its "distinction and precision" and for the closeness of the Kumyk people to European civilization. Russian became the principal lingua franca in the 20th century. A relatively large community of native Tati-speaking Jews, known as Mountain Jews, lived in the coastal areas for generations, though many emigrated to Israel and the United States after 1991.

• 6. Culture and Combat

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  Dagestan's culture runs across epic poetry, folk dance, and a fighting tradition that has made the republic internationally recognized. Among Avars, epic-historical songs about the defeat of Nadir Shah's armies and the 19th-century wars are still performed. The ballads "Khochbar" and "Kamalil Bashir" are the best-known. The poet Rasul Gamzatov, born in 1923 and dead in 2003, wrote the poem Zhuravli, which became a well-known Russian song. Gotfrid Hasanov, said to be the first professional composer from Dagestan, wrote Khochbar, the first Dagestani opera, in 1945. The lezginka, a fast-paced folk dance named after the Lezgin people, is shared in different forms by Azerbaijanis, Circassians, Abkhazians, Mountain Jews, Caucasian Avars, and Terek Cossacks. The national dish is khingal-bat, small dumplings boiled in ram's broth; depending on the cook's ethnicity, they may be oval or round, filled with meat or cheese, and served with garlic or sour cream sauce. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Dagestan has been recognized for producing some of the world's best combat athletes relative to its population. Khabib Nurmagomedov, born in Dagestan, became UFC lightweight champion and retired undefeated. His training partner Islam Makhachev, also Dagestani, holds the former lightweight championship and as of the source held the welterweight title and the number-one pound-for-pound ranking. In freestyle wrestling, Buvaisar Saitiev won three Olympic gold medals, and Abdulrashid Sadulaev won gold at both the 2016 Rio Olympics and the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. Magomed Ramazanov won gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics. In boxing, Artur Beterbiev held the undisputed light-heavyweight championship between October 2024 and February 2025. Akhmed Tazhudinov, born in Dagestan and representing Bahrain, also won gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics.