Derbent Fortress, the first day of the trip to Dagestan. (28pics)

Greeting, friends.
10 days ago I started talking about my trip to Dagestan at the end of December 2022. The capital of Dagestan is currently the Makhachkala city. But we did not stop in the Capital of the republic on our trip, but went straight to Derbent, the oldest city in this region and even in Russia.
The most important attraction of this city is the Naryn-Kala fortress. That's where we went after seeing the Caspian monster.
It turns out that I have not yet told you that the "Caspian monster" is.
This is a huge aircraft-ship, or as it is also called "ekranoplan". So my next story will be about this monster. At the moment I will continue the story about the fortress.
The fortress in its modern form was built by the Persian Shah Khosroi I Anushirvan in the VI century AD. But the first mention of the fortress was made in the 8th century BC. It is believed that the fortress is already 5000 years old, but it is officially considered 2000 years old. By the way, the city got its name from the Persian word “derbent” meaning “shutter on the gate”

View of the city from the platform in front of the fortress. Fog is visible in the distance over the Caspian Sea. Initially, there were 2 walls from the fortress to the sea - south and north. The remains of one wall can still be found today, but it is located only in the old part of the city.
It's time to enter the fortress.

This is our guide, who is a great connoisseur of the history of Dagestan and especially Derbent. Of course, he is a great connoisseur of this fortress. Look, friends, what a beautiful bench and urn. Skilled blacksmiths and masonry masters, builders live in the Caucasus. It seems to me that many Dagestani children start working with a stone from the infancy period.

Before heading to the territory of the fortress, you need to roughly study the plan of the fortress.
The total area of the Derbent fortress is about 4 and a half hectares. It takes a lot of time to explore the entire fortress. But we had a problem. Our plane was about an hour late. The end of December is the shortest days of the year. We had little daylight to explore the fortress. But we had a big plus. The guide told us that there were a huge number of people wishing to visit the fortress in the summer and there were many visitors on the territory of the fortress museum. We were practically alone that day and no one would bother us to walk around the fortress.
So, friends, there are pros and cons to everything. Another plus is that it's not as hot in winter as in summer! In summer, the air temperature is above +40 C, and during our excursion it was +6C.

Well, go ahead. We all went through that iron door. How much does the entrance ticket cost? I don't know. Everything was paid for by our wonderful employer. He organized our trip to Dagestan. 4 days of happiness.

Old and new city.

The old Armenian cemetery.
The guide said that all cemeteries in the city have existed since the creation of the World. There are Armenian, Jewish and Muslim cemeteries. And they are still in effect at the present time. The Jewish and Armenian diasporas are no longer as large as during the Persian Empire, but cemeteries have remained.

The sun has almost disappeared below the horizon and we have little daylight left. I began to worry that it would be difficult for me to take pictures in the dark. But I can still take pictures. Therefore, I will show what was around me.

A great place to fire at the advancing enemy. From this point, it was possible to fire at the enemy who was climbing the fortress wall.

Yes, it was already dark and the lights turned on. And we still had a continuation of the inspection of the fortress ahead of us.

It turned out that there is a small food court in the fortress. It was very convenient. By the end of the walk around the fortress, everyone's appetite had woken up. There was quite delicious coffee and various sandwiches. Great. After visiting the fortress, the guide took us through the old town and said goodbye to us at the exit of the old town, at the gate of the fortress wall.

Wow, we got to the hotel. It is located 50 meters from the sea. It's just wonderful. Probably, in the summer in this place is very wonderful, you can jump right out of the window into the sea. Joke. But we will return to the sea later. In the meantime, we still have to get to the restaurant. We should celebrate the beginning of our holiday with our whole friendly company!

We were told that we were going to the best restaurant in the city. In fact, the evening at the restaurant was wonderful. The artists sang and danced beautifully for us. And we ate very delicious local cuisine.

Dinner at the restaurant was terrific, but it ended very early, at 23:00. You need to understand that local customs do not allow restaurants to work longer than this time. But for us, it was still quite a child's time. Therefore, we arrived at the hotel and went to the seashore to continue our holiday.
That's how our first day in Dagestan ended! We had 3 more days ahead and a trip to the mountains.