Derbent is the most ancient city in the Russian Federation. It is located in Dagestan, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. The exact date of the founding of the city is not known for certain, but historians suggest that its age is at least 5 thousand years. The main attraction of the settlement is the Derbent Fortress. The photos presented in this publication allow you to see all the beauty and grandeur of the ancient fortification.
The strategic purpose of the complex
The fortress in the vicinity of Derbent was built to protect the peoples who inhabited Asia Minor and Transcaucasia from the destructive invasions of northern nomads. It is a massive defensive complex, which included city, sea, mountain walls and Naryn-Kala (citadel). Ancient buildings were erected during the reign of the Sassanid dynasty. They were as powerful as the Great Wall of China.
The city was not in the most advantageous strategic position and was vulnerable from the Caucasus Mountains and the sea, so the local population paidspecial attention to its strengthening. The massive walls that surrounded the settlement from all sides became a reliable defense against the invaders.
Theories of the origin of the attraction
Historians have not been able to find out who built the Derbent fortress. There are many legends about this. One of the legends says that the founders of the city and the fortress were fire-breathing giants who inhabited these lands before the advent of mankind.
There is another version of the appearance of Derbent and the fortress around it. According to her, the founder of the ancient city was Alexander the Great. The great commander ordered to build an impregnable wall between the mountains and the sea, crown it with towers and install iron gates in it so that strangers could not penetrate here. Many historians consider this version of the emergence of the fortification complex a legend, since Alexander the Great never visited the described lands. But the very fact of the existence of various versions of the appearance of the defensive complex testifies to its significance in the life of southerners.
Naryn-Kala
Looking at the photographs of the Derbent fortress, you can see that the center of the defensive structures was the huge citadel of Naryn-Kala. Of all parts of the complex, its stone walls are the best preserved, which gives tourists the opportunity to admire this diva of ancient architecture in all its glory. Naryn-Kala stretches along the city for 700 m. The thickness of its walls reaches 3.5 m in places, and the height is 20 m. Citadelrises on top of a 300-meter steep hill. Steep slopes reliably protected it from the invasion of enemies from the east and north. The southern part of the fortification is equipped with steps, and on its wide walls there are platforms used today by tourists to view the panorama of the city and the Caspian Sea.
Derbent fortress Naryn-Kala is an irregular structure with an area of 4.5 hectares. Its walls are decorated with numerous tower-shaped ledges, located at a distance of 25-35 m from one another. A large tower rises in the southwest corner, connecting the citadel to the city wall.
Interior Buildings
Inside the citadel you can see the ancient khan's baths with windows in the roofs and buildings that have survived to our time (they lie in ruins). One of these buildings was a cross-domed church of the 5th century, later converted into Muslim religious institutions. Also on the territory of the citadel was located the oldest mosque in Russia, Juma, founded in the 8th century. In ancient times, the Khan's palace was located here, but today only ruins remain in its place, by which it is difficult to judge the beauty of this building.
Two stone water tanks located inside the citadel deserve special attention. They were built in the 11th century by Byzantine craftsmen. Large reserves of water were placed in the tanks, which allowed the fortress to withstand a long siege of the city by the invaders. The liquid entered the tanks from springs through special ceramic and metalpipes. Thanks to this, the population of the city was provided with water even in the most difficult times and did not surrender to enemies. But the Derbent fortress was not always impregnable. The story contains information when the enemies managed to capture the city, poisoning the springs and leaving its defenders without water.
The citadel served not only as a defensive but also as an administrative center of the city. It housed the office, the court and the underground prison (zindan), from which it was impossible for the prisoner to escape. Its walls were inclined, and the criminal, once imprisoned, was forced to die of hunger. The prison is located behind the ruins of the Khan's palace.
Lovers of antiquity enjoy visiting the museum opened on the territory of the citadel. It exhibits household items, ceramics, stone tools, precious jewelry, weapons, coins, etc. Some rarities are several millennia old.
A guardhouse built in 1828 (after Dagestan became part of Russia) rises on the central platform. This building today stores paintings depicting Derbent. Outside, the guardhouse is decorated with anchors and cannons from tsarist times.
Other parts of defensive buildings
The Derbent Fortress, a photo of which all tourists strive to bring from Dagestan, attracts not only with the citadel, but also with its walls. Their length within the city is 3.6 km. The northern and southern walls were built parallel to each other. The distance between them ranges from300 to 400 meters. Dag-bars (mountain wall) stretched for 40 km in the direction of the Caucasus Range. Unfortunately, it could not be preserved in its original form: in many places the structure collapsed. The sea wall closed the entrance to the city from the Caspian side. She plunged into its waters and stretched for almost half a kilometer. Like Dag-bars, the sea wall has been preserved in fragments.
Gate
In the walls of the fortress defensive complex there were several small but very strong gates through which in ancient times it was possible to get to Derbent. They not only protected the city, but also were its decoration. The gates were opened for guests, allies and merchants. The entrances were located in different parts of the fortress. They still have elements of rich decor, by which one can judge how beautiful they were in antiquity. The doors looking to the north, from where hostile nomads could come to Derbent, looked massive and intimidating. In contrast to them, the southern entrance to the city was elegant and solemn. Today it is difficult to establish the exact number of gates, since not all of them have survived.
Location names in different languages
Derbent fortress has always impressed travelers with its size and power. Foreigners gave her different names, but in almost all of them the word "gate" was present. This is not surprising, because in the walls of the fortress there were a large number of strong doors through which it was impossible for enemies to penetrate into Derbent. ancientthe Greeks called the fortification the Caspian Gates, the Arabs - Bab-al-Abva (Main), the Georgians - Dzgvis Kari (Sea), and the Turkish inhabitants - Temir Kapysy (Iron).
The hypothesis of a single defensive wall
Everyone who is interested in the history of Derbent and the Derbent Fortress will be interested to learn about the theory expressed by scientists at the beginning of the last century, according to which in ancient times there was a continuous fortification line in Eurasia that divided the continent in half. Nomadic tribes lived in the north of it, and farmers in the south. Settled peoples suffered from attacks by nomads and built defensive walls to protect their lands. Historians have mapped all the fortifications that existed at different times on the Eurasian continent, and were amazed. Abkhazian, Transcaucasian, Crimean, Derbent, Balkan walls, Roman ramparts, the Great Wall of China and other ancient fortifications, many of which have not survived to this day, formed an inextricable chain in the distant past. And although the stated theory is not recognized by official historical science, it makes you seriously think about the past of mankind.
