Fortifications of Derbent

Put your hand flat against the stone. It is cool, rough, and slightly pitted, like the surface of an old shell. These blocks are huge, cut and stacked without fuss. Some are larger than a suitcase, others the size of a small car door. Many carry the marks of countless hands, rainstorms and summers. Somewhere below and to the east, the Caspian Sea lies flat and grey-blue. Behind you rise the first folds of the Caucasus. You are standing in the gap between the two. For many centuries, this gap was one of the most closely guarded places in the world.

That gap explains everything about Derbent. Here, the mountains come down very close to the shore. They leave only a narrow strip of flat land between the rock and the water. Anyone travelling between the steppes of the north and the lands of Persia and the Middle East had to pass through it. Armies, merchants, nomads and pilgrims all used this corridor. Whoever held the strip held the road. So people built a door across it... and then they built the walls to hold that door shut.

The city's name carries this idea. Derbent comes from Persian words usually translated as a closed gate, or a gate that ties shut. Arab geographers in the Middle Ages had their own name for the place. They called it Bab al-Abwab — the Gate of Gates. Other travellers called it the Iron Gates. Each name says the same thing in a different language. Before this place was a town, it was a checkpoint between worlds.

The great stone walls you see today are mostly the work of the Sasanian Persians. The Sasanians were the last Persian dynasty before the arrival of Islam. Their builders raised these fortifications in the sixth century, and tradition credits the ruler Khosrow the First. The design is simple. Two long, parallel walls run from the hills down toward the sea. They lie a few hundred metres apart. The town grew in the space between them, protected on both sides.

Here is a detail most visitors miss. The walls did not stop at the shoreline. They once continued out into the water, forming a protected harbour. Ships could enter only through a controlled opening. Over the centuries, the Caspian Sea has moved back, and the old coastline has shifted. Today the modern city spreads where waves once broke. So when you look toward the sea, imagine the walls running further than your eye can follow, right into the water.

And they also ran the other way. From the citadel on the hill, a separate defensive line climbed west into the mountains. Locals call it the mountain wall. It stretched for many kilometres through ridges and valleys, with forts along its length. Much of it is now ruined and covered in brush. But it shows the scale of the plan. This was not only a city wall. It was a barrier across a whole region, built to stop entire armies on horseback.

At the top of the slope sits the citadel, called Naryn-Kala. This was the fortress inside the fortress, the last place to fall. Its walls follow the shape of the hill, so the outline looks uneven, almost like a broken ring. From its ramparts, you can see the whole layout at once. The two long walls run downhill like rails. The old town fills the space between them. Beyond, the sea lies at the end.

Inside the citadel, the ground holds several surprises. Walk slowly and look for the low domed shapes and openings near your feet. The fortress had to survive long sieges, so water was everything. Builders created underground cisterns to store it. Some of these chambers are still there, and you can feel cooler air rising from them. You will also find the foundations of later buildings, including the remains of a palace used by the local khans. The khans were rulers who governed Derbent in later centuries.

Now look closely at the walls themselves. Some stones carry ancient inscriptions in Middle Persian, the language of the Sasanian court. Scholars have studied these marks for clues about the builders. You will also notice that the masonry is not uniform. In some sections, the blocks are large and evenly placed. In others, smaller stones fill gaps and repairs. Each change in texture shows a different period of rebuilding. Arab, Persian, local and Russian rulers all patched these walls, one layer after another.

Between the walls, the old city is divided into traditional quarters, called mahals. Their lanes are narrow and twisting. Stone houses press close together, with heavy wooden doors and small courtyards. Among them stands the Juma Mosque, the city's main Friday mosque. Its origins reach back to the early centuries of Islam in the region. Many people consider it one of the oldest mosques in Russia. Old plane trees shade its courtyard, and on a hot day the air there feels softer.

The walls are also pierced by old gates. Each one connected the town to the road, the sea or the mountains. Some still carry their historic names, and some still have their heavy arched passages. Walking through one of them is a useful way to understand the place. You go from the open street into a short, dark tunnel of stone, then back into light. For centuries, every traveller made exactly this movement, and many paid a toll here.

Derbent changed hands many times. Persian shahs, Arab caliphs, Turkic rulers and Mongol armies all fought for it. In 1722, Peter the Great of Russia arrived during his Persian campaign, and the city handed him its keys. Later, in the early nineteenth century, Derbent became part of the Russian Empire. Today it lies in Dagestan, a republic of Russia. Local people proudly describe it as the oldest city in the country. In 2003, UNESCO listed the citadel, the old city and the fortress buildings as World Heritage.

Before you leave, stand still for a moment and listen. You may hear a call to prayer, a car horn in the lanes below, or wind moving over the rampart. Look again at the two long lines of stone running toward the water. People built them to divide the world into an inside and an outside. Today, the gates stay open. Families walk through them, children run along the paths, and the sea is still there at the end of the road.