Gamsutl

Gamsutl clings to the crest of a steep spur of Mount Gamsutlmeer in the mountains of central Dagestan, a village of grey stone houses stacked one above another up the slope. It lies in the Gunib district, about ten kilometres south-east of the old mountain stronghold of Gunib, high above the valley of the Tsamtichay, at an altitude usually given as between 1,400 and 1,500 metres. Travel writers like to call it the Machu Picchu of the Caucasus, and the comparison is less far-fetched than it sounds: the site is a natural fortress, reachable only along a narrow path, and the houses seem to grow straight out of the rock.

The age of the village is not known. Local tradition and several writers count it among the oldest settlements in Dagestan, with estimates of two thousand years or more, and its name in Avar is usually translated as "at the foot of the khan's fortress". Its walls carry traces of many periods: Christian crosses have been found here, gravestones with Persian inscriptions, lines of Arabic script on house fronts, and a Star of David once decorated one of the doors. At its height the village had some three hundred houses, and as late as the twentieth century it had shops, a post office and a small hospital with a maternity ward, connected to the outside world by a track passable for vehicles.

Then people left. From the late 1950s families moved down to larger villages and towns in the valleys, where there was work, water and easier roads. By 1970 about two hundred people remained, by 2002 only seventeen. The last permanent resident, Abdulzhalil Abdulzhalilov, who styled himself the village's mayor and became well known through television reports, died in 2015, and Gamsutl has been empty ever since.

What draws visitors now is the silence and the craft of the building. The houses are built of local stone, and although many roofs have fallen in and vandals have taken their toll, enough still stands to read the plan of a whole Avar mountain village, climbing the ridge house by house, with its lanes, doorways and inscriptions. The meadows around the rock are rich in thyme, sage, clover and other mountain flowers, and alpine choughs, partridges and birds of prey are common around the cliffs.

Getting there

Gamsutl is in the Gunib district of Dagestan, about 10 km from the village of Gunib; the nearest town of any size is Buynaksk, about 58 km away as the crow flies. The nearest airport is Makhachkala Uytash International Airport (MCX), about 79 km away in a straight line; by road Makhachkala is around 160 km from the village. The usual approach is from the neighbouring village of Chokh, reached by road via Gunib; from there a narrow footpath, once the village road, climbs to Gamsutl in roughly one to two hours.