Eternal outskirts of Moscow and beyond (LOTS of pics!)

[Skorohod]

209. Hard to translate, there is a mix-up with two different shop signs, the one is about something "social", the other is all about "pipes". Doesn't make sense and looks funny:


210. Up to the bridge over Volga, to the island with a beach:


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212. Time to swim:


213. And the bridge again:


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216. There is a nice views to a river port and a town from a bridge:


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[Skorohod]

223. The merchant's "chic" again, like in the all old Volga merchant towns:


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228. The Eternal Flame and the bell tower of Assumption Cathedral:


229. The Lenin in the distance doesn't even look to a half-naked lady in a fountain:


230. Nearby Astrakhan children's theatre there is a little monuments of the heroes of a Russian fairy tale "Hunchback Horse" (there is a old cartoon with english subtitles, if you suddenly interested):


231. The Hunchback Horse, the Firebird, and Ivan the Fool:


232. This house has a shutters with a size of a entry gates:


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234. The Varavcius canal, (the former 1'st of May canal), and building to the left - is a fromer editorial office of the "Volga" newspaper:


235. The Red Mosque (the sunset light suits it):


236. The Black Mosque (painted white for some reason):


237. Some old houses are done for good...


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[Skorohod]

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243. Time to go to the hotel and have some proper sleep. There is a long road ahead:


244. The view from hotel:


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In the next day we quickly rode through the west part of Volga delta and entered the steppes again.

246. There is a steppe to the left:


247. There is a steppe to the front:


248. There is a steppe to the right:


249. There is a steppe to the back:


Suddenly, in the middle of the nothing a reinforced police checkpoint appeared. Officers with a fully automatics, barbed wire, boom barriers, like in a spy movie! There is a "echo of war", or the several wars against terrorism in the North Caucasus.

Police officers are polite and a little sleepy (this is a early morning), they entered our data in the system and we good to go.

We in the Republic of Dagestan now! We passed through Kizlyar, Babayurt and somewhere near Tatayurt we got hungry. Stopped by a tiny local shop, there is old local woman at the counter. "Can we have something to eat?" - "Yes, there is a freshly fried homemade pies with a potato. Let me get them from the bottom, them are still hot down there". 40 roubles for a pie with a size twice as grown men hand!

250. Anticipation of the feast:


A little more drive and we are finally nearby the Caspian sea! We turned from a highway to a little empty camping by a huge sandy beach.

251. The strong wind from a steppes, a little stormy sea, dark skies... there is not an excuse to not to swim!


252. All that beach is for us and a the other couple of tourists (they arrived in their car all the way from a Tumen city, it's in western Siberia, on other side of Ural mountains from Moscow):

 

[Skorohod]

253. A view to a Makhachkala, the capital city of Dagestan:


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255. "The Caspian sea, at last!":


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271. A Caspian sea feels to me like a Black see, but less salty. And with some beached fish (never saw a beached fish on the Black sea, but that doesn't mean that there isn't):


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277. "Yes, i'm eating from dumpster. What you gonna do about it?!":


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We paid a symbolic sum of a 100 roubles to the hostess of a camping and beach and took off. There is a ancient town of Derbent ahead!

To be continued...

 

[Skorohod]

After we swimmed enough in a Caspian sea, we took off further. We drive through Makhachkala, traverse a little town called "Дагестанские Огни" ("Dagestanian Lights") and in the early evening we... do not entered Derbent. We parked beside hotel just on the city border, on the far northern outskirt of the most southern city of Russia! The car can rest for the next 40 hours or so - we can walk the rest.

The hotel room has a nice balcony. We didn't use AC (in the most southern part of a country in the pinnacle of a summer) - a very nice breeze from the mountains was enough.

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Time for a evening walk!

281. That truck is full a rocks used for building Derbent for a thousands of years.


282. This Finnish brand of a paint is left our country due to sanctions, but mural is still here:


283. Very friendly owner of this house told us a story - due to multiple rises of a city road level his house was constantly flooded during rains. He then build this inclined lot, lost his windows but saved house from a floodings:


284. From Germany with love - never seen this much of an old Multicar mini-trucks in my life:


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287. Some streets has a nice view to a Caspian sea:


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[Skorohod]

292. There is a lot of a cats in Derbent:


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295. This cat has eyes of a different color and "painted" eyebrows:


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298. This is МФЦ - "a multi-functional center", one-window service where you can get almost anything of a government-related services:


299. Just a nice inner yard:


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301. This mosque is named after Sheikh Muhammad Kurawi:


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Then we went to a dinner to a "Finik" (Date palm fruit) restaurant. A very interesting place - south-eastern cousine here has a touch of a european cousine, but most visitors is a local muslim people dressed in strict traditional chloting and you have a nasheed songs for a background music. Very eclectic!

On our way back from restaurant to a hotel we took some more pics.

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304. The Bab ul-Abwab mosque after sunset:


305. I've saw some writing in the skies but didn't quite understand it:


306. That is not a recent banner, so what, that would be 18.55/75=0.25$ for a Snickers bar? Nice:


307. We've been meet with a gang of cats on the porch of a hotel:


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[Skorohod]

310. "Arabian nights, Like Arabian days...":


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314. In the morning we went to a cafe just nearby hotel. Never seen such a large meals in my life! For the first time i haven't finish my meal - i've just been beyond full:


315. That meal is called Hinkal, BTW. Basically it is a some sort of a pasta - little pieces of a dough boiled in a strong spicy mutton bouillon, served with a pieces of meat and a cup of bouillon separately. Very, very tasty and substantial:


316. Time to a walk. A little unpleasant stroll alongside a bypass road:


317. But shortly after - up to the hills by a dirt road:


318. On the top of the hill we meet an old ZiL truck. Its birthplace (just across my apartment in Moscow) is a long dead, but this resilient worker is still operational:


319. Another one:


320. This is a quarry, where The Derbent Rock is mined, just like thousands years ago!


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324. A southern sun is relentlessly pushing down us muscovites:

 

[Skorohod]

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327. A nice view to a town from a quarry hills:


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333. But our way is a little up further:


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335. There is a walls of the ancient citadel of Naryn-Kala up here:


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[Skorohod]

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340. Even citadels has a natural gas line:


341. We took an unorthodox scenic route and climbed to a walls of a citadel from a "back way":


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343. The Naryn-Kala is a very ancient construction. It was founded in about 500 A.D., a whole thousand years earlier than a Moscow kremlin is!


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346. The Guardian of a Citadel was asleep under a map:


347. "Attendance is free of charge today":


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[Skorohod]

352. "Attention! Keep a hand of a kids while walking here!" - "I'm not a kid!!!":


353. The red flag up in the mountains:


354. The Khan's bathhouse:


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363. The ancient water spring:


364. The beast of unknown kind seems happy:

 

[Skorohod]

365. Monument of a 19th century poet Mirza-Muhammad Tagi Gumri:


366. We climbed down from a citadel to an old part of town:


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376. The Sourp Amenaprkich Armenian Church:


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378. We take a cover from a sun under this ancient walls:


379. The Kele-Numaz Derbent Synagogue:

 

[Skorohod]

380. The Kirhlyar ancient cemetery:


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385. The Derbent Lighthouse (it's placed at the distance of 1 kilometer from a water for some reason):


386. A nice old local man showed us a shortcut through a city blocks. In one of the inner yards there was an empty cable reel turned to a side (so it became a table) and a couple of a benches beside it. We sat and enjoyed a local Tarkhun soda:


387. All this time a kitten sleeped beside us, a kitten without a tail:


388. A EMU train went off to Makhachkala:


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390. Fraternising with a local cats, as always:


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393. "Don't forget to grunt while you littering on the streets". The pigs are "unclean" animals in Islam, so that supposed to be a double offence:

 

[Skorohod]

394. The Caspian sea, again:


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399. That creek is a discharge of a sewer. Not for long, i guess, there is a ongoing extensive improvement works all over Derbent:


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403. The rest of a day up to early evening we spent on the beach:


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[Skorohod]

406. A nice garden square upon a beach:


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415. We chose a busy street of a Handadash Tagiev to walk back from a beach:


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[Skorohod]

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We tired a little and run out of imagination, so we chose a "Finik" restaurant again. This time we took a tasty layered dough bread on the go with us, it could be handy in the road next day. While we eat, sun setted and the night came to Derbent town.

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[Skorohod]

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438. Slowly we walked to a city gates. But what's that sound behind us? Is this a horseshoes clapping or we imagining things?


439. No, we are not mistaken! A young horse rider named Muhammad stopped by us so we can take a picture:


440. We exchanged our contacts, so i can send him photos later and then he rode off to a warm southern night:


441. A sheeps awaiting them fate... it's an eve of a big muslim holiday - Kurban-Bayram:


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443. Goodby, a beautiful and exotic Derbent! In the early morning we must continue our journey:


To be continued!

 

[99t4]

#389: Look how that teapot jumps out of the painting!

#434: Is that truck used for fumigating mosquitos?

 

[Skorohod]

#389: Look how that teapot jumps out of the painting!

Yes, and reflection of a landscape in a teapot is looking very realistic. Derbent has a surprising amount of a murals, and lots of them are painted by very skilled hands. We've enjoyed them a lot!

#434: Is that truck used for fumigating mosquitos?

What it surely was - is a fuel tank truck. That tubing under front bumper - is a fire-proof exhaust system, every fuel tanker supposed to had one. But color of the tank is wrong (it supposed to be orange) and the truck lack some of important signs and plates (which supposed to warn everyone of a fire hazardous and volatile nature of a cargo). I think it's a water tank now, hauling water to construction sites or something like that.

 

[Skorohod]

We've left the lovely Derbent at early morning. We went to a south a little more - to see a beautiful nightmarish contraption of The Lun ekranoplan!

444. The most southern point of all our journey and The Lun!


We now parked exactly at 41°56' 13" N. What interesting information we can draw from this numbers?

From this point to the state border with Azerbaijan - about 20 km to south.

The most southern point of all Russia should be about 100 km to the south-west from here, far and high in the mountains.

Baghdad - at 1000 km to south-west as crow flies, Tehran - merely a 737 km to the south-east.

Volgograd is much far, than Tehran - at 800 km to the north, and Moscow is much further than Baghdad - 1700 km to the north-west!

And what else is placed between a 41 and 42 parallels? From east to the west that would be: Istanbul, Tirana, Rome, Barcelona and Porto in Europe; New York (the most nothern parts), Detroit, Chicago, Des Moines and Crescent City in the North America; Hakodate city of Hokkaido island in Japan; Chongjin in North Korea, Shenyang in the northern part of China, then barren deserts and high mountains, then Tashkent - the capital of Uzbekistan, the Khiva (an important city of the ancient Xorazm Oasis) and finally - the Garabogaz of Turkmenistan, a port city placed right to the east across the Caspian sea from the Derbent.

So much for "southern part of the Russia" and "northern states of US", huh? :lol:

445. This is our tour guide, i suppose!


446. "Please come with me!":


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448. The Lun supposed to be an incredible flying ship, the scourge of fleet of any possible adversary:


449. But it's whole idea was too controversial:


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451. The main propulsion consist of eight low-bypass turbofan НК-87 engines:


452. It's hard to imagine a symphony of eight powerful old-school turbofans (NK-87 is roughly similar to latest, most powerful engines of Pratt & Whitney JT8D family, so you can relate too):


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[Skorohod]

457. The main armament - the six of infamous supersonic anti-ship "Mosquitos":


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Goodbuy, a beautiful and sad sea monster, we should ride to the north now.

 

[Skorohod]

470. The yesterday's layered bread from "Finik" are good to go:


471. The mountains are ahead of us!


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479. The old KamAZes and their infamous black smoke overcoming uphill:


480. We just were at -23 meters height beside The Lun (the Caspian sea are indeed below global sea level), and now we at 1,5 km height up in the mountains!


481. "Eheheahoy!!!" - loud booming echoing voice of some highlander suddenly blasted the silence of the mountains! I've friendly waved back to the anonymous voice of mountains:


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[Skorohod]

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[Skorohod]

496. The turn to the Gamsutl' ghost town is marked by some abandoned movie props:


497. And just insane ruckus for this quiet and remote mountain place - buses, cars, hordes of tourists, crowded parking lots!


498. You can choose a "jeep taxi" to make a halfway upheel, a horse ride all way up or just walk. Of course, we walked:


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506. The nearest "civilization" - the Chokh village, fully inhabited and alive:


507. A horses:


508. The "jeep-taxi":


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[Skorohod]

510. The semi-abandoned Kurib village (you can still make out some beehives and satellite dishes down there):


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512. The Gamsutl' ghost village. People just got tired of living in this desolate place without prospects of work and left to a more convenient places:


513. Check out the horde of tourists!


514. "The Russian Machu Picchu" is the moniker:


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[Skorohod]

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It is supposed to be about silence, solitude, contemplating and fresh mountain air. But instead we got smell of exhaust gases, horse manure and tourists, buzzing flies and multicopters! I think, this place should be perfect at the late autumn, before sunrise...