“Say if a great lord, who is master of these ‘gates of iron,’ and of all the land that is between them, such as Timour Beg, is not a mighty prince! Derbent is a very large city, with a large territory. They call the ‘gates of iron’ by the names of Derbent and Termit. At this house they made the ambassadors a present of a horse, and the horses of this country are much praised for their great spirit. These mountains of the ‘gates of iron’ are without woods, and in former times they say that there were gates covered with iron placed across the pass, so that no one could pass without an order.”
Daghestan was the most costly province ever added to the Russian Empire. It cost thirty-five years of war and the sacrifice of 200,000 soldiers to subdue the fierce mountain warriors, the Lesghians, the Teherkess and the other tribes, who were the fiercest fighters in Europe, and are said to be the descendants of the Hittites of the Old Testament. They were pagans until Mohammed appeared. Since then they have been fanatical in their adherence to Islam. They were taught the art of war by the savage Scythians in prehistoric times, and the aboriginal tribes were amalgamated in the Middle Ages with the Golden Horde of Kirghiz from the desert of Khiva, which swept through eastern Europe like a cyclone. Many of those desert warriors settled here, and from them descended the hardy, fearless, uncompromising race who continued to fight for their independence long after Georgia and the Circassians had acknowledged the sovereignty of the czar. Fifty years ago Daghestan was called “the graveyard of the Russian army.”
Through the gorges of the Caucasus for more than a generation the ablest generals in Russian history, including three czars—Nicholas, the iron czar, and the Alexanders I and II—fought in vain to subdue those fearless people, who, with one man to their forty, defeated them often in open fights as well as in ambush among the impregnable fortresses of nature. Not until the resources of the country were exhausted and nearly all the towns and cities were laid waste and the population of fighting men was almost exterminated did they yield. Finally, when further resistance was impossible, Prince Schamyl, prophet, priest, astrologer, and necromancer, the hereditary sultan of those Tartar tribes, laid his gory scimitar at the feet of General Baryantinsky and took an oath of allegiance to Alexander II. The lord of the Caucasus, the lion of Daghestan, as the old warrior was called, was permitted to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he died of a broken heart beside the tomb of the Prophet and was buried in the sacred city. After the surrender his warriors settled down on farms and ranches and have been blessed with great prosperity, although they are restless of disposition and have made an occasional display of temper and dissatisfaction that has called for discipline.
The men of Daghestan are irrepressible fighters. They inherited their warlike habits, and are never so happy and never so contented as when they are engaged in a desperate campaign. During the war of 1877–8 between Turkey and Russia many of the more fanatical Mohammedans crossed over into Asia Minor and joined the army of the sultan because they recognized him as the Padishah of Islam and the lineal successor of the Prophet. But after peace was arranged most of them came back to their homes, and Gen. Loris Melikoff, one of the few Armenians who have risen to military distinction and received honours in the Russian service, became their governor.
Melikoff is a remarkable man. He conducted the campaign against Turkey east of the Black Sea under the nominal supervision of the Grand Duke Michael, brother of the czar, was made an aide-de-camp to the emperor, and at nine and twenty was commander-in-chief of the Caucasus. As a rule, Armenians do not make good soldiers. They are merchants instead of military men, but Melikoff ranks as one of the most brilliant and successful commanders of the Russian army.
The first and only important city on the railroad between Baku and Vladikavkas is Derbent, a market for the produce of a large area of well cultivated fields, for the wool of a thousand flocks, and the hides of a thousand herds. A good deal of timber from the forests of the Caucasus is shipped across the Caspian from there also and goes to Turkestan. Most of the freight is loaded upon barges, towed over to Astrakhan, and thence up the Volga River to Moscow, Kavan, and other manufacturing centres.
Derbent is one of the most ancient cities in Europe. It is situated on the western coast of the Caspian, and has about forty thousand inhabitants, who are a mixture of all bloods and races and clans. It is supposed to have been founded in prehistoric times by a race known as the Aylans, from which the German people sprang. It was besieged by Alexander of Macedon, by Cyrus the Great, emperor of the Medes and Persians. All of the great warriors of ancient history have sat before its walls, recognizing the strategic value of its position and the importance of placing a shield before the approaches to Persia, Armenia, and Kurdistan, which have been the prey of every ambitious empire-builder since the time of Christ.
Another city of lesser importance is Petrosky, comparatively modern, without much history, but, nevertheless, a busy shipping port for grain. The small steamers that ply the Caspian are continually going in and coming out as they find their way between Petrosky and the other Caspian ports. Much grain is grown upon the steppes of Daghestan, and the larger part of it is transported to Astrakhan, to be ground into flour to feed the people of Moscow and Petersburg. At Astrakhan, the mouth of the Volga, all freight brought by steamer is transferred to barges, which ply that great river far to the northward.
When the train leaves Petrosky it starts directly westward toward the mountains, and is welcomed by a row of glorious peaks which rise snow-clad toward the heavens. The highest peak in the southern part of the range is called Bazar-Duez, and measures 14,723 feet; the next highest are Shah-Dagh, 13,951 feet; Kourousch, 13,750 feet; Doulty-Dagh, 13,425 feet; Kontana-Dagh, 11,425 feet; Goudour-Dagh, 11,075 feet; and a dozen more of ten thousand feet and less. They are full of romance as well as history. Daghestan has been the scene of very important events, but during the last four or five centuries, since America was discovered and the development of European civilization has required so much attention, it has been overlooked.
The original of the tragedy of Mazeppa, Byron’s hero, was Ivan Stephanovich, the son of a Tcherkess prince, and was born in 1644. While a page at the court of one of the petty principalities of Russia, a nobleman discovered that his wife was in love with the handsome young mountaineer, and with the cruelty characteristic of the Tartar race, caused the boy to be stripped naked and bound upon the back of a wild horse, which was turned loose upon the steppes. After days of wandering without food Ivan was carried unconscious into a Cossack camp and after a time became secretary to the hetman or chief. His influence grew until, in 1687, he was elected chieftain. He won the admiration of Peter the Great, who bestowed upon him the title of Prince of the Ukrain, but a few years after, when Peter revoked some of the ancient privileges and liberties of the Cossacks, he organized a rebellion against his patron. Before he had a chance to make a public demonstration the conspiracy was discovered, and Mazeppa fled for protection to the court of Charles XII of Sweden. Being unable to capture the rebel, Peter the Great ordered his effigy to be hanged upon a gallows before the palace, and his capital, Baturin, was sacked and burned and razed to the ground. Mazeppa’s romantic career furnished the plot for several novels and dramatic works in addition to Byron’s poem, and suggested a theme for several famous paintings.