Makhachkala

Long before the Russian fort, the coast here belonged to the Kumyks. Their town of Anji, the "pearl fortress", stood on the shore, and the hill town of Tarki above it was the capital of the Kumyk state, the Shamkhalate of Tarki, at least from the 16th century; some scholars place the Khazar capital Samandar on the same site. Peter the Great waged war in the region during his Persian campaign of 1722, and when the Russian Empire seized the Kumyk plateau in the 1840s it built a fort here and named it Petrovskoye after him. The fort became a town in 1857 as Petrovsk-Port, and a railway reached it in 1894, linking it to Vladikavkaz and Baku.

During the Civil War British air squadrons were briefly based at Petrovsk in 1919, and the Red Army took the town in March 1920. On 14 May 1921 it was renamed Makhachkala after the Dagestani revolutionary Makhach Dakhadaev and made capital of the new Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1944 the Kumyks of Tarki and neighbouring villages were deported, their land given to the city and to settlers from the mountains; when they returned in 1957 their land was not restored. An earthquake caused major damage in 1970.

After 1991 the city became capital of the Republic of Dagestan. It sits close to the conflicts of the North Caucasus and has a heavy security presence. The journalist Gadzhimurat Kamalov was shot dead here in 2011. In August 2023 a fire at a filling station set off explosions that killed at least 25 people; in October 2023 rioters stormed the airport; on 23 June 2024 attackers killed a priest and burned a church and a synagogue; and in September 2026 a Ukrainian drone attack damaged the port.

Makhachkala is one of the most ethnically mixed cities in Russia. At the 2021 census about a quarter of its people were Avars, with large Kumyk, Dargin, Lezgin and Lak communities and smaller numbers of Russians and others. Dagestan has more than thirty local languages, most from the Nakh-Daghestanian family, and Russian serves as the language that ties the city together. Most residents are Sunni Muslims of the Shafi'i school, and the Grand Mosque on Imam Shamil Avenue, built in the 1990s on the model of Istanbul's Blue Mosque, is the city's main landmark. An Orthodox cathedral and a Jewish community centre are reminders of older minorities.

The city is the republic's cultural capital. Separate theatres perform in Russian, Kumyk, Avar and Lak, alongside an opera and ballet theatre and a puppet theatre, and the fine arts museum holds work by Dagestani artists beside Russian masters. The Avar poet Rasul Gamzatov is honoured with monuments in front of the Russian theatre and the theatre of poetry. The lezginka, a fast-paced folk dance, is part of Dagestan's musical heritage.

Sport is a source of fierce pride. Dagestan has produced a disproportionate number of Olympic and world champions in freestyle wrestling and is known for combat sambo, and many mixed martial artists train in the city, including the UFC champions Khabib Nurmagomedov and Islam Makhachev. Football has had its own dramas: Anzhi Makhachkala signed Roberto Carlos and Samuel Eto'o after 2011, cut its budget in 2013 and lost its professional licence in 2022, and Dynamo Makhachkala now carries the city's name in the Russian Premier League.

In 2025 about 625,000 people lived in Makhachkala's three city districts, and roughly a million in its wider urban area. It is the largest city in the North Caucasus and one of the fastest-growing cities in Russia, and it is going through a construction boom. Administratively it is divided into three districts — Kirovsky, Sovetsky and Leninsky — each with roughly 190,000 to 220,000 residents in 2025.

The economy rests on oil refining, engineering and textile factories, the Caspian port, which handles oil, grain, timber and building materials, and the offices, universities and research institutes of a republican capital, including a branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The city is also the media centre of Dagestan, publishing newspapers such as Dagestanskaya Pravda and the Islamic As-Salam. Many sanatoriums lie near the city, drawn by its warm climate.

Rapid growth has brought familiar problems: an International Crisis Group report in 2013 described dirty streets, dilapidated buildings, inadequate utilities, unplanned construction and poorly organised public transport. Police checkpoints and armed security are part of everyday life.

Food in Makhachkala draws on the kitchens of all the peoples of Dagestan. Chudu, a thin pie filled with meat, cheese, cottage cheese or herbs, is one of the republic's best-known dishes. Kurze are long dumplings stuffed with meat, and chorba, a soup usually made with lamb and beef, fried vegetables and herbs, is cooked across Dagestan as in neighbouring Azerbaijan.

Urbech, a paste made by grinding seeds or nuts such as flax, almonds or apricot kernels, is a Dagestani speciality, eaten as a sweet dish mixed with butter and honey. Nogai tea, a salty tea brought to the North Caucasus by the Nogai people, is popular among Dagestanis.

Dagestan is also a centre of Russian brandy: the factory at Kizlyar specialises in a regional brandy sold throughout Russia as "cognac", and Derbent, down the coast, is a centre of brandy production. Alcohol is nonetheless far less available in Makhachkala than in most Russian cities. Stalls by the city beach sell fritters.