The city of dead
This September almost by an accident, or should I say without planning it beforehand I ended up in the Republic of North Osetia, which is a part of Russia, one of the North Caucasus republics. A friend of mine works in the capital city of the republic, and I went to visit him and he offered to go and see local place of interest with pretty tempting name - The city of dead. Certainly I agreed, unfortunately I didn't have my SLR with me, but fortunately modern small cameras are pretty good too, so I used my small camera which usually I use at work to make some pictures.
First short post about the trip with a LOTR tower you can find here (http://russia-insider.livejournal.com/60198.html)
Basically it appeared to be more of a village, though called the city by local people. These small houses ahead on the mountain slope are actually it.
The other name of this place is Dargavs. Google maps surely knows it in case if you'd want to get coordinates.
Closer view from the road.
Some pictures will be taken from the tower you can see in the right part of the next picture.
It cost you about $3 to enter the area, as it's considered something in-between the museum and national park or something like that.
The walk path to the burial houses.
So truth to be told, this is in fact a cemetery and these are open cripts.
Inside you can see bones and sculls of people dead long ago. Some say that they would come to die here themselves while they were still alive.
Front view of one of the cript houses.
For some reason the place is not gruesome or scary in any way. Mountains around, the wind, the skies, all this makes the place light in some way.
The mountain dry air affects the bodies somehow and inside you can actually see mummified bodies.
View towards the road we used to get to the place.
It's really beautiful around.
The tower was probably restored recently. But it looks and built exactly the same way it was hundreds years ago. These were watch and defense towers.
Views from the tower
And just a couple of views around
This was one of the strangest places I visited. Nothing special maybe, but still it left some trace. It's only a couple hours away from the big city with night clubs and supermarkets and it makes a great contrast. Old shepherds we were asking for directions looked like they appeared from 19th or 18th century and barely spoke Russian. Next year I will definitely try to get there again.
(And the valley road is great too, driving pleasure with a lot of turns, nice pavement and very few cars, almost like in Swiss alps roads I guess, not worse).
First short post about the trip with a LOTR tower you can find here (http://russia-insider.livejournal.com/60198.html)
Basically it appeared to be more of a village, though called the city by local people. These small houses ahead on the mountain slope are actually it.
The other name of this place is Dargavs. Google maps surely knows it in case if you'd want to get coordinates.
Closer view from the road.
Some pictures will be taken from the tower you can see in the right part of the next picture.
It cost you about $3 to enter the area, as it's considered something in-between the museum and national park or something like that.
The walk path to the burial houses.
So truth to be told, this is in fact a cemetery and these are open cripts.
Inside you can see bones and sculls of people dead long ago. Some say that they would come to die here themselves while they were still alive.
Front view of one of the cript houses.
For some reason the place is not gruesome or scary in any way. Mountains around, the wind, the skies, all this makes the place light in some way.
The mountain dry air affects the bodies somehow and inside you can actually see mummified bodies.
View towards the road we used to get to the place.
It's really beautiful around.
The tower was probably restored recently. But it looks and built exactly the same way it was hundreds years ago. These were watch and defense towers.
Views from the tower
And just a couple of views around
This was one of the strangest places I visited. Nothing special maybe, but still it left some trace. It's only a couple hours away from the big city with night clubs and supermarkets and it makes a great contrast. Old shepherds we were asking for directions looked like they appeared from 19th or 18th century and barely spoke Russian. Next year I will definitely try to get there again.
(And the valley road is great too, driving pleasure with a lot of turns, nice pavement and very few cars, almost like in Swiss alps roads I guess, not worse).