North Caucasus Trip Report - N. Ossetia, Ingushetia, Chechnya, Dagestan

Loved your story. My name is Mike and live in Perth Australia. Have backpacked in 2010 through the Stans and Georgia etc but not that part of Russia. Am thinking of doing so in 2015 as want to visit the Volga Delta area and then on the Ekratinerberg Siberia etc. and possibly up to Murmansk. Can I email you some questions about either getting to Astrakhan from Baku or from Sochi. (The LP does not seem to encourage people doing to Derbet etc but it sound slovely from your story). Kind regards. Mike

I would also love to hear more about this trip. We were in Baku in 1998 and Astrakhan in 2012. I was in Perth, Australia in 1980, after hitch-hiking from Sydney. I would love to do the North Ossetian route, and Chechnya as well.
Astrakhan is very nice, with many old streets and buildings near the canals, with some modern pizza places and sports bars in case you get tired of history. Astrakhan has a couple of nice old mosques, a good Kremlin and a laid back Persian suburb. I would love to see Derbent. I chickened out. I was with my wife and two little girls, sitting at the bus station in Astrakhan, trying to read the schedule on the wall. I did not like the midnight arrival for the only bus to Derbent. The train FROM Grozhny to Astrakhan has nice departure and arrival times but not going the other way. By all means do this, you can take a direct train from Sochi to lovely Vladikavkaz, but it goes way out of the way to Tuapse. A bus would be more direct. But in Russia, remember this. Trains and planes are excellent. Inter-city buses stink, and it is designed this way.

Perth, Australia was lovely in 1980.

Baku was nice (2001). The border with Georgia will be open., at least for the train. Don't count on the border between Azerbaijan and Russia being open for third country nationals.

Hi Mike, thanks for reading it :)

The North Caucasus are definitely worth visiting, but keep an eye on the news. Dagestan has a steady insurgency, as does Ingushetia, but it is security forces rather than foreigners that are targeted. LP seems overly-negative about the region (I guess it suits them not to have to send someone there and research the area...) but if you can get around Central Asia and other parts of Russia you should have no problem here. People are super-friendly.

I'd be happy to answer any questions I can, leave a comment on the website or send me a PM and I'll get back to you. Please bear in mind though that I drive everywhere in my own vehicle, so I can't help with anything to do with public transport. I also don't stay in hotels!

As far as I know, the border between Russia and Azerbaijan IS open to anyone (with visas of course) and I have read a couple of reports of people crossing. I am planning on trying it in 2015, but until now I have not done it.

In general, if you want to see a good swathe of the North Caucasus I would start in Sochi and head east through all the republics, as I did. If you only have time to quickly pass through, I would go from Baku to Astrakhan and stop in Derbent. There are definitely trains running on this line, local Dagestani friends of mine take them to get to Baku.

EO

Hi Mike, thanks for reading it :)

The North Caucasus are definitely worth visiting, but keep an eye on the news. Dagestan has a steady insurgency, as does Ingushetia, but it is security forces rather than foreigners that are targeted. LP seems overly-negative about the region (I guess it suits them not to have to send someone there and research the area...) but if you can get around Central Asia and other parts of Russia you should have no problem here. People are super-friendly.

I'd be happy to answer any questions I can, leave a comment on the website or send me a PM and I'll get back to you. Please bear in mind though that I drive everywhere in my own vehicle, so I can't help with anything to do with public transport. I also don't stay in hotels!

As far as I know, the border between Russia and Azerbaijan IS open to anyone (with visas of course) and I have read a couple of reports of people crossing. I am planning on trying it in 2015, but until now I have not done it.

In general, if you want to see a good swathe of the North Caucasus I would start in Sochi and head east through all the republics, as I did. If you only have time to quickly pass through, I would go from Baku to Astrakhan and stop in Derbent. There are definitely trains running on this line, local Dagestani friends of mine take them to get to Baku.

EO

Hi EO, I'm very interested by your experience in North Caucasus, especially because you have done it with your own car. And because I'm planning almost the same trip for 2015, after coming back from Uzb. and Kazskhstan also with my own car. So can you give me your itinerary across this area (towns,border's post,roads....).
Thanks in advance,
RR.

Hi RR

Nice that you are planning such a trip. Please look at the maps which I've drawn at the beginning of each chapter describing my route. If you have any more specific questions then do let me know.

EO