Built between 1830 and 1860, Zaqatala’s Russian fortress is a sprawling affair with sturdy grey stone walls. It originally guarded against attacks from the Dagestan-based guerrilla army of Shamil and later imprisoned sailors from the battleship Potëmkin, whose famous 1905 mutiny at Odessa foreshadowed the Russian revolution.
Arguably the walls look more appealing from the outside as within are several banal 20th-century buildings: until around 2005 the fortress was still in military use.
