Nervous hotel staff operate from behind iron grilles, guarded by gunmen. Suspicious characters frequent rackety casinos and bars. Middlemen charge would-be students bribes of thousands of dollars apiece to sign up at the university. Crime rates are higher than in other parts of Russia. After a 21-month war between the Russian army and the Chechen separatists, the whole region is awash with guns.
Political assassinations are regular events.
It's natural for our minds to turn to religion in these troubled times. Several colorful figures have stepped forward to guide the popular enthusiasm for Islam. Saidmukhammed Abubakarov, Dagestan's respected official cleric, says that he only reluctantly accepted the job of mufti when it was pressed on him a few years ago. He won fame when, in 1991, he joined a popular movement to unseat the puppet clergy who had earlier administered a tame, Soviet-approved version of Islam. But now a quarrel over the direction of Dagestan's religious movement is splitting public opinion and undermining the mufti's authority.