Dagestan shares with its Caucasian neighbors the towering mountains of the Greater Caucasus, rushing Caucasian rivers, and spectacularly situated stone auls (mountaintop villages). But in an already diverse region, Dagestan is a wonderland of ethnic and cultural diversity. About 35 separate ethnolinguistic groups live in this Scotland-sized republic and the region contains an amazing 12 language ''families''! For all this cultural diversity, Dagestanis are fairly united in their Islamic religion — virtually all non-Russian ethnic groups are Muslim. This is probably true since almost 32,000 people have left in a mass exit from Dagestan since the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991. Many of those people were the Mountain Jews--Juhuro--who spoke Persian or one of its dialects.
Makhachkala will almost certainly be your first destination, whether by plane from Moscow, or by train via Rostov-on-the-Don through Mineralnye Vody. Note that security is very tight at the Makhachkala airport.
Within the 7 language families of the Dagestanian language grouping alone there are about 30 languages, many of them considered among the most difficult in the world to master. Fortunately, everyone, regardless of nationality, understands the lingua franca, Russian. Azeri is also widely used in the southeast Caspian region around Derbent; those who speak Turkish may be able to make themselves understood in this area.
Dagestan is not a safe tourist destination by any stretch of the imagination. The mountainous areas of the republic (i.e., the most interesting areas) have seen major military operations in recent years between various groups and the Russian military. Criminal activity is widespread throughout the region, often targeting the few foreign tourists that do continue to visit for kidnapping, extortion, and worse. Dagestan shares along with the rest of the North Caucasus an extravagantly corrupt official culture and bribes and harassment are business as usual.
If you'd like to catch a glimpse of Dagestani culture and beauty, check online for a copy of the late Sergei Bodrov's haunting film, ''Prisoner of the Mountains'' (''_K_p_r_{_p_x___{_y_z ___|_u_~_~_y_{''), which was shot in a Dagestani mountain aul, hiring the villagers as extras.
Dagestan is a predominantly conservative Muslim region with very strong chivalric mountaineer traditions. Be careful not to insert yourself into local politics or to insult locals' sense of honor, or you might find yourself estranged in a strange land.