Makhachkala, Republic of Dagestan, September 21 2019 I decided to go to Dagestan because a coworker of mine, Katya, had invited me to go there with her family as they were 'seeking better weather' before the dreary overcast of Moscow began. But at the last minute, they canceled their plans due to a 'poor forecast'- or perhaps they were simply hesitant- I don't know. The tickets were so cheap and I had recently come back from Lake Baikal and the city of Irkutsk, so I had a massive case of the travel bug. I doubled down and bought a cheap ticket to fly there on an early Saturday morning and come back on a Monday morning- a short trip. I didn't know much about Dagestan, which got its name from a Turkish-Persian hybrid meaning 'mountain land'. I knew that it was located in Kavkasia, which is Russian for the Caucasus mountain region; I have become accustomed to referring to it as such. A two hour flight south of Moscow, Dagestan is in the North...