Kizlyar

Town in Dagestan, republican subordination, rayon (sector) centre, 170 km north-west of Makhachkala. Located on the Caspian Coastal Plain, in the delta of the Terek River. Railway station in the Gudermes - Astrakhan line. Motor road junction. Population (1992 est.) 40.9 thousand, (1979 est.) 33.2 thousand.

On the site of present Kizlyar, Russian frontier fortresses of Terki-1 (1567), Terki-2 (1579), Terki-3 (1589) were founded. The settlement of Kizlyar was first mentioned in 1652; it was destroyed by flooding in 1725. In 1735, General-in-Chief V.Y. Levashov founded the Russian fortress of Kizlyar, which laid the foundations of frontier Caucasian embattled lines. Since the second half of the 18th century, Kizlyar was an important trade centre of Russia with countries of the Middle East (Kizlyar established a Russian border custom-house in 1755; there was a colony of Indian merchants in the second half of the 18th century). Since 1785, Kizlyar was an uyezd (canton) city of the Caucasian vicegerency. In 1798, a large number of the Armenians moved here from Nagorno-Karabakh, trying to save themselves from destruction by Turkish and Iranian troops. In 1831, during the Caucasian war, the town was destroyed by mountaineers, but soon built up anew. Since the 1860s, centre of the Kizlyar okrug (district) (section since 1905) of Terek oblast (province). In 1922, Kizlyar with the okrug was included into the Dagestan АSSR; in 1937-1944, into Ordzhonikidze (Stavropol) kray (region); in 1944, into Grozny oblast; in 1957, re-included into Dagestan.

Since the early 19th century, it was the centre of a large area of wine-growing, winemaking (the first Russian school of winemaking was opened here in 1805), fishery and fish trade. The kray also had gardening, cultivation of vegetables, melons and gourds, rice, cultivation of silk cocoons.

It was in the fortress of Kizlyar (the present memorial house) in 1765 that General P.I. Bagration, a hero-to-be of the Patriotic War of 1812, was born in the family of a colonel, a descendant of an ancient Georgian royal stem. In 1836-1838, the commandant of the Kizlyar fortress was the poet, interpreter, critic and theatrical figure R.А. Katenin. At different times, Kizlyar was visited by А.А. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, M.Y. Lermontov, L.N. Tolstoy, the French writer Alexandre Dumas PERE, the surgeon N.I. Pirogov, etc.

Present Kizlyar has a winery (since 1885), whose production is known outside Dagestan as well; the Dagelektroapparat factory, an electromechanical factory; the Nizhny Terek cannery (production of fruit and vegetable canned food), a creamery, an integrated bread products works, etc.; a clothes factory.

In 1861, the P.I. Bagration museum of local lore (archaeological and numismatic collections, ethnographic exhibits, rare documents, books, paintings) was opened in Kizlyar.

The centre of the town is mostly built up with 2- or 3-storeyed stony houses, the other town with one-storeyed, mainly wooden, ones. The gridiron pattern of quarters with asphalted streets and small squares is quite typical. The most interesting constructions of the 19th century include the buildings of the former town council (now kept as a museum), the Corps of Nobles, Kochkachov's house. The modern microdistrict of Cheryomushki is built-up with 5-storeyed precast-panel houses with a traditional Dagestan ornamental patterns on their facades.