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History hunting in Zagatala

Picturesque Zagatala is a great place to get to grips with the fascinating history of the north-western region. The top attraction are the remains of a vast fortress built here to house a Russian military garrison in the 1830s which later became famous as the place where the mutineers of the Battleship Potemkin – a key episode in the run-up to the Russian Revolution – were imprisoned in 1907. Today, what’s left are the impressive fortified walls along with the ruins of a water reservoir, stables, gunpowder warehouse, cannons and former Russian church turned cultural club. An onsite guide will happily show you around them.

Meanwhile, just beneath the fortress walls on the central Dede Gorgud Square is the well-preserved structure of a disused Albanian church dating to the 5th-6th centuries, though the current building is an 1830s red-brick reconstruction used by the Russian soldiers in the fortress. It consists of three-storeyed halls complete with bell tower and columns. To learn more about Zagatala’s intriguing history, call into the local history museum on Heydar Aliyev Avenue.