The Sulak Canyon is the gorge of the Sulak River in mountainous Dagestan, 55 km west of Makhachkala as the crow flies and about 100 km by road. It runs for 53 km through the Untsukulsky, Gumbetovsky, Kazbekovsky and Buynaksky districts and falls into three sections that look nothing alike.
The deepest of them is the Main Canyon in the Buynaksky District, where the Sulak has cut through the Salatau and Gimry ridges. The section is 18 km long and only 20–40 m wide at the bottom. Sources disagree on its depth. The Dagestan branch of the Russian Geographical Society gives up to 1,560 m; the geologist I. Idrisov of the Institute of Geology at the Dagestan Federal Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences gives up to 2,000 m and notes that the literature still argues over which height to count from. The figure of 1,920 m is also widely quoted, but nobody says who measured it or how. For comparison, the Grand Canyon is 1,829 m deep at its deepest, from rim to river. There is only one viewpoint over the Main Canyon, near Verkhny Karanai, reached through the village of Ishkarty.
Downstream lie the Chirkey section, 6 km long and up to 800 m deep, and the Miatli section, 9 km long and up to 600 m deep. The views most visitors come for open up at the village of Dubki in the Kazbekovsky District: its viewing platforms stand above the canyon below the Chirkey hydroelectric plant, over the Miatli reservoir, and pleasure boats run on the same water. According to Idrisov, the canyon here is within 700 m deep. Hotels, cafes and boat trips are concentrated here, downstream; the Main Canyon has none.
From Makhachkala to Dubki is about 80 km: head towards Buynaksk and then on to the village, roughly an hour and a half by car. A minibus also runs from the Northern Bus Station. In 2026 a boat trip cost from 1,700 roubles per person.
The best time to come is from late spring to early autumn. In summer the canyon is best visited in the morning or evening; in autumn it is often shrouded in fog.
