The city of the dead - Dargavs, Russia

There is a Dargavs village in the remote deserted region of Russia's North Ossetia–Alania. This place is known as 'City of the Dead'. This place is hidden between five high mountains. There are countless crypts of white stones built here. The crypts have ridged curved roofs going inwards in steps with a pointed peak at the top. The smaller crypts have flat sides on the front and back yet on the sides they curves inwards and the smallest of the crypts have no roofs at all. Some of the crypts are 2 to 4 stories high. It comprises 99 different tombs and crypts. The bodies of the people buried in each floor of every crypt. As much as the height of the crypt, the more the bodies of the people were buried in it. In this way every crypt is a tomb and many bodies of many people buried in every tomb. All these tombs are related to about 16th century. In this way we can say that this place is a huge graveyard of the 16th century, where the bodies of the people related to that time are still buried. Every crypt is related to a family special in which only members of the same family are buried.

Local people have different types of claims and beliefs about this place. People believe that after going to this place on the hills, no one returns back. Probably because of this thought, a tourist rarely reaches here. However, the way to reach there is not easy. It takes a lot of time to get through the narrow paths of the hills. The weather here is also a huge obstacle in the journey. Archaeologists have been very interested in this place and they have also done some unusual discoveries about this place. Archaeologists have found boats near the tombs here. They say that here the bodies were buried in a wooden structure, which resembles a boat. However, it remains a mystery now that even though the river did not exist, how the boat reached this place. The belief behind the boat is that the soul has to cross the river to reach heaven, so it is buried by placing it on a boat. Here archaeologists also found wells in front of every crypt. It is said about this well that after burial of their relatives, people used to throw coins in the well. If the coin hit the stones in the bottom, it would have meant that the soul reached heaven.