Castle of Queen Tamara in the Daryal gorge

The castle of Queen Tamara towers over the southern exit from the Daryal gorge. This place is referred to in ancient chronicles as the Alan Gate or the Sarmatian Gate. The military fortification made it possible to control a very important trade road between the north and south Caucasus. 

From a geographical point of view, the Daryal Gorge is called only a narrow canyon of 12 kilometers, where the rocks close over the Terek River, leaving a passage about a hundred meters wide. In a broader sense, the Daryal Gorge is called the entire passage between the northern and southern slopes of the Caucasian Mountain Range with a length of 170 kilometers. An alternative trade road ran through Derbent, which increased the distance by more than 1,500 kilometers. 

Thus, the control of the Daryal Gorge was very important, and the rulers of the local lands built fortresses here. The first mention of the fortress in the Darial gorge was made by the Greek historian Strabo in the 1st century BC. The Roman historian Pliny also mentions it in the 1st century AD. Those ancient fortifications did not survive, but in the 5th century the Georgian king Vakhtang Gorgasal built a fortress in this place, which was expanded by the Georgian king David the Builder in the 12th century. The ruins of these fortifications have survived to this day. 

The name "Castle of Queen Tamara" appeared much later. In 1841, the poet Mikhail Lermontov visited the Daryal Gorge and wrote a poem "Tamara".  

In the deep gorge of Daryal,  
Where is the Terek rummaging in the darkness,  
The ancient tower stood,  
Turning black on a black rock.  
In that tower high and cramped  
Queen Tamara lived:  
Beautiful as an angel of heaven,  
Like a demon, insidious and evil. 

There is no evidence in the historical chronicles that the construction of the castle in the Daryal gorge was somehow connected with the great Georgian Queen Tamara. Perhaps he somehow connected this poem with the legend of a beautiful Georgian princess who lived here in the 17th century. Whatever it was, now this fortress is called "The Castle of Queen Tamara" in all guidebooks. 

The ruins of this castle are now visible from the Daryal Monastery, which in 2005 was built at the exit of the Daryal Gorge at the Upper Lars checkpoint, on the border of Georgia and Russia. It is impossible to approach the ruins of the Castle of Queen Tamara, since it is located on the opposite side of the Terek River from the monastery. The path to the Castle of Queen Tamara rises up the slope of the mountain where the state border is now located, and admission there is prohibited.