Dargin

The Dargins are a Northeast Caucasian people of central Dagestan, of highlands between the Avars and Caspian, with Akusha-Dargo as their spiritual center. Their principal medieval state was the Kaitag Utsmiate, whose utsmi held Kala-Koreysh.

The utsmi was elected from the senior princely lineage, not hereditary, the free village unions of Utsmi-Dargo keeping their arms and limiting his power, his main force in war but rejecting his taxes in peace. An ally of the Golden Horde, Kaitag was ravaged by Timur in the late fourteenth century, recovering only in the fifteenth, after which the utsmi's seat moved to Majalis. By then the Dargins were Shafi'i Sunni Muslims, judged by qadis under sharia and custom.

Kubachi won renown across the Caucasus and Middle East for its silversmiths. Russian annexation reached Dargin lands in the early nineteenth century, and the utsmiate fell in 1820.