Elista is a small town in the middle of flat treeless steppe land, verging on semi-desert, which was quite dramatic for the first 200 miles until it became somewhat monotonous. Eventually we came to a motorway which went one way to Astrakhan and another to Makhachkala. Driving in the Makhachkala direction we came to the edge of Kizlyar (where we stopped in 2018) in the autonomous republic of Dagestan and were stopped at the edge of the town by a jolly policeman who was very interested in the interior of the van, and pointed the way to Groznyi. Dagestan is an Islamic republic and the difference is immediately noticeable; a mosque in every village, women wearing chadors and cafes selling shwarma and manti. It was getting dark as we approached Groznyi so we stopped in the small town of Gudermes outside a cafe in a complex of small shops. We had a delicious meal and stopped there for the night.
Buddhist architecture in Kalmykiya
Mosque in Dagestan