Residents of Makhachkala have staged a spontaneous protest for the third time in a week over prolonged power outages. On the evening of Aug. 13, residents of Irchi Kazak Street blocked traffic, saying their homes had been without electricity for three days.
Regional media reported that power disruptions had continued for about a week, with electricity effectively unavailable over the previous three days.
"It is impossible to cook food or do the laundry, and the lifts are not working," a local resident named Arsen told Kavkaz.Realii.
Another resident, Marina, said emergency services had failed to provide clear explanations.
"There is no electricity every day, the emergency services do not tell us anything, and they have pushed people to the point where they have no choice but to block the streets," she said.
After the road was blocked, representatives of the city administration and the power company arrived at the scene and promised to restore electricity soon. At around 9 p.m., municipal officials also met with the protesters.
Dagenergo, the regional electricity distribution company, attributed the outage to an accident at an energy facility owned by a private company and located on its premises. The damage left residential buildings on several streets without electricity, including Irchi Kazak Street and Industrialny Lane.
The city administration said protesters met with Kurban Kadyrov, head of its department for domestic policy. By 9:16 p.m., residents had ended the protest and returned home.
It was the third such protest in Makhachkala in a week.
On Aug. 6, residents of Kadyrov Street blocked a road after going without electricity for several days. Power was restored following the protest, but about 8,000 people in the city were still without electricity the following day.
On Aug. 12, residents of the Novy Gorod neighbourhood took to the streets. They gathered on Kammaev Street and demanded that power supplies be restored. Authorities later said electricity had been restored, attributing the outage to an accident.
The problems intensified in late July. On July 26, residents faced prolonged power cuts, prompting the city administration to ask people to limit their use of high-powered electrical appliances because of pressure on the grid. The appeal angered many residents.
Power and water supply disruptions have repeatedly triggered spontaneous protests in Makhachkala. Similar demonstrations took place in the summers of 2024 and 2025.
In January, Sergei Bachurin, head of the Interior Ministry's department for the North Caucasus Federal District, identified unresolved public-utilities problems as one of the factors contributing to increased protest activity in Dagestan.
