Dagestan has the status of "republic" in Russia and has its own constitution and official languages. Republics in Russia are the home of its ethnic minorities (those who are not Russians), and usually one or two nationalities have a majority of the population in each republic. But in Dagestan, there are over 30 different nationalities (the largest of which are the Avar, Lak, Dargwa, Lezgian, and Tabasaran), and none of these form a majority. This is because the mountains in the region make it hard for people to move around. These people speak 30 different languages, but use Russian as their lingua franca to communicate between each other.