The state answers with its own thunder. In April, armored combat vehicles and masked commandos surrounded the mountain village of Gimry, a stronghold of Islamism and defiance to Russia, and ordered women and children to evacuate. Troops shelled a neighboring gorge and then used ropes to haul out the bodies of three suspected militants. When residents were allowed to return a week later, many homes had been ransacked, some reduced to rubble.

In Dagestan, with a population of nearly 2.9 million, about 350 people were killed in fighting here in 2012, of which two-thirds were militants and one-third police officers, according to the news service Caucasian Knot. The message from the authorities is clear: Once a young man has taken part in an attack, he is unlikely to live long.

“They cannot return — there is no road back,” Mr. Umakhanov said. “That is the problem.”

It is against this backdrop that Mr. Altysultanov is trying to find his way “back from the forest,” as they say here.

Sitting before a banquet, apparently too nervous to eat, he told the story of how he and other athletes from his gym had fallen under the influence of Rustam Khamanayev, a charismatic older athlete who called himself “emir of the Aukhovsky jamaat.” One day, they were told to report to an abandoned warehouse, swapped their track suits for camouflage, received automatic weapons and were loaded into the back of a van headed for a camp.

“I can say, for myself, that I had a fantasy of holding a gun in my hand,” Mr. Altysultanov said softly. “Because Khamanayev said so, I thought that a Muslim must live in Shariah state. This was the goal.” The emir demanded elaborate shows of respect; the fighters could not turn their backs to him.

Mr. Altysultanov said he began to miss his family. It was such a hard time, he said, “Even thinking about it, my mood is spoiled.”