Returns to the Caucasus

Part 2: the Call of the Wild

Tbilisi. On a freezing January morning, we load the car with supplies, bags and water before heading out for Racha, a remote hamlet on the edge of Svaneti, which we reach after eight grueling hours of winding mountain roads. At the final bend, the road vanishes and our car sinks into a thick layer of mud and melting snow. We have no choice but to give up and leave our driver behind, finishing the journey on foot, backpacks on, in a muffled silence barely broken by a dog barking in the distance.

In front of us, a silent village, its homes and stables deserted. And up on the hillside, at the edge of a frozen field neatly bordered by a brand-new fence, stands the silhouette of our cabin. We’ll have to reach it on foot, through woods and thickets, wearing only our city clothes, already soaked through to the knees.

Winter here is harsh. Every year, with the first snow, the mountain empties out, and the locals descend to Kutaisi in search of a milder life until spring returns. A week of solitude awaits us, punctuated by slow hikes along barely visible paths, and long hours huddled around the stove.

One day, at the crossing of two trails, we come across one of the only villagers who hasn’t deserted. He suggests a few routes to reach the higher ridges, where, he says, are stunning views over the surrounding valleys. But also warns us: “Be back before dark. There are all kinds of wild animals in the area.” The thought of meeting a bear or a wolf crosses my mind. I try to spot tracks in the untouched snow. But the truth is, that morning, shivering in my clothes still damp from the day before, I feared the flu far more than a wild beast.

From our cabin, we spend long hours watching the snow fall. The landscape constantly fading and reappearing beneath the mist. Against the pale sky, the ridgelines and delicate silhouettes of trees and groves stand out. This starkness has something of a Japanese print. One afternoon, chilled and motionless on the balcony, we sit there, contemplating this sleeping world, still a little untamed, and suddenly infinite. Inside, our wet shoes dry by the stove.

A year earlier, I had headed toward another region well known among mountain lovers: Stepantsminda and its famous Kazbegi, proud and solitary massif straddling the border between Georgia and Russia. It took me six hours in a packed minibus to reach the village, tossed from one bend to the next, the landscape gradually opening into vast plateaus where crumbling Soviet-era bunkers still clung to the earth.

I rented a modest little shack for a few days of wandering. No fixed route—just the desire to walk and explore new terrain, a mix of peaks and wide, dry, windswept valleys, dotted with a few remaining villages and their flocks of sheep.

Along the main road that links Tbilisi to the Russian border, chalets and hotels are springing up quickly. Better connected than Svaneti, the region attracts more and more climbers and travelers each year. Myself included.

On the trail leading up to the glaciers and Mount Kazbegi, one can stop at the ruins of old fortresses or at the Gergeti Trinity Church, standing proudly above the town and valley. I make the climb on foot, following a path winding through frozen grass. After over an hour of walking, shoes covered with mud, I emerge onto a large parking lot where a line of cars is dropping off passengers who seem woefully underdressed for such a biting late winter. Beyond the sanctuary begins the real trail, the one leading to the glaciers, the mountain huts, and eventually the summit. The crowd thins out. All that remains is the crunch of snow underfoot and the wind howling against the rock.

After each hike, I neatly line up my soaked gear by the radiators, open a few cans from the cupboard, and settle down next to the little camping stove I use as a kitchen. The skies offer austere sunsets that remind me of years spent in Scandinavia. Nowhere else have I seen that same cold, diffuse pink settling over the snow each evening before darkness swallows the land.

And as always in the mountains, I find myself pondering those nearly imperceptible nuances that make no two peaks truly alike. Similar in appearance, yet each carries its own hidden essence. And though I’ve climbed many by now, I’m always struck by how different the new one feels from the last. It’s in those moments I realize—one can never grow tired of the mountain.

On my last trip to the Caucasus, I headed for the mountains of Mtirala National Park, a few hours' drive from Batumi. Up until then, the city had seemed to me no more than a booming seaside resort, plastered with garish ads for real estate investment projects fresh from the ground. But I had often heard of this unique region where lush mountains and tropical vegetation blend into a curious mix of coastal life and wilderness.

Again, as had become our habit, a little cabin hidden deep in a dense forest, at the end of a rough gravel road, awaited us for a few days. During this brief stay, I discovered yet another of the many faces of Georgia’s mountains: a southern carpet of vegetation where chestnut trees, rhododendrons, hollies, and vines gradually give way to beech and Caucasian pines as the elevation rises. One day, rustling through the ferns, I picked up a stubborn tick, which I had to remove with a knife and a fair amount of alcohol.

Once again, I found myself gazing at steep valleys and tucked-away villages, beside rivers making their way down to the Black Sea. And once again, I thought back to those words I had read in one of Kapuściński's books:

“I meandered among the grasses in this blessed paradise field where I might have sought salvation. And I think that every Georgian, every inhabitant of the Caucasus, has such a map encoded in his memory. He has studied it in its every detail since childhood: his home, his village, his street. It is a map of memory, a map of danger.”—Ryszard Kapuściński

I hadn’t expected, the first time I set foot in Georgia, to grow such a deep and sincere attachment to this country. As always, I had set off with eyes wide open, ready to absorb whatever crossed my path, for better or worse. Maybe it’s because I found here, in the complexity of its people and nature, a kind of depth that touched me deeply. Or maybe it was the circumstances and the encounters that drew me back and carved into me a series of unique and indelible memories.

Whatever the reason, I often catch myself dreaming of a walk on the heights of Tbilisi, or a winter evening watching the snow fall over any mountain of the Caucasus.

source: personal archives, 2024.