When you get there, you’ll meet the Afghan at the telephone pole.
These instructions given to us in Mestia by the Svaneti Mountaineering Tourism Center left us baffled. Is our mountain guide a member of the Mujahideen who’d lost his way and made his home in the mountains of Georgia? After all, in Svaneti just about anything seems possible. Continue Reading »
Article Series - Svaneti
- Svaneti: Why and How To Go
- Svaneti, A Mountain Inauguration
- Blue Eyes, Gold Teeth: The Fabled Land of the Svans
Podcast: Play in new window
| Download
Filed Under: Audio Clips, Caucasus, Georgia, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
12 Comments | 19 August 2007
As the first tourists to take advantage of the Svaneti Mountaineering Tourism Center (SMTC), we planned our arrival in the town of Mestia to coincide with the organization’s inaugural party. Because of our exceptionally long ride from Zugdidi to Mestia, we barely arrived in time for the opening speeches, including one which singled us out and unexpectedly turned the local crowd’s attention to us. Continue Reading »
Article Series - Svaneti
- Svaneti: Why and How To Go
- Svaneti, A Mountain Inauguration
- Blue Eyes, Gold Teeth: The Fabled Land of the Svans
Filed Under: Caucasus, Georgia, Hope for Humanity, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
No Comments | 19 August 2007
I tell you, the Svanetians are crazy. Their brains are deficient in oxygen.
- A Tbilisi resident describing how the high altitudes of Svaneti have affected its people.
Svaneti, the high Caucasus mountain region in the northwestern corner of Georgia, has a long reputation of fierce independence characterized by the 12th century defensive towers that still dot many of its villages. More recently, Svaneti has been feared as outlaw territory where bandits and escaping terrorists from nearby Abkhazia, Chechnya and Ingushetia took refuge as locals holed up in their homes with guns at the ready. Continue Reading »
Article Series - Svaneti
- Svaneti: Why and How To Go
- Svaneti, A Mountain Inauguration
- Blue Eyes, Gold Teeth: The Fabled Land of the Svans
Filed Under: Caucasus, Georgia, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
4 Comments | 15 August 2007
