Think of the world's great backpacking paradises and the rugged,
inhospitable terrain of former Soviet Georgia does not figure high
on the list. Yet here is a world frozen in time, where many
tribespeople live exactly as their ancestors have done for
thousands of years. The routes are sometimes daunting but the
scenery is majestic, and everywhere is the light of friendship.
Traveller and TV writer Anderson writes in an eminently readable
style about his varied journeys through Georgia and the Caucasus.
He sets out to find if the region really is, as fabled, an
impenetrable barrier from the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. Not
only is it far from impenetrable but it is populated by wandering
communities whose welcomes are always lavish and heartfelt. Here
are mountain tribes who know little or nothing of modern
civilisation, and who remain untouched by the political upheavals
that have racked the Soviet Union. This is a real eye-opener of a
book. (Kirkus UK)
Tony Anderson set out in the summer of 1998 to walk through
Georgia. He wanted particularly to visit the Georgian mountain
tribes - Tush, Khevsurs, Ratchuelians and Svans - to discover if
they shared a common mountain culture, and to test the old idea of
the Caucasus as an impenetrable barrier from sea to sea. From
Azerbaijan to Svaneti, Anderson found communities where the old
customs and beliefs still triumphantly survive, despite years of
Communist oppression and the terrible uncertainties since the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Throughout his journey Anderson
refers back to many other visits to Georgia, to the politics of
independence, to the war in Abkhazia and Ossetia, to the civil war
and Shevardnadze's accession to power, to the history of these
people at one of the great crossroads of the world. It remains an
abiding mystery that Georgia has managed to survive at all,
devastated time and again by the vagabond hordes from the steppes
and torn between the mighty empires that struggled over it. But
survive it has with a vibrant culture still intact and, in the
mountains, still deeply connected to its ancient ways.
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