[Caucasus - Pt. 1] Prelude: Through the Gates of Alexander

'He turned his back on his native borders
And flew off to a far-away land,
Alongside the merry ghost of freedom.'

          - 'Captive of the Caucasus' (1822), by Alexander Pushkin

​When I first started toying with the idea of crossing the North Caucasus, my Georgian colleague was keen to remind me that it is a region of violence, inhabited by the gortsy (the Russian word for 'highlanders' - but usually with a pejorative sting of the uncivilised and barbaric mountain natives). Since then I have been reading the various travelogues written on the region throughout the centuries.

​One aspect was consistent in these accounts: travellers were always surprised to find how little have changed since the time of their predecessors. An 18th century traveller in the Caucasus once wrote that 'the mountains are much in the same state as they were in the time of Herodotus or Strabo'. Similarly, journalists covering the 1990s Chechen War were surprised by how easily they could make connections with the past.

The world knows Alexandre Dumas for his 'Three Musketeers' or 'the Count of Monte Cristo'. Few remember his travelogue, 'Tales of the Caucasus' which was based on his 1858-9 journey across both north and south Caucasus.

In the 1740s the Georgian prince Vakhusht wrote in his description geographique that the civilised Georgians 'know nothing beyond reading and writing, sing and dancing' whereas 'those who live in the mountains have something of the character of wild animals.' Perhaps by fate - 300 years later my Georgian colleague was still suggesting the same reality. 'If there is a dispute there,' he would tell me, 'remember that they [North Caucasians] always prefer to draw blood first, and think later.' 

​
His warning might have almost exactly the opposite effect on me as he had intended. I am starting to think if it was this timelessness of the North Caucasus that makes it so intriguing: it offers modern travellers the opportunity to relate to previous explorers and to experience the local way of life from the forgotten times. 

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