Kazbegi

Kazbegi is the end of the Georgian Military Highway, the road the Russian empire cut through the Caucasus in the nineteenth century: three hours north of Tbilisi it climbs past the fortress of Ananuri on its reservoir, through the ski slopes of Gudauri, over the Jvari pass at two thousand three hundred and seventy-nine metres and past the Soviet mural of the Friendship Monument, and drops into the valley of the Tergi to Stepantsminda, a village at seventeen hundred metres under the most photographed church in Georgia — Gergeti Trinity, fourteenth century, alone on a green hill at two thousand one hundred and seventy — and, behind it, when the clouds allow, Kazbek, five thousand and fifty-four metres of ice and rock, the mountain where the Georgian Prometheus, Amirani, was chained. North of the village the Dariali gorge narrows to the Russian border; west, the Truso valley has mineral springs and ghost villages; east, Juta sits under the Chaukhi towers that people call the Georgian Dolomites.

The traveller comes up on the marshrutka from Didube or, better, in a hired car that stops at Ananuri, the pass and the mural; sleeps in Stepantsminda, at the Rooms Hotel or a family guesthouse, and eats khinkali where khinkali were born; walks up to Gergeti in the early morning — an hour and a half through the birches, or fifteen minutes by taxi on the new road — and sits with the church until Kazbek comes out or does not; drives or hikes into Truso for the travertines and the silence, or to Juta and up to the Abudelauri lakes under Chaukhi; finds the Gveleti waterfall in the gorge; and, with a guide, crampons and four days, climbs to the meteorological station at three thousand six hundred and fifty-three metres and, if the mountain agrees, to the summit.

The Guide's honesty: the road to the church is paved now, so the 4×4 hustle at the square is optional — walk up, it is the point; Kazbek hides more often than it shows and the weather turns in an hour, so give the village two nights and go up early; the highway is the truck route to Russia and closes after storms, with lorries queuing for days at the border — check before you drive in winter; the village is a base, not a sight, and fills in August; Truso needs a 4×4 or legs and passes a police post near the closed South Ossetian line — carry your passport; the climb of Kazbek is a serious glacier ascent, not a hike, and the mountain has taken people who thought otherwise; the guesthouses are the warmth of the trip; and the khinkali are eaten by hand, by the knot, and never with a fork.