Day 177: Tbilisi - Akhaltsikhe (ახალციხე)

Sept 27 - Do the walk to Liberty Square and get the metro up to the Didube bus station. The name of the town we are going to is a bit difficult to remember, but I do my best to memorize it and write it in Georgian on a piece of paper. This allows me to find which buses are going there, since not many have the destination written in Latin characters.

Cram into the minibus and we are off for the 3+ hour trip west and south. We were the last three people to get seats, so mine is the ‘sweetheart’ position between driver and shotgun in the front. Arguably the most dangerous place to be in the event of an accident, especially since there is no seat belt. The first part of our ride takes us along the main east-west highway that acts as a main artery for the country. It is along this road, near the town of Kodistskaro, that the border of South Ossetia comes to within a few hundred meters.

South Ossetia is one of the two areas of Georgia that are nominally independent but supported heavily by Russia (the other is Abkhazia). The people of South Ossetia have their own particular ethnic history, and rising nationalism between both Georgians and South Ossetians in 2008 brought the two groups into conflict. As you can imagine, there is a long and difficult-to-parse story there, which goes far past any summary I wanted to make about this issue. But the result was a backing of South Ossetia by Russia, in the form of military bases. The conflict divided the two groups by a rather amorphous border that winds all over the place, but connected to Russia north of the Great Caucasus Mountains.

I was told that this border is really ambiguous in places, and soldiers sometimes move the boundary markers (mostly further into Georgia). Apparently, when it gets moved past someone’s house, that family finds themselves suddenly in another country.

I noted that if Russia really wanted to cause chaos in Georgia, all they would need to do is move the boundary in the above photo about 400 meters south and that would cut off the main highway, paralyzing pretty much all the major road transport in the country.

I did read an article recently that in May 2022, South Ossetia was to hold a referendum on joining Russia (sound familiar?). However, the newly elected South Ossetian government reneged on a promise by the outgoing administration to do this, and the vote has been shelved indefinitely. South Ossetia, as an independent country, is recognized by only five UN-registered nations (including, of course, Russia).

We split off the main highway after an hour, along a smaller road that winds up the valley of the Mtkvari River (the same named river that flows through the center of Tbilisi and eventually drains into the Caspian Sea). The hills around are soon covered in thick conifer forests. A number of steep roadcuts confirm that we are in near vertical sedimentary beds. I have a conversation with the passenger next to me by Google translate, about what we are doing here, etc. He relays some of this information to other people on the bus. It seems not so many tourists use minibuses to go this way, as our presence is a novelty.

We pass through the town of Borjomi, which is a base to visit the Borjomi-Kharagauli NP. It looks like a great place to go hiking, with steep forested canyons.

Off the minibus in Akhaltsikhe, a small town on the Potskhovistskali River. Our hotel is a five minute walk, just at the base of Akhaltsikhe Fortress.

This area is arid, with few crops visible in the valleys. Herding seems to be the primary agricultural pursuit.

Towering above the town is Akhaltsikhe (Rabati) Fortress. Originally built in the 9th Century, it was pretty much destroyed by the 20th Century. What can be visited today is a complete reconstruction, completed about ten years ago. It is not clear to me how they decided to rebuild it, as it does not resemble anything like a real fortress. Rather, it has been redone imaginatively as a a sort of palace, taking some inspiration from Topkapi in Istanbul. The large golden dome below tops what is described as a ‘mosque-church’, which is really the mosque built over a preexisting church.

The history of the city also goes back to the 9th Century, when it was called Lomisa. Its current name, Akhaltsikhe, is mentioned first in records from 1204. The first buildings here, within a ring of two ramparts, were an arsenal, a mint, churches, and a bath. After the Muslim invasions, in the 18th Century, Pasha Ahmed Jaqeli built a mosque where the main church was. For several hundred years, Turks were the dominant power in this region, until they were compelled to withdraw by treaty in 1829.

One interesting fact about this city in general is that it became a symbol of religious/ethnic tolerance, in a region beset by religious conflict. There was a Hebrew district, along with the Muslims, Russians, and Armenians.