The Sixth Continent by Ivar Dale 02.11.2004 Have you visited all five continents and think you can rest on the laurels of a well-worn backpack? Tie your shoe-laces and get ready for the sixth one - Eurasia. A narrow path of loose earth and broken rock clings to the mountain-sides, high above the Argun river that runs south from Chechnya. We are 2600 meters above sea level, high in the Caucasus mountains. Suddenly, our four wheel drive slides off the cliff with its hind wheel, and the driver, Irakli, steps on the gas and drags us back up to safety. For a while. Five meters further down, adrenaline still rushing through us, the mountain cracks above. Enormous boulders slide out from the mountain top and crash down right in front of the hood of the jeep, in a rock slide that has the earth tremble beneath the tires. The driver's knuckles whiten against the wheel before he hits the brake and back up along the terrifying path. Small rocks rain down on the roof of the car as he turns off the engine. - Quiet, whispers Irakli. And all goes dead quiet. The rocks stop falling. The road has to be cleared before we can go on. Many of the rocks are too heavy for us to lift, but we manage to even the road out before going across, carefully, carefully. When we are safely across, Irakli gets out and picks up one of the smaller rocks. He holds it up, looks at it and crosses himself. - I'm going to hang on to this one, he says. Pale, our hearts still hammering in our chests, we are left gaping. Irakli grins. - Hey, you wanted something extreme, he giggles. - Now you've got it. Let's pray that the rest of the journey goes well. There'll be vodka tonight if it does. We are on our way to Shatili, a fortified village on the border between Georgia and Chechnya. Any atlas would place southern Caucasus within Asia, which parts from Europe at the greater Caucasus range. Asia, however, is not so easily defined, and eight decades within the Soviet Union has made the three Caucasian states, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, more European. If you ask the inhabitants themselves, they might use a different term - Eurasia. Part Europe, part Asia. But most of all - the Caucasus. Pulled between the Ottoman, Persian and Russian empires, always in the cross-fire between the greats, in the middle of a seismically active area, and with its own conceptions of love and hatred. In Georgia's capital Tbilisi stands the statue of Mother Georgia. In one hand she holds a sword, in the other, a cup of wine. The sword is for her enemies, the gift is offered to her guests. During the period of the Soviet Union, Georgia was known as a holiday paradise. The dramatic mountains of the Caucasus, the beaches of the Black Sea, the good wine and the fresh fruit attracted those who were highly placed in the Communist Party. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia has been perceived as a country in civil war, plagued by corruption and with a population where half of the people live below the poverty line. Two regions are de facto independent - South-Ossetia and Abkhazia, closer now to Russia than to the Georgian government. From being the richest of the Soviet republics, Georgia has plummeted like a rock. And that sort of thing does not produce much tourism. But many are again discovering a country where every guest is considered a gift from God himself, and where history and culture streches back thousands of years, perhaps more dramatic than in any other place. One of the first things Georgia's newly elected president Saakashvili did after the velvet revolution earlier this year, where thousands gathered in the streets, demanding Shevarnadze's resignation, was to abolish the traffic police. A strange first choice for a new president, perhaps, but in a country that according to Transparency International ranges as the 9th in corruption worldwide, it was understandable. The road running north from the capital Tbilisi is no longer a trial of patience, of being pulled over and asked to pay various "fines" by corrupt police. Our jeep speeds unhindered up the Georgian military highway, then turns east, towards the mytical region of Khevsureti. One of the first European visitors wrote of the Khevsurs that they had the strangest customs in all of Asia. Neither Christianity nor Islam has managed to intrude here - in Khevsureti a combination of spiritism and natural religion is practiced, mixed with Christian and Muslim rituals. Icons are forbidden. Instead, one often comes across strangely arranged stones, hidden in the landscape. They are altars for worship. The drama of the mountains around us is overwhelming. The landscape is treeless, as we are far beyond the tree-limit, but nature here is green to the point where it makes you giddy with colour. The mountain sides are carpeted with soft, lush grass, stretched under sharp, snowy cones. The feeling of isolation makes you respectful of the mountains around you, and not at least of the people who have grown up among them. Large parts of the year, the small villages here are completely cut-off, and can only be reached by helicopter. The rest of the year you will need a four-wheel drive and a very able driver. Deep in Khevsureti lies the village of Shatili, built as a majestic fortress in the 8th century. It is still home to about 200 people, who live in one of Georgia's most isolated places. Squeezed in between the greater Caucasus range to the south, and by Georgian and Russian soldiers guarding the Chechen border to the north, they rarely see visitors. Most of them have never left their region, and know little of what goes on in the outside world. They base themselves on animal husbandry, and on irregular supplies from an OSCE helicopter - which also guards the unstable area that divides Shatili from the nearby Chechen tragedy. Our first glance at the the fortress is spine-chilling - as if only the mountain spirits themselves could have built something so awesome. From here, the Khevsurs have defended themselves from the innumerous other peoples of the Caucasus, in the lands the first European visitors called the Language Mountains. Chechens, Ingush, Kabardins, Balkarians, the Cherkess, the Karachayevans, Adygeyans and the number of ethnic groups is greater in the Caucaus than in most other places on Earth, the linguistic diversity surpassed only by Papa New Guinea. The inhabitants of Shatili pause when we arrive. A man stops cutting the grass, stands immovable sceptical, a scythe in his hand. Two women on their way home from gathering wood send long glances at us before disappearing into a nearby hut and closing the door. A group of children approach. They stare at us. We feel like intruders, akward and out of place. But a man soon comes towards us, exchanging a few words in Georgian with Ana, our guide, and Irakli. Our Tblisi-born guides have to concentrate to understand his dialect. The man then introduces to us in broken Russian and asks us to follow him, deep into the alleys of the fortress. In 1999 the Georgian Cultural Hertiage Foundation decided that Shatili was of such cultural value, that large sums would be used to restore the village. The roofs were repaired, the balconies put back together. One of the demands that were made was that one of the towers be refurnished to function as a hotel room for future visitors. Tourism was to bring income to the poor people here. The man takes us to one of the highest of the towers, and points to a low entrance. We enter, and find a three-story guard tower made into a spartan hotel, with wooden floors, soft beds, toilet and most surprisingly, a shower with hot water, driven by an aggregator. In Shatili, we enjoy our first warm shower since arriving in Georgia. A short drive from Shatili are two low stone buildings. The Khevsur conception of death is said to be different than that of the other peoples of the region. Here, death is considered to be something natural, but at the same time something unmentionable. Two hundred years ago, plague came to the village. Those who fell ill had to go to these stone buildings to die. - You want to look inside? asks Ana, our guide. We say that we're not sure. But we do look inside, the feeling of curiosity shamefully stronger than that of trespass. A lizard runs off as we get close. Just below the buildings runs the river that marks the border to Chechnya. The suffering of the people just to the north of us makes the horror we find inside the death houses a fitting border crossing. Until 1999, Shatili was one of the Chechen guerilla's most important hide-outs, and this led to Russian fighter planes attacking the area. In 2000, OSCE-observers were placed here. They monitor the border, and report on illegal crossings. So far, most is quiet on the northern front. OSCE-observers have been left to do their work in peace, except for on two occations. Chechen fighters took several observers hostage, but releaed them after a short time, saying they knew where to find them if they were to betray their position. The second incident was two years ago, when two of Shatili's own merry-makers got drunk and decided to make an armed attack on the OSCE headquarters. But all ended well, hangovers excluded. Shatili's warriors have traditionally been Georgia's first defence against intruders from the north. Today, however, Georgian soldiers from the lowlands are the ones guarding the border, and they are heavily armed. But in Shatili, things remain calm. Some might say that it is ghostly quiet in Shatili. When night falls over the village, it becomes very, very dark. We lift our glasses again. - Well, have you ever held a Kalashnikov? asks the leader of a troop of armed teenagers in camouflage the next morning. The young men are Georgian soldiers. I am chewing on a piece of half-eaten sossage, admiring the sunrise over the mountains, my head splitting after numerous toasts the night before. - No, never, I reply. - About time you held one then, says the troop leader, and a loaded machine gun is thrust between my hands. It is heavier than I had expected. - Are you a tourist? asks one of the soldiers as he shows me how to hold the rifle, manouvering my finger onto the trigger. I say that yes, that I am a tourist. The sossage drops from my mouth when I answer, and falls lamely upon the 1300 year old floor beneath us. - About time you came, he says, smiling. - We like touists. It's beatiful here. I nod. It was high time indeed. Back to STORY archive Next>>