We’re entering the home-stretch of our series on Georgia. Today we’re going to make the long haul from the Georgian capital Tbilisi up into the Western Caucasus Mountains to a region called Svaneti, sandwiched between Georgia’s two breakaway regions and frozen conflict zones, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In an earlier draft of this itinerary we had planned to visit Abkhazia but our visas were denied, so we were forced to stay in Georgia “proper.” It was disappointing, but aside from Tbilisi, Svaneti was THE reason that I wanted to visit Georgia. This place is a fairy tale. Get your hopes up.

Getting From Tbilisi to Mestia 😡🤢🤮🤷🏻‍♂️

The destination is a town called Mestia, which for most tourists, serves as “basecamp” into the Svaneti region. Because of the dense topography of the Caucasus Mountains (as well as the inconvenient location of South Ossetia), there isn’t really a direct route between Tbilisi and Svaneti. In order to get here, the “path-of-least-resistance” route is to take the train from Tbilisi to the westerly city of Zugdidi near the Abkhaz border, and then catch a marshrutka up into the mountains from there. If you get an early start, you can do the whole thing in a day. If you depart later in the day, you may end up needing to stay the night in Zugdidi. Here’s a map of the journey from Tbilisi to Mestia:

This trip was actually pretty involved and came with a few speed bumps. Like I said, we traveled from Tbilisi to Zugdidi by train. You can buy tickets online here. Ticket prices vary but never come close to not being super cheap. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Georgian rail system, but it was actually quite smooth! There wasn’t a lot of great options for food in Tbilisi’s run-down Didube station, but aside from that, we were pleasantly surprised! The train left exactly as scheduled, the ride was perfectly smooth, our fellow passengers were chill and respectful… what else can you ask for? Here are a couple snaps from the iPhone through that voyage if you’re curious…

The real journey began when we got off the train in Zugdidi. First off, Zugdidi is not a nice city by any standards. It’s pretty close up against the Abkhaz border, so I think it’s the closest approximation I’m going to get of what Abkhazia would have been like. Chances are low that I’m going to make a second attempt to get into that place. It wasn’t pretty, but it definitely would have been an adventure. We had boarded this train feeling quite alone in a sea of locals, but by the time we stumbled off the train in Zugdidi, we looked around to see a 15 to 20 other backpackers wandering towards the parking lot. Most of them, it would turn out, were also on their way to Mestia.

In the parking lot, the marshrutka feeding frenzy began immediately. By this point I felt like I had a good handle on how this worked. I got in a big white van headed for Mestia, picked a seat as close to the front as a could to minimize the effects of motion sickness, and hunkered down for negotiations that were sure to follow. The van filled relatively quickly, but it was clear that our marshrutka driver was having some sort of dispute with the other drivers in the lot. There was a large circle of drivers gathering around a shouting match that was developing between our driver and another driver. It was a large group of short, fat, swarthy Georgian men, at the center of which there were 2-3 men who were screaming at each other harder than I’ve probably screamed in my whole life. It was dramatic. Faces were red. Veins were popping. Spit was flying. Hats were thrown on the ground. Meanwhile we all pressed our faces against the glass giggling at the drama unfolding before us. I had no clue what they were saying but subtitles would have been hilarious .

Watching the group dynamic, I was able to surmise that the dispute was over the money that our driver had already collected from us. As the conflict escalated, finally our driver took the fist full of cash out of his pocket, wound up, and spiked the money at the ground as hard as he could. We were cracking up watching this. Here’s a gif to help you visualize:

He stormed through the crowd back towards the bus, yelling and waving his arms angrily as a calmer member of this crowd—a fat man with his baby blue polo shirt rolled up to reveal is beer belly—sauntered over, scooped up the money, and calmly began counting it. Meanwhile, since our time of departure seemed a bit uncertain with all this friction happening on the left side of our van, an Australian woman had been hanging out the back right window of the van, negotiating a better price with another driver in the parking lot. They agreed on a marginally better price that probably would have saved her about $0.50 USD just as our driver was angrily climbing back into the van. We were all packed in like sardines between pieces of luggage, but the woman bravely stood up and yelled “I WANT TO GET OFF” and began stepping forward over the piles of luggage. Our driver looked her in the eyes, and then, without a word, sat down behind the wheel, put the van in gear, and sped out of the parking lot, throwing this woman back into her seat. “Or never mind, I guess not” she laughed as our van rocketed out towards the main road.

It was a bold move from our driver but I think we all agreed with it. Like come on lady, can we just get on the road? Here’s a picture I snapped of our fellow passengers crammed into the back of this marshrutka. The picture doesn’t quite do it justice.

So here’s a fun fact: the terrain of Svaneti is apparently so dense and so impossible to navigate, that when the Soviets were taking over Georgia, they were unable to officially “conquer,” let alone integrate towns like Mestia into the newly formed Union because it was impossible to get artillery this deep into the mountains. So the road from Zugdidi up to Mestia was going to be intense. I was came prepared and had taken a double dose of the Georgian equivalent of Dramamine, so I was okay. I spent most of the trip reaching my hand up into the air, ready to catch the spike tip of somebody’s hiking stick that was protruding out from the overhead compartment before it impaled somebody. Every time the marshrutka made a tight turn (which was often) it looked like the spike was about to go flying with the weight of a whole suitcase behind it. But others in the marshrutka were having bigger problems.

About halfway into the trip, as we continued to speed up narrow, winding, rocky, cliff-side roads, we came across a particularly bumpy stretch. There was a German family unit sitting ahead of us in the marshrutka, which included a scrawny 14 or 15-year-old boy. This boy, sitting in his seat facing forward, suddenly and without warning or even a sound uttered, spewed vomit out onto his own chest and lap. 🤮 There was a moment where it looked like he thought he was going to be able to keep it in his mouth and swallow it back down… but no. His father turned around and quickly yelled for the driver to stop. Outside, the marshrutka, on the edge of a cliff, the father emptied his water bottles onto the kid’s chest to wash away the puke. The kid, clearly in a daze, just stood in silent shame with his arms outstretched, like a dog getting a bath. Meanwhile, our marshrutka driver sat in frustrated silence behind the wheel.

Eventually the road leveled off for a time and we stopped at a rustic, little family-run restaurant / convenient store / rest stop. Our driver ate a full meal in satisfied silence while the rest of us used the bathroom, bought some snacks, and enjoyed not being inside the marshrutka for a few minutes. Here are a couple pictures from that stop.

Once we were back on the road, there were more stomach issues. This time it came from a Georgian family sitting at the front of the bus. There was a 5 or 6-year-old boy that was apparently about to vomit, so his mother yelled in Georgian to the driver and we stopped again. The boy didn’t throw up, so they were forced to get back into the marshrutka. The mother spent the rest of the trip holding her tiny son up to an open window in case he needed to hurl. Our driver drover the rest of the voyage a quickly as possible just to get it over with. The road was long and windy with lots of terrifying hair-pin, cliffside turns, so it was a relief to everybody when we finally rolled into the main square of Mestia.

An Introduction to Svaneti (& Mestia)

NOW THAT WE MADE IT UP HERE, let’s do a quick introduction to Svaneti as a region, as well as the town of Mestia. Svaneti is the highest inhabited region of the Caucasus mountain chain. The whole region is studded with snow-capped 3,000–5,000 meter (~10,000–16,500 foot) peaks and sprinkled with small glaciers. In fact, the highest mountain in Georgia, Mount Shkhara, is located here in Svaneti, which stands at 5,201 meters (17,059 feet) tall. But in between all these mountains and glaciers are some of Georgia’s most picturesque little valleys and towns. These town are inhabited by an ethnic group known as the Svans.

Who Are The Svans?

The Svans are an ancient people group that has been documented consistently since before the birth of Christ. Throughout history, they were known as fierce warriors whose geographic position on top of a natural boundary between regions pitted them against a nearly endless list of foreign invaders. To name a few, the Assyrians, Macedonians, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, and Turks were all known to have moved armies through this region, and all of them found themselves in battle with legendary Svan warriors. Traditionally, they have been the gatekeepers of these remote mountain passes.

Interestingly, the Mongols were notably unable to even penetrate Svaneti’s dense terrain, so during their reign in the region, Svaneti became something of a cultural safe house. The Soviets had a similar experience trying to get up here. All this means that the Svans are quite a strong cultural force unto themselves. They speak their own unwritten language to this day, and have rich musical traditions of complicated polyphonic folk songs. They have withstood a lot up here in the mountains, but a slew of natural disasters in the 1980s (avalanches and landslides) combined with the harsh economic factors that crippled Georgia leading up to and shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union finally began to prompt migration of large groups of Svans into larger metro areas like Tbilisi. So the region isn’t quite the cultural bastion that it used to be, but make no mistake: the Svan identity is alive and well up here. For context, below is a map showing modern-day distribution of the Svan culture in the Caucasus region.

Mestia is basically the center of Svaneti. There are lots of little towns up here that are also noteworthy, but when it comes to infrastructure, accommodations, etc., Mestia is the center of the universe. It’s the hub where all trips into Svaneti begin and end. Whatever you want to do up here, Mestia is your basecamp. There are hotels, restaurants, ATMs, doctors—all the stuff. It’s like the Aspen of Georgia. However, in spite of its integration into the modern age, Mestia manages to maintain a strong identity nevertheless. The snowcapped peaks towering over the city in all directions make quite an impression, but even the town itself is quite picturesque.

The defining feature of all Svan towns are the large stone towers that dot the landscape. There’s almost one on every single property and they have become absolutely iconic for the region. You’ll see a lot of them in the gallery below and even more of them in a forthcoming article when we make the journey to Ushguli. And what exactly are these towers? Families were pretty spread out up here in the old days, so each dwelling had to be individually fortified to protect against invaders, and sometimes even each other. This has always been a pretty violent region and the Svans have a long and storied tradition of practicing blood revenge. So even in the midst of fending off attacks from outside invaders, neighbors might also be stuck in multi-generational wars with each other as well. These towers are typically 4-5 stories high and were historically used to store and protect everything from women/children, to valuables, to livestock, to religious items. Each one was basically a safe that the whole family could move into if necessary. Things are a lot less turbulent these days, but the towers are maintained by most families as a point of pride.

Here are a few snaps from Mestia and the surrounding area that I love. This town was REALLY cool.

We stayed at a guest house we found on Airbnb run by a gruff Svan fellow named Dato. His entire family—at least 3 generations of it—also lived on the same property. In the next article we’ll go trekking with Dato’s sister—that’s a story for tomorrow, but today let me share something that happened afterwards. At the end of this hike, we rolled straight back into town and parked in the main square. We were rushing because apparently we were late for something. When we got out of the car, there was a stage set up with traditional Svan music blasting. On the stage there were children—ranging in age from Elementary School to High School—wearing traditional Svan garb, doing choreographed dances in large groups. There was a decent sized crowd in front of the stage of local parents, brothers, sisters, and extended family members watching. They were cheering, clapping, and taking pictures as each age bracket of dance troupe completed their routines. Dato’s sister brought us through the crowd to join the rest of her family who were there cheering on their littlest members.

This was honestly one of the coolest things I saw in Georgia, and it was 100% by chance. Mestia was mostly void of tourists during the day because most people were off trekking in the surrounding mountains, but we just so happened to finish our hike ahead of schedule. And because of Dato’s sister, we ended up here, getting to see a glimpse into what the local community actually looks like. And the fact that it included some traditional Svan stuff was a huge bonus. Honestly, it was just like a play or a recital that you’d see at a school in the U.S. The same dynamics between parents and family in the crowds, the same interactions between kids backstage—everywhere I go in the world, I am always re-learning that we’re all the same. It’s a lesson you can’t learn enough times. Here are some pictures of these kids in traditional Svan clothes:

That’s probably all that I can say about the Svans. Honestly, I spent a lot more time gawking at the scenery towering over Mestia. The snowcapped peaks had a constant swirl of clouds around them that kept our views in a constant state of flux. Every new vantage point and every new hue of light returned me to state of amazement at how freaking beautiful my surroundings were. When I first arrived, I was stoked to get out into the landscape. And once I had gone out into the mountains and done things, the views from Mestia still equally as enchanting. Here are a few mountain pictures that I snapped from my walks around Mestia:

Another cool sub-plot of Mestia was how many adorable stray dogs there were here. Sometimes I saw them be mean to each other, but they were on very good terms with every human in the whole town. They would sit underneath tables where restaurants had outdoor seating as if they were the family dog. Pictured below is one such dog, as well as Lucky, Dato’s Siberian Husky puppy. That thing was a rambunctious little dude but we loved him. In my playing with him he actually broke the skin on my hand, but I forgave him. This is a random thing to include in this article, but if you can’t tell, I really liked Mestia.

When I was first planning this trip, I wasn’t sure what a town out in Georgia’s Caucasus mountains would look like. I was picturing it being pretty rough, but my mind was quickly put at ease when I landed in Armenia and travelers fresh off the bus from Georgia started raving to me about Mestia. It turns out this place is not only substantial, but also fun! I mean, it’s a little town but it has a decent selection of restaurants and bars. They stay open late enough that you could “go out” if you wanted to. Georgia is famous for its drinking culture. Lots of these restaurants actually have house bands that play Svan music all night, which is really fun. It’s quite a distinct genre of music. With its rich multi-layer harmonies and instrumentation, it’s like a somber, minor-key version of mariachi music.

One night, walking back to our Airbnb with a belly full of food and beer, I walked past an older man sitting in a plastic chair, selling jams, jellies, pickled vegetables in jars, and some other unidentified but clearly very local things out of the back of his van. I decided to step out of my comfort zone and ask if I could take his portrait. He spoke no English, but he was very accommodating and jumped to his feet to get out of the way for me to take the shot. He was really tickled when, after some sign language, he learned that I actually wanted him to be at the center of the shot. Clearly he didn’t fancy himself as being a very interesting subject, but I had other ideas. The low light made these shots challenging with the lens I was using, so these aren’t quite the NatGeo-level quality, but I still like them.

July 2023 Edit: Adobe has some new tools that have integrated AI to de-noise photographs like the ones above. It doesn’t work nearly as well on these low-light portrait shots as it does on cityscapes and things with lots of straight, clean lines, but here it is in action. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Up next we’re going to hitch a ride with Dato’s sister and hike to up into the mountains a little ways to one of Georgia’s 637 glaciers. Cheah, you read that right. Georgia has 637 glaciers. The one we’re going to visit is called Chalaadi (sometimes spelled “Chalaati.” But until then, let me leave you with some tune-age. 🎵