With my hands and feet and the few words from the Georgian book that I have learned in the meantime, I try to ask Temuri, the father in our host family, what he does for a living. He tells me that he is employed at the border police station in the region. What does he have to do at the station? With a mischievous smile, he simply says: "Ruski, bang bang!" Aha, as if a Russian would ever cross the Shkhara massif to get to Georgia. However, the border post is important for the village, as 13 of the 15 fathers of the family are employed by the border police and this provides them with a small regular income in a fairly deserted area.
We are in "Ushguli", a small mountain village in the north-east of Georgia in the province of Svaneti. Svaneti is a wild mountainous region - two thirds of the village communities are above 1500 meters - in the middle of a breathtaking landscape. The rural area is dotted with small villages whose farmsteads are grouped around fortified towers. Most of these fortified towers were built between the 11th and 13th centuries. The towers are usually 28 meters high and are equipped with secret entrances and embrasures to protect the inhabitants in the event of an attack. Ushguli is dotted with such defensive towers and forms our base for the next two weeks.
Ushguli is actually an arrangement of three small sub-villages and nestles in a wild valley in the Swanian mountain range of the Caucasus. The village lies at almost 2200 meters above sea level and is considered the highest permanently inhabited village in Europe. Mestia, the nearest larger town, is 50 kilometers away. This means a two-hour drive on a miserable gravel road. Until a few decades ago, Ushguli could still boast more than a thousand inhabitants, but now around 65 people in 15 families live there all year round. Many of the houses are abandoned and crumbling. The hard life in the inhospitable high mountains, the collapsing economy and natural disasters, such as the avalanche accident in 1987 in which 70 people died, caused many inhabitants to move away. However, since some Georgian NGOs have been promoting soft tourism in Svaneti and Ushguli was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996 due to its unique architecture and authentic and untouched medieval character, there is hope for Ushguli: summer tourism has re-established itself in recent years, but in winter - and this is one of the reasons for our visit - absolute solitude reigns in the mountains.
Two valleys lead away from Ushguli. At the end of one valley towers the mighty "Shkhara Massif", while the other leads to a pass to Lower Svaneti. At 5193 meters, the Shkhara is the highest mountain in Georgia and a challenging destination for mountaineers in summer. As freeriders, we are more interested in the surrounding peaks between 3000 and 3500 meters with countless skiable lines. Huge open slopes and gentle ridges alternate with steeper, almost Alaska-like spines and couloirs. What the mountains around Ushguli have to offer makes every freerider's heart beat faster. What's more, most of the slopes have probably never been touched by a winter sports enthusiast. For two weeks we go on tours from Ushguli. We camp in a side valley, find good and bad snow and enjoy some wonderful descents in an untouched landscape. The skiing is good, but what makes the stay a truly unique experience is living with the inhabitants of Ushguli.
Hotels in Georgia can only be found in larger cities. In the countryside there is, if at all, a guesthouse, and if that doesn't exist, you simply stay with a family. Whereby "live" is the wrong word, you live with a family. You are warmly welcomed and immediately integrated into family life, you become part of the family. You eat together with them, try to talk to them, if you're ill, everyone looks after you. The only time you feel like a guest is when it comes to helping around the house, as we were hardly allowed to lift a finger. In the beginning, even putting the plates together after the meal was too much, but with time and enough cheek we were at least able to help with the washing up. The families don't own much, some families live their entire lives in a single room. Nevertheless, they seem to be content. When you walk through the villages, you are approached and often invited in. I have never experienced such hospitality before. When we return from our tours, people are often waiting for us at the entrance to the village. As soon as we have unstrapped our boards, they are confiscated by the locals who are eager to show off their snowboarding and skiing skills. There's an exuberant atmosphere and everyone laughs at each other's misadventures.
The government is promoting winter tourism in Svaneti. Georgian President Saakashvili strongly supports the region. Just the summer before last, he had a chairlift built above Mestia to open a new ski resort. He wants to turn Mestia into a modern-style winter destination. Whether this will work is doubtful, as Mestia is difficult to reach. Although a Tbilisi - Mestia flight has been opened at the same time as the lift, the flight can only be operated in good weather conditions. The only alternative is an eight to nine hour drive. The ski resort is mostly empty when we visit.
Ushguli is an almost perfect base for starting ski tours. Only in bad weather are the options limited. We have found a small personal winter paradise whose potential we have only scratched the surface of. Here you can find your freedom and peace, free yourself from the constraints of everyday life and experience an adventure that is hardly possible in the "popular" Alps. Unspoiled freeride terrain as far as the eye can see. Next summer, the road to Ushguli is to be asphalted and paved. This could cause Ushguli to lose much of its remote charm, but on the other hand it will be a relief for the locals and could promote winter tourism in this remote region. Hopefully the Russians won't run into the hands of the Ushguli border police ...
Curiosities and experiences Part II:
- There is a custom in Svaneti: if a man wants to marry a woman, he must be able to lift a round stone weighing around 100 kilograms onto his shoulder to prove his worthiness. The stone is so big that you cannot hold it with your arms. The locals are glad that the ritual has been relaxed. "Otherwise the villages would have died out by now."
- The first day of skiing in Mestia: I'm annoyed by the monkey. Or rather Master Petz. There are actually brown bears running around the ski resort. The two bears were brought here as cubs and fed. They have now got used to people and are romping around undisturbed in the parking lot.
- At the end of the first day of skiing in Mestia, the snow groomer stopped at the valley station of the ski resort and asked us if we would like to go back up. Cool, we thought, one more descent. Think again. As soon as we reached the top, we were dragged into the restaurant and served masses of "chacha", fried sausage and cheese. Then, in the last light of the evening, we were shown a hidden local run through the forest. We had been talking to one of the guys for about five minutes beforehand. That's Georgian hospitality.
- In Mestia, Sergio rammed his knee into a metal post that was buried under the snow. He was left with a deep cut that required stitches. The host family's grandmother worked as a nurse at the hospital and organized the treatment. After the stitching, the doctor wanted to know how much it would cost. He said 20 lari (~ 10 SFr) and left the room. Then the grandmother came in and said with a wink that he should just leave without paying, it would be fine...
