FEAST OR FAMINE

Near the village of Gergeti outside the town of Stepantsminda is the isolated Gergeti Trinity Church. It sits on top of a mountain at an elevation of 2,170 meters (7,119 feet), near Mt Kazbek. The 14th century Georgian orthodox and apostolic church is a popular tourist destination in fine weather. In winter, snow cuts off the region. Tourists can climb the steep mountainside for 3 hours to reach the church, or they can take a half-hour drive in a local taxi because the taxi drivers know the terrain well. In fact, the taxi drivers actively tout for business at the base of the mountain. The day I visited Stepantsminda it was raining so I took a taxi to the mount. I commenced the trip to Gergeti with coffee at my taxi driver, Wasily’s home. We had coffee, biscuits and prunes while he told me about the tourists that come to the region. Most are Israelis, followed by Germans, Finns, Norwegians, Americans and the French. Most are trekkers and backpackers who trek the parks and re...

Mount Kazbek is the third highest mountain in Georgia, located in the Khokh Range north of the Greater Caucasus Range. Its double-cone shape is clearly visible west of the town of Stepantsminda in northern Georgia, close to the Russian border with North Ossetia, and 10 kilometres north of Darial Gorge. It rises to an altitude of 5,033 metres (16,512 feet). Only Mt Shkhara (5,200 metres/17,060 feet) and Mt Janga (Jangi-Tau: 5,051 metres/16,572 feet) in the Svaneti region are higher. Mt Kazbek is also the seventh highest mountain in the Caucasus Mountains. Below Mt Kazbek in the region is Mt Shani, which has an elevation of 4,451 meters (14,600 feet) above sea level, and is 9 kilometres to the east of Stepantsminda. Mt. Kazbek is a dormant stratovolcano and is also referred to as the Molten Mount or the Ice Mountain. The mountain lies along the edge of the Borjomi-Kazbegi Fault, the northern part of the Anatolian Faultline, and therefore subject to numerous small earthquakes. It ...

The mountain town of Kazbegi in the Caucasus Mountains in northern Georgia, close to the Russian border with Ossetia (Alania) was named after Alexander Kazbegi (1848-1893), the prolific writer. His most famous work is his 1883 novel, The Patricide. Kazbegi is on the main 208 kilometre route from Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, to Vladikavkaz in Russia, called the Georgian Military Road. At present, Russian vehicles (predominantly semi-trailers and trucks transporting goods) can enter the Georgian territory but it is closed for Georgians to enter Russia. From Tbilisi, the route travels north following the Mtkvari River to the medieval fortress of Ananuri, continuing along the Tetri Aragvi River. It passes through Dusheti and Gudauri, through the Terek Valley to Mt Kazbek. The road commenced by the Russians in 1799 and it was finished in 1817, with improvements continuing until 1863. Kazbegi’s great grandfather, Kazibek Chopikashvili, was in charge of collecting tolls on the Georgian...

Stepantsminda (Saint Stephen) is surrounded by mountains. Stepantsminda (previously called Kazbegi) is a town is located along the banks of the Thergi River, 157 kilometres (98 miles) north of Tbilisi in the Greater Caucasus Mountains at an elevation of 1,740 metres (5,710 feet) above sea level. Its climate is moderately humid with relatively dry, cold winters and long, cool summers. The average annual temperature is 4.9 degrees Celsius. January is the coldest month with an average temperature of -5.2 degrees Celsius while July is the warmest month with an average temperature of 14.4 degrees Celsius. The absolute minimum recorded temperature is -34 degrees Celsius and the absolute maximum is 32 Celsius. Stepantsminda’s average annual precipitation is 790 mm (31.1 inches). Tbilisi, three hours drive south of Stepantsminda, was 17 degrees Celsius (63 F) when I left and Stepantsminda was 8 Celsius (46 F) with a slight breeze that shook the autumn leaves from their branches. Th...

In August 2010, John Carey won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, one of the oldest and most prestigious literary prizes in Britain, for his biography of William Golding: The Man who wrote Lord of the Flies . Thirty-one years ago, William Golding was awarded the same prize in the literary fiction section for his work, Darkness Visible. Both were well deserved. Sir William Gerald Golding (1911-1993), Nobel Prize for Literature winner, is best known for his first novel, Lord of the Flies (1954), but equally for works such as The Inheritors (1955), Pincher Martin (1956), Free Fall (1959), The Spire (1964), and To the Ends of the Earth Trilogy’s first work Rites of Passage (1980). Lord of the Flies has reached the 20 million sales mark – a remarkable achievement – and in 2008, The Times ranked Golding third on their list of “The 50 Greatest British Writers since 1945” (i.e. postwar), beaten only by Philip Larkin (a prolific poet) and George Orwell, author of Animal Farm (1945...

Coffee is a popular drink in the Caucasus, but tea should not be forgotten, because it has quite a following around the world. Black and green tea is grown in West Georgia where the climate is subtropical – similar to the regions of China where the first seeds came from and where introduced into the country by Prince Eristavi in the 1830s. The Georgian cultivations have been entered in international exhibitions since its first showing at the Russian International Exhibition in St. Petersburg in 1864. At the 1899 Paris exhibition, it received a gold medal. Georgia even has a Tea and Subtropical Cultures Research Institute in Anaseuli, West Georgia, where new varieties of the tea are grown. More information is available at http://www.elitist-tea.ge/ For non tea drinkers, there are many other uses for it. The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse ( http://www.boulderteahouse.com/ ) lists some unusual uses for tea: • A strong footbath of black tea will strengthen the pads of dogs’...

Only an ocean separates Australia and Chile. Australia is large with a land size of 7,692,000 square kilometers compared to Chile’s long thin land size of 757,000 square kilometers, yet the populations are similar (Australia has a population of 22 million and Chile has a population of 17 million). While the national languages may be different, Santiago and Sydney share similar latitude. Both Australia and Chile have a large mining industry and this also connects the two countries. And we also have a free trade agreement. The Australia-Chile Free Trade Agreement came into effect on March 6, 2009. The Agreement provides Australian businesses with significantly improved market access by eliminating immediately 92 per cent of tariff lines on 97 per cent of Australian goods currently traded; includes exports of coal, meat, wine and key dairy products. Tariffs on the remaining Australian export goods will be eliminated by 2015. Chile also has FTAs with the Europ...