The Caucasus: A Brief Introduction

The lands between Russia, Turkey and Iran are strange, complex and little-known. Here’s a brief intro to the Caucasus, and why I’m going

YEREVAN: ARMENIA’S CAPITAL, WITH MT ARARAT IN THE BACKGROUND

Where is the Caucasus?

That’s the first thing most people ask, when I tell them I’m travelling to the Caucasus. (It’s usually followed by ‘Is it safe?’. I’ll come back to issues of safety in the Caucasus. Love you Mum.)

Up until recently, it’s a question I would have struggled to have answered. In fact, the Caucasus is proof positive that my world geography isn’t nearly as good as I thought. The region is sometimes acknowledged to be part of Europe, although I never realised that Europe directly bordered with Northern Iran. But then its northern borders touch with Russia’s Black Sea region - hardly Asia.

NEIGHBOURS ON THE BLACK SEA: TURKEY AND THE CAUCASUS

If you want to find the Caucasus quickly on a map, my advice is two look for the two large bodies of water that are the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea - right there, in between, are the countries of the Caucasus: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. (There are plenty of breakaway states and autonomous republics and contested territories too - in Georgia alone there are three.) To say they’re diverse lands is a serious understatement: in the Caucasus you have landscapes that include snow-capped mountains, sub-tropical tea fields and deserts with mud-belching volcanoes. You’ll also find over 40 ethnic groups that collectively speak across three language families. Not languages - language families. That’s the same amount as the whole of Europe. The only place in the world you’ll find any more is Papua New Guinea. That’s not even to get started on the written word - Azerbaijan changed its alphabet three times during the twentieth century.

There’s also a lot of history in the Caucasus. Okay, everywhere place in the world, technically, has a lot of history. But in the Caucasus it’s piled high: stacked, layered, complex, muddled and contentious. A succession of empires have passed through these lands: the Mongol horde, Persia’s Achaemenid dynasty, Peter the Great’s imperial Russia, the tanks of Nazi Germany (who never successful conquered) and - most recent of all - the Soviet project. (Stalin, of course, was a native Georgian. In his hometown of Gori a statue still stands, and attitudes to the despot are ambivalent.)

The history is distinctly religious. Seventeen hundred years ago, Armenia was the first country to convert to Christianity - by some accounts, Noah ended up here in the Ark after the Flood (albeit on Mount Aragats, which is now part of Turkey). The Ancient Greeks believed that Jason and the Argonauts visited the Caucasus in their quest for the Golden Fleece. Georgia may have got its name from Saint George.

I think there will be lots to discover here, and I think I’m in for a few surprises.

THE SVANETI: GEORGIA’S SWEEPING HIGHLANDS

Why travel to the Caucasus?

Firstly, I decided to visit the Caucasus because I wanted to visit a part of the world that I could treat as an entirely blank slate.

Those moments when you travel to a world-famous landscape or attraction and finally get to see it in the flesh are wonderful. One of my happiest memories from a trip to Australia was of taking a ferry from North Sydney across the bay, and watching the Opera House, brilliant and white in sunshine, swerve into view. The same in Paris, when I caught sight the Eiffel Tower pierce the skyline between the boulevard trees. Even as a Londoner of nearly 14 years, I still sometimes get that thrill as I cross the Waterloo Bridge on a chilly night and see the Houses of Parliament illuminated on the other side. It’s kind of like meeting a celebrity in the flesh.

These experiences are fantastic. But they’re somewhat prescribed. I can honestly say for certain, given how little I knew about the place, there would be no such experiences in the Caucasus.

Secondly, I also wanted to go somewhere none of my friends have been. Call it a variant of FOMO: instead of a Fear Of Missing Out, it’s a Need To Get There First. (Which doesn’t really work as an acronym. Do get in touch if you can think of a better name.) It can be annoying when people offer you travel tips, right? That sense that whatever you’ve discovered has been already been discovered?

Call it petty. But anyway, the Caucasus is a place that I get to discover pretty much entirely for myself.

Turkey: Istanbul and the Black Sea Coast

I decided to start kick things off in Istanbul because, well, I’ve been looking for an excuse. I’ve been desperate to visit Turkey’s pan-continental metropolis on the Bosphorus for years. Flights from London are always reliably cheap: I paid £160 ($210) for return flights from Stansted with AtlasGlobal in early September (just off-season) about 6 months ahead.

From Istanbul, it’s an eastward journey to the Caucasus. The temptation was to dip south into central Turkey and visit places like Cappadocia and Pamukkale - places I’ve been just as keen to visit. But it didn’t make geographical sense - not if I were to head into the Caucasus. Instead, I decided to stick to Turkey’s Black Sea Coast. Anatolia and the centre of Turkey would have to wait for another trip.

One thing that I quickly discovered is that borders in the Caucasus are not without their problems. Although Turkey borders with both Georgia and Armenia, you can only enter the former (Turkey and Armenia share a toxic history, largely due to events in the early 20th century). After Georgia, I would travel into Armenia. After Armenia, I would travel back into Georgia, since you most definitely cannot enter Azerbaijan from Armenia. (They too have a difficult history, which continues today in the form of the ongoing conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.)

I decided to make my end goal Baku: Azerbaijan’s capital on the Caspian Sea. Perched on the tip of the Absheron Peninsula, it marks the furthest east point in the Caucasus, 1,300 miles from my starting point of Istanbul. It seemed like a logical final destination.

Four countries. Three capitals. Two seas. One month. That’s the plan. MB