Daryal Gorge

Daryal Gorge

A rickety old taxi carried Josh and I out of Qazbegi on the road towards the Russian border, just twelve kilometers away. Our driver, a man of more than seventy years, confessed better days for road maintenance under the Communist regime, and demonstated his point as we rounded a corner and saw the outer lane of a bridge destroyed by a rockslide. Concrete slabs littered the slopes below, which fell steeply 300 feet to the river valley. The road had reopened only three days ago our driver mused, nonchalantly taking his beat-up maroon Lada through the rock rubble which littered the remaining lane. We continued at no great pace into the magnificent Daryal Gorge, valley of legend, trade, and war.

A river rages beside the road, growing rapidly from the influx of swollen streams rushing down every gully and side canyon, the clean clear water of the highland snow mixing with the muddy slosh of the canyon river. The cliffs rise steeply, reminding me of Yosemite valley except the crags here are not smooth and gray, but jagged and brown, their silhouettes against the sky sharp knives and needle points of defiance.

Nearing the Georgian border patrol, we looked across the river and saw the remains of a castle on a natural upthrust of rock: the perfectly obvious defensive position in the valley. One footbridge was below the checkpoint at the border, the other above but further away. We convinced the driver to wait for us and passing behind a truck depot with a bunch of rough looking guys standing around, Josh and I scrambled over the bridge and up a scree slope to the old Daryal Gorge road.

We walked across a field on the upper slope just below the castle outcrop, 150 meters wide, 500 meters long, a long stretch of green grass in an otherwise vertical landscape, and the whole while I imagined vast armies camped there in anticipation of the enemy’s approach. Caravans of travelers must have camped there, maybe even kings and princes on emissary trips between north and south. Many battles were fought here in ancient times because it is the major gateway through to the north Caucasus.

We ambled across the lawn; soldiers, merchants, or princes, we didn’t know. We climbed up, there were just the bare remains of the castle left: a few walls, stone portal doorways, and remnants of the massive outer walls, grass and flowers growing over everything in the thick, brambly ‘back-to-nature’ campaign style one often sees on old buildings returning to nature.

The top of the outcrop was probably about 150 meters square, large enough for a big garrison. Below we saw the remains of a big wall that stretched across the road and up the opposite slope to another tower directly across from us. On the opposite side, cliffs fell steeply one hundred meters to the river far below. I wondered if they somehow had defensive positions across the river and the rest of the canyon floor... but I don’t know very much about the peoples who lived and fought here, so no telling.

One good thing is that the modern road, first built in 1783, hugs the opposite bank, leaving the old road and castle on this side a better chance of survival.

The sun came out and we looked for eagles soaring on the thermals. Sure enough, in ten minutes, they were out, circling far overhead. I have a picture of a 19th century drawing of the Daryal Gorge, seen by a European traveler while moving through on horseback. How crazy that must have been then, in the times of the Caucasian wars. Right now, the Daryal steams in the afternoon sun, the river rages, dusty trucks labor by on the beat up road from Russia, and history turns another page. Imagination is the best thing to have in this land.