What we do in Kazbegi

Since our project description (“developing tourism infrastructure in Kazbegi municipality”) is quite broad we spend some time before and also during the project to decide what to do. We decided together with the people from the municipality that it would be quite useful to provide more information about this region for interested tourists. Since our financial resources are limited the internet seemed to be the best platform to work with. So that’s what we do at the moment: Visit all tourist sights in this region, take pictures and notes about it and eventually put all this on a website. I think I don’t have to point out that this part of the job is quite appealing to me. The nature up there is fantastic! Next to information for things to do and see we want to provide information about accommodation. So we get a list of families that can invite tourists to their places and visit them and again take notes and pictures and eventually put it on the web. The background for this is, that most tourists come with Lonely Planet or other guide books as their “holy bible” and just stay at the places that are mentioned there. But almost every family has room and Georgian hospitality can be appreciated in many places. Again this is quite a nice job. The hardest part is to convince the people that we can’t have coffee, food or Chacha (“Georgian spirit”) with everyone- and for me to find new angles, views and enough light for the pictures. Its amazing to see the houses from the inside. Huge rooms, quite unusual for mountain area- apparently a left over from better times during communism. There are carpets everywhere and the furniture is similar in most places, but every home is unique. The third part of our project at the moment are standardized interviews with tourists. The aim of that is to find out about their opinion about tourism in Kazbegi: What is needed, which steps of development should be taken. At the end we will conduct a workshop at the village with all who are interested and tell about the results.

Our working partners

On one of our first days in Kazbegi we got to know these really nice men, the heads of the local municipality who offered us any possible help. They took us on a tour to see some local highlights, the township called Tsdo, almost abandoned but majestically situated on a mountains rige, a waterfall and the trip was topped with a nice picnic – and 10 litres of homemade wine. To make a long story short: After spending quite some happy hours emptying this kanister of whine, toasting in Georgian style, singing and talking about the world and Georgia in particular we refused to get in the car with them and decided to walk home- apparently some 12 km. Our new friends got really offended- in Georgia you are expected to drink, but not to get drunk and their pride and hospitality seemed to be at risk. In the end we could convince the one that seemed to us most sober to drive the car after we walked the most dangerous part and arrived safely back home. What followed was a weird sequel of phone calls, unexpected visits in the morning “girls, you like beer? I will be there at 10” and one of them even showed up totally drunk at night, convinced that we had a secret party with the other one.

Well, we learned from that. Being more carefully with whom we do what and working more closely together with Nona, who is in charge of tourism in that region and avoiding other “business meetings”.