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Relive the day's action and insights with daily journal entries, digital photos, audio reports and more. Select one of the teams below to visit their latest entry.

Field Team
Follow Pat O'Hara's search for the perfect moment in the national parks of the Eastern Caucasus. Eleanor O'Hanlon reports, with photos by Russell Sparkman.

RESEARCH TEAM
Georgia veteran Peter Nasmyth returns to guide us into the history and heritage of the region. Denise Rocco captures it all in digital images.

April 24:
The Road of Friendship

April 22:
Patriarch of the Forest

April 21:
Monastery in the Desert

April 20:
Vashlovani Reserve

April 19:
The Living Pillar

April 18:
Preparing for the Journey

April 17:
Georgian Table

April 12:
Tbilisi Overview

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Previous Dispatch

April 24, 2000
From: Peter Nasmyth
Kazbegi, Georgia

The Road of Friendship

The way ahead needs mental preparation. The Georgian Military Highway has been the main artery through the High Caucasus for centuries, connecting Russia with Georgia, Armenia and beyond. Until the late Soviet period, it was the only route. This drastic series of switchbacks, avalanche defenses, hair-raising drops, and medieval watch-towers sent Tolstoy, Chekhov, Lermontov, Tchaikovsky, Pushkin into raptures. All set major works in the area. To them it represented the rugged, eternally unstable link between Europe and Asia.

To our jeep, bumping and swerving across its surface, it hasn't changed a bit. Above us the sky condenses with heavy, moody vapours. 'Perhaps we will see nothing,' says Soso gloomily, glancing at zebra-striped mountains disappearing into thick cloud. Indeed when Pushkin first came through in similar mists, he described Kazbegi – the road's most spectacular town – as 'dismal.'

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SLIDESHOW: Faces of the Caucacus
 
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Making Khinkali

khinkali.rm
(Real Media)

khinkali.mov
(Quicktime)

 
 

Avalanche Gun
 
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