The article series „Svaneti Series“ (distributed via Twitter @doinggeography) provides insights and analyses of the historical region of Svaneti in Georgia social life from a geographical viewpoint. This means that all articles examine the social space and the practices taking place within it. This includes both the built space and the non-built space and all communications about places and spaces. The series of articles addresses English speaking tourists who visit Svaneti and are interested in more information about the culture, ecology and economic conditions in the region. The article series is distributed via Twitter, see @doinggeography.
#pre-Soviet history
SvanetiSeries | Gottfried Merzbacher (1843-1926) in Svaneti – The Country and Its People
Merzbacher’s Contribution to European Exploration of the Caucasus Gottfried Merzbacher (* 9 December 1843 in Baiersdorf near Erlangen; † 14 April 1926 in Munich) was a German geographer, alpinist and explorer of Jewish origin who, after learning the profession of furrier, trained as a merchant in Paris, London and St. Petersburg. In 1888 he sold…
#research
Latali-Project | Envisioning Svaneti
Envisioning a prosperous coexistence of cultural heritage, tourism and environment in the village community of Latali (Georgia) Svaneti benefited enormously from the tourist boom in the 2010s with the highest number of visitors of 150,000 in 2019. Svaneti is searching for a new identity in a continuous field of friction between an emerging local economy…
Architectural and Urban Futures of the Caucasus – Presentations from the September 2021 online event available on Youtube
This seminar situates itself at the intersections of tradition, modernity and the globalised present of the Southern Caucasus. The Southern Caucasus has seen drastic change within the last 150 years transitioning from predominantly agrarian practices to modern urban agglomerations. Most notably, the Soviet era’s social and political ideologies allowed for new forms of experimentation in…
Crises around Concepts of Hospitality in the Mountainous Region of Svaneti in the North of Georgia
Some results of a study on the impact of online comments on the development of tourism in Ushguli Great hopes for sustainable tourism are intimately connected with accommodation in permanently inhabited family houses, a kind of mixture of farm holidays and hiking as well as ecotourism. This is because the inhabitants who live in Ushguli…
#recent history
Svaneti Series | Temraz Nizharadze – The last director of the collective farm of Ushguli (Georgia)
Temraz Nizahradze was head of the Ushguli collective farm for the last two years before the collapse of the Soviet system. Agriculture and cattle breeding has always secured the livelihoods of the people in Svaneti, which is characterised by two long mountain rivers. While Upper Svaneti (Zemo Svaneti) lies along the course of the Enguri…
Svaneti Series | The snow catastrophe of winter 1986/87
The article series „Svaneti Series“ (distributed via Twitter @doinggeography) provides insights and analyses of the histoircal region of Svaneti in Georgia social life from a geographical viewpoint. This means that all articles examine the social space and the practices taking place within it. This includes both the built space and the non-built space and all…
#soviet-times
The Svans as members of the ‚Oriental Other‘ in the Soviet film „Salt for Svanetia“ (1930) by Mikhail Kalatozov | A visual commentary (Part I)
One of Sergei Tretyakov’s most famous works is the film „Salt for Svanetia“ (1930), for which he wrote the screenplay together with director Mikhail Kalatozov. Today, ‚Salt for Svanetia‘ is viewed by most people, if one reads the internet commentaries, to be a documentary film, a realistic depiction of the living conditions in Svaneti as…
The Svans as members of the ‚Oriental Other‘ in the Soviet film „Salt for Svanetia“ (1930) by Mikhail Kalatozov | A visual commentary (Part II)
In Mikhail Kalatozov’s ‚Salt for Svaneti‘, it is already apparent in the subtitles of the opening scenes that the culture of the Svans is isolated from civilization because of the harshness of geographical nature. This sets the line of propagandistic interpretation. In Ushguli, there are traces of a lack of culture that are related to…
The Svans as members of the ‚Oriental Other‘ in the Soviet film „Salt for Svanetia“ (1930) by Mikhail Kalatozov | A visual commentary (Part III)
In the introduction to Part I of the essay, three lines of argumentation and aims of the film were highlighted, which in themselves are difficult to unite: On the one hand, the typical characteristics of the Svan culture should be portrayed in order to show what can be regarded as exceptional and valuable about it.…
An overview on “Gorge People” (1928) by Sergei Tretyakov: Svaneti in the Soviet period (Part I)
With the October Revolution in 1917, Georgia declared itself independent from Russia, but independence did not last long. In 1921, the Democratic Republic of Georgia was occupied by Red Army troops and incorporated into the Soviet system. Sergey Tretyakov (1892-1939), an influential artist, journalist and art theorist of the Soviet era, spent several periods in…
“Gorge People” (1928) by Sergei Tretyakov: Svaneti in the Soviet period (Part II)
Sergey Tretyakovs (1892-1939) writing on different cultures pursues a clear propagandistic message, which is hard to overlook. In Svaneti an entirely new world had to be built: The Svans, in Tretyakov’s view, did not live in a grown culture that was significant for itself. According to him, the Svans, imprisoned in the geographical space, led…
“Gorge People” (1928) by Sergei Tretyakov: Svaneti in the Soviet period (Part III)
Sergey Tretyakovs (1892-1939) writing on different cultures pursues a clear propagandistic message, which is hard to overlook. In Svaneti an entirely new world had to be built: The Svans, in Tretyakov’s view, did not live in a grown culture that was significant for itself. According to him, the Svans, imprisoned in the geographical space, led…
#society
Svaneti Series | The struggle of the villages against the water power and the threatening destruction of the familiar life
The article series „Svaneti Series“ (distributed via Twitter @doinggeography) provides insights and analyses of the histoircal region of Svaneti in Georgia social life from a geographical viewpoint. This means that all articles examine the social space and the practices taking place within it. This includes both the built space and the non-built space and all…
Svaneti Series | Svaneti as Switzerland of the Caucasus
The push for the development of tourism, as currently seen in Upper Svaneti, came from the former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. The World Heritage status of the village Chazhashi from the village community Ushguli, which was achieved in 1996, was intended to attract international tourists to Svaneti. In 2019, the number of tourists had already…
Svaneti Series | Inheritance law and land distribution in Svaneti still follows traditional role concepts
The film „My neighbor Ana“ gives a small insight into conflicts currently typical for Svaneti at the fault line between modernity and tradition. These lines of conflict do not only run between ideas of masculinity and femininity, as the film might suggest to the audience. Behind it lie much more complex social and economic problems…
Georgian Perspectives | Fridon Nizharadze – Painter of the traumas of Svaneti and the world
The tower buildings of the village community of Ushguli in Svaneti are probably the most frequently photographed motif in Georgia. Ushguli is the longed-for destination of many visitors to Georgia. They want to see the place with their own eyes about which it is often written that it has been preserved on the edge of…
#architecture
Svaneti Series | Towers, mountains, sickles and hammers – different perspectives on the question of what is part of the cultural heritage of a community.
Ushguli is a village community located in the Upper Svaneti region in the north of Georgia. Since its attainment of UNESCO World Heritage status in 1996 and the establishment of secure state structures and systems around 2010, Ushguli has been seeing an incremental rise in tourism; thus far, it has found itself relatively unprepared for…
Svaneti Series | The Mountain Villages of Upper Svaneti in Georgia | An Overview
The article series „Svaneti Series“ (distributed via Twitter @doinggeography) provides insights and analyses of the histoircal region of Svaneti in Georgia social life from a geographical viewpoint. This means that all articles examine the social space and the practices taking place within it. This includes both the built space and the non-built space and all…
Svaneti Series | Traditional customs & habits – The Svan house and the role of the man
The article series „Svaneti Series“ (distributed via Twitter @doinggeography) provides insights and analyses of the histoircal region of Svaneti in Georgia social life from a geographical viewpoint. This means that all articles examine the social space and the practices taking place within it. This includes both the built space and the non-built space and all…
#pre-Soviet history
An overview on “Fragments from Svaneti” (1903) by Wilhelm Rickmer-Rickmers (I).
Part I: Introduction | Rickmer-Rickmers as guest in Svaneti with Prince Dadeschkeliani Svaneti has been a destination for European hikers and mountaineers since the end of the 19th century. The early travellers had ethnological-geographical, but often also political-military interests. Knowledge of strategically essential areas was always interesting for their countries of origin. For the German…
„Fragments from Svaneti“ (1903) (Part II). By Wilhelm Rickmer-Rickmers
Part II: Architecture: Rickmer-Rickmer’s observations on house building and the fortified character of the villages House and home. Even the view of a village shows the desire to close oneself off to the outside. In every house, you can see how the inhabitants were always anxious to have everything in a war-like state. Every possible…
„Fragments from Svaneti“ (1903) (Part III). By Wilhelm Rickmer-Rickmers
Part III: Handicrafts and everyday objects: Rickmer-Rickmers explanations about things of daily use Equipment, industry. Many tools, especially those with sharp blades, are imported from Russia. Above the fire hangs an iron frame that carries the large slate. The hooks for the cooking utensils hang down from the roof on long chains. The slaughtering takes…
„Fragments from Svaneti“ (1903) (Part IV). By Wilhelm Rickmer-Rickmers
Part IV: Rickmer-Rickmers observations on agriculture and animal husbandry Agriculture, forest, hunting, fishing. Harvesting is done with a sickle, so the stubble is quite long. Only after a careful harvest of the corn, the Svans drive the cattle to the fields. They pile the grain around stakes that are about as high as a man’s…
Geographien | doing geography 