Backpacking in Kazbegi: mountains and valleys and chacha, oh my!

Some frosty adventures—and sloppy disasters—while backpacking in Kazbegi, Georgia. Includes information on what to do and where to stay in Kazbegi. 

Kazbegi is a town in the northeast of Georgia, about three hours’ driving from Tbilisi. The town’s actual name is Stepantsminda, as it was before those meddling Soviets rolled in, dominated, and renamed it Kazbegi. Unfortunately, no ordinary non-Georgian mortal is able to easily pronounce “Stepantsminda”, so “Kazbegi” is here to stay!

The town is located along the Georgian Military Highway, a road connecting Vladikavkaz, Russia and Tbilisi, Georgia. You can guess who liked to use this road back in the day (hint: not the Georgians). Nowadays, the highway is a congregation of container trucks waiting to be admitted to either country, and a handful of passenger cars trying to avoid the spectacular amount of potholes scattered on the roads.

We arrived in Kazbegi in the middle of March, which is an… interesting time to visit.

… that is to say, there were hardly any people, everything was closed, and the mountains were still snow-covered. Luckily, I am a certifiable introvert—I was cool with having only cows and stray dogs for company.

+1 friends for Sebastiaan. Who says friends have to be limited to the human variety?

Things to do in Kazbegi

Hiking from Kazbegi to Gergeti Trinity Church

The most famous sight in Kazbegi is Gergeti Trinity Church, also known as Tsminda Sameba (… like many other churches in Georgia. Much confusion).

The church sits in an epic location: overlooking the towns of Kazbegi and Gergeti, with Mount Kazbek, one of the tallest mountains in Georgia, as a backdrop. In the days of yore, valuables from Mtskheta, home of another famous church and monastery, were sent all the way to this church for safekeeping in times of danger. Because, y’know, can’t get much more remote than this.

If you’ve seen postcards or photographs of monasteries and mountains in Georgia, this church is likely pictured. Hiking up to the church is one of the main reasons people travel to Kazbegi.

I’ve started to become a sucker for sunrises–watching the sunrise hit Gergeti was totally worth freezing my ass off too early in the morning.

Interestingly (but not surprisingly), for being one of the most famous buildings in Georgia, there was no particularly clear path to the church. The description in the Georgia Lonely Planet was something along the lines of: walk to the town below, climb through some fences, climb up some steep-ass hills, walk on car tracks for a smidge, climb up some more steep-ass hills, look for paths, then BAM! Church!

Luckily, there are only so many ways you can reach something on the top of a hill: up, up, and also up. So, up we went!

After about an hour and a half of death-defying mountain climbing struggling up what were indeed some steep-ass hillsides, and several minutes of scratching our heads in a forest near the top, wondering why we still couldn’t see the damned church yet hadn’t yet reached the top, Sebastiaan spotted it peeking over the top of a hill.

Capitan Sebastiaan has spotted the way!

Visiting Gergeti Trinity Church

The church itself was not the most spectacular that we’ve seen on our travels in Georgia—Gelati monastery in Kutaisi still wins that prize. Aside from a few intriguing icon paintings of what looked like saints holding Jesus’ decapitated head (if we’ve misinterpreted this image, feel free to clarify), and the fact that the church seemed to be hooked up with some kind of central heating system, there was nothing particularly memorable about the interior.

The view from the top, however, was spectacular.

Artfully posing or dealing with the heart-attack induced by all of the mountain-climbing?

A monk wandering off to climb higher into the mountains, with Mount Kazbek in the background.

Visiting Truso Valley from Kazbegi

Truso Valley is another spot not-to-be-missed along the Georgian Military Highway.

Reports say that a taxi there and back should cost around 100 GEL. Georgi, a guy working at our guesthouse, said you could haggle it down to 30-70 GEL. Do keep in mind: I’m talking off-season prices here.

In our case, we just gave Georgi a couple of lari and he drove us there in the guesthouse jeep, dropping us off at a path going into the valley.

Want to hitchhike to Truso Valley? Hail a car going in the direction of Jvari pass, which you’ll drive through on the way to Kazbegi from anywhere in the south. Say you’re going to Truso, or have them stop before Jvari pass, where all of the trucks are lined up and waiting.

Helloooo Truso Valley.

Hiking in Truso Valley: a tale

Aside from super sweet views–cue the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, plz–the valley is dotted with small villages, most of which are abandoned. We considered reclaiming one of them, but alas, we couldn’t think of a worthy name, aside from “R-burg” (the initial of both of our last names) or “Our-burg” (an even worse option/play on “R-burg”). Conquering efforts postponed until creativity strikes.

One of the small abandoned villages/prime real estate for the taking. Oh, just look at those south-facing facades!

After skulking around trying to find the least-soggy-path to the village pictured above, and attempting to avoid a seemingly occupied house armed with one very angry dog, we came across another small collection of houses in various dilapidated and defeated states… and… wait… a human?

Border patrol ahoy!

We decided to continue walking on. As we got closer, the human in the distance noticed us. As we walked down the path, we noticed that the human had a very large gun. We kept walking towards him anyway, trying to be nonchalant as one is when casually strolling toward a man in an army fatigues armed with a Kalashnikov.

Eventually, we reached him, he stopped us, and after several attempts at failed communication in a variety of languages, Army bro pointed ahead of us, shook his head, and said “Russia.”

We got the idea. Truso Valley is very close to South Ossetia, a disputed area, and to the Russian border. We tried to casually saunter back to where we came from, but he wouldn’t let us go, motioning for us to wait. The next guy showed, who conveniently also didn’t speak English or Russian.

Army bro #2: *Point* “No. Russia.”

We acknowledged this startling revelation in the saga and tried again to saunter off. Nope, more waiting must occur. Army bro #3 shows. The man explains the situation to him. He stares and says nothing. We try to wander off. No, we must wait. Finally, one last man shows, who does speak some English.

Armybro #4: “Hello what can I help you with?”

Us: “Erm, just walking and trying to get to that town thing over there.”

Armybro #4: “No. Cannot go. Russia.”

Us: “Ah, yes, your friends said… um, can we go now?”

And, finally satisfied, Army bro #1 let us return from whence we came.

If you come here during hiking season, expect paths and potential hikes to be more clear.

Hitchhiking from Truso Valley to our graves

The sun was setting, and it was time to head back to Kazbegi from the valley. After making the slushy several-kilometer slog back to the main highway, we stood on the side of the road with our thumbs out. Many a Russian license plate passed us, their drivers alternating between signaling “no” and giving us long, deliberate, and wholly cold stares (or so they seemed, in our moment of frozen desperation).

After a time, a man in a camouflage army outfit came over to us. “Where do you want to go?” he asked in Russian. I told him we wanted to go to Kazbegi, and he grinned and said he would take us.

We followed him to a tiny old car, where a large, grumpy-looking man was sitting in the drivers’ seat. A smaller, jollier man was sitting in the backseat, brandishing a pocket knife and clutching several bags and bottles. Camo Man (as I will now call him) had him scoot over so we could all squish into the back seat.

Mini Knife Man (MKM) immediately started animatedly babbling in Russian, unconcerned by the fact that I only seemed to understand about 30% of what he was saying. He began pulling bread and meat out of his bag, crafting makeshift sandwiches and pressing them on us. Once satisfied that we were fed enough bread, he held up one of the bottles, a 1.5L reused soda bottle filled with clear liquid, and a crushed clearly loved plastic cup.

“Vodka?” he asked us, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. We declined at first, but being in Georgia, after more insistence we caved. So began our downhill spiral.

…and the chacha starts to flow. It’s been several days and I still feel the urge to vomit when looking at this photo.

Georgian hospitality strikes again

What was supposed to be a 20-minute hitchhike turned into one of our most rambunctious and silly voyages to date. We consumed the entirety of the 1.5 liters of chacha in the short trip *shudder* while discussing everything from luxury cars MKM wanted to own—Lamborghini! Ferrari! Maserati!—to the supposed penis sizes of the men in the car—Camo Man: half a meter. Mini Knife Man: 3 cm—to how beautiful it was to be able to all communicate despite being absolute shit at each other’s languages.

A real heart-to-heart.

We were incredibly drunk by the time we reached Kazbegi. Camo Man wanted to drop us off at our guesthouse but couldn’t understand where it was, so we ended up driving a few meters, stopping for more shots and toasts, and driving a bit more, much to the misery delight of our driver.

When we finally did reach the guesthouse and topple out of the car. They refused to take any kind of money or payment for the ride/food/copious drinks. I did manage to slip the driver a pack of cigarettes as thanks, which he begrudgingly appreciated.

One last fucked up family photo before we all parted ways.

Wholly sloppy and filled with giggles, Sebastiaan and I staggered back to the guesthouse (where we received more shots–Georgians, Y U trying to kill us?), buzzed not just from the booze but also from how ridiculously generous and friendly the people we met were. Georgians, we solemnly-but-not-soberly agreed sometime before we blacked out/passed out, were definitely The Bestest and Most Hospitable People Evar.

The next morning/afternoon/night

I won’t go into the dirty details, aside from saying that they are definitely spectacularly dirty. Let’s just say that we definitely missed our marshrutka the next day.

And, of course, we both vowed to never drink ever, ever again.

Where to stay in Kazbegi

Many hotels and guesthouses are closed during the off-season. There simply aren’t enough visitors to merit staying open. When we were there, we stayed at a chill guest house called Soul Kazbegi. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to exist anymore. You can check out all the accommodation options in Kazbegi here.