Highland Abkhazia / The Seasons: a journey into a mysterious land

In Abkhazia is launched a unique project for the Caucasus, namely "Highland Abkhazia / The Seasons". It is aimed at describing the beauty of Abkhazia’s nature and at promoting tourism. Incorporated in the project are expeditions to the mountain-areas of the country in the winter, spring, summer and autumn of 2015. The plans include photo- and video-materials, a navigation map, TV-shows and a documentary film. 

It was four years ago that Tengiz Tarba created the project "Highland Abkhazia". During this period, he and his team have carried out 32 expeditions, traversing a total length of 750 km on mountain-hiking trails which lasted more than 160 days of expedition. 

Now Tengiz together with a team of like-minded people is launching a new, Russo-Abkhazian stage called "Highland Abkhazia: The Seasons". 

The goal of the project "Highland Abkhazia / The Seasons" is the development of mountain- and eco-tourism, the reviving of routes that were popular during the Soviet era and the opening of new ones. 

During this winter, spring, summer and autumn of 2015 will be undertaken expeditions on foot, horseback and by car to almost all mountain-regions of the country. Travellers will visit such exceptionally beautiful places as Agura, which is topographically atypical for its region, the Grybza valley, the mountain-massif Arbaika, and Lake Adyuada. 

Particularly complex will be the five winter expeditions, each of which will last for 10 days. The team will disembark from a helicopter in remote areas where the snow-cover reaches six meters. Previously no such expeditions have been undertaken. 

The project-participants (academics, journalists, photographers and film-makers) are planning to create a unique photo- and video-database of all the significant natural features of mountainous Abkhazia, to describe the routes covered as well as putting them on the navigation-map, and to prepare a series of television-programmes, video-diaries, as well as filming a documentary. 

During each trip, the team will be publishing reports and talking about their findings and about the culture of the Abkhazian people, whose traditions have been shaped by the nature of the mountains. 

The aim of the project is to awaken interest in the highlands of Abkhazia among the residents both of this country and of the whole world. At the same time, it is important for the organisers that people should feel responsible for its safety and well-being. 

Highland Abkhazia is a world full of nobility and purity: complex reliefs, relict forests and alpine meadows, countless waterfalls, rivers and turquoise lakes. The life of the Abkhazians is largely confined to the cities on the coast, and so the alpine-zone is untouched by civilisation; only shepherds go up here in the summer, and sometimes hunters wander up. There are several trails, developed by tourists, and that's about all! For most the mountains remain mysterious territory. 

Follow the adventures of the participants of the project "Highland Abkhazia / The Seasons" and discover this world along with them!