Hi,

Hiking in the Kazbegi region: I found 3 interesting proposals for hikes on your website: one to Truso Valley, one to the Gergeti Glacier and on to the Tsminda Sambeda Church.

Firstly, the (Upper) Truso Valley: As far as I understood what it said on the website, you can hire a car to drive there. Where is it possible to do this? In Kazbegi? If you speak some Russian, is it more or less safe now to go there? Is it best to ask the locals, if it’s safe or not?

Secondly: Gergi Glacier. You are saying that it’s about a 10 k walk to get there. Is that from Kazbegi? How long would that take? Is it possible to get regional maps from the area in Kazbegi/ Tbilisi?

regards,
Stephan

Hi,

About Truso Valley: you can hire a car from central village Stepantsminda (former Kazbegi). As far as we have heard, it has been safe to go to Truso valley during the last years. We never experienced any problems ourselves either. It is an advantage to speak some Russian, though—there are Georgian border guards in Truso valley. They are going to check your identity (bring passport!) and they usually want to explain you some basic rules: how far up the valley you are supposed to go, how about camping and so on. This can be a challenge without russian…

About Gergeti glacier: the track to the glacier is very easy to find. You should start from Stepantsminda (Kazbegi) or Gergeti village and head up to Tsminda Sameba church. After reaching the church you just continue on the mountain side towards the top of Kazbek. You will see the small track on the hillside. It takes the whole day to the glacier and back, about 8 hours.

Last summer (2007) it was only possible to get a map about the area from WWF station (up the hill in Stepantsminda). Hopefully the situation has changed until now.

Regards,
Kadri

Hallo, we have a good maps of area in the “Mountain house” close to main-square. If you dont wanna pay for car you can rent a mountain-bike. It is 20 lari per day.

About security: I never heared about any problems except if you will go close to borders of South Osetia on the west you may meet they guerrila fighters guarding the borders but as I heared they do not attack on tourists. Last year they attacked only georgian soldiers but never killed anybody. But border is really far – at least two days walk on the west. Other places are safe and no problems there.