J'AIME JUNE 2019

T R AV E L
Exploring Georgia and Armenia
ALEX OLIVER, RB COLLECTION’S CENTRAL ASIA CONTACT REPORTS ON HIS FIRST TOUR OF THE
REGION WHICH HAS SPURRED MANY VISITS SINCE AND INSPIRED A SPECIAL TOUR THIS AUTUMN
For every would-be traveller, I think it would be fair
to say that we all have a list of destinations that we
have always yearned to visit. Not a bucket list per se,
but countries we have become almost obsessed with,
and with the start of every year, whisper to ourselves
‘perhaps next year’.
For me, I the countries of the Caucasus - especially
Armenia and Georgia - were always in that list of
must-visit lands. I am not even sure that I can explain
why, yet there has always been a draw for me to
these rugged countries. A group of people that have
existed on the geopolitical stage for thousands of
years, yet in their recent reincarnation through the
collapse of the Soviet Empire, these are fresh and
young sovereign states. Surrounded by some hostile
neighbours and their often authoritarian leaders,
these fledgling democracies are striving to establish
themselves on the world stage once again. Part of
this development is a desire to bring in tourism and
to revel in the culture and history that both countries
offer in abundance.
I suppose for myself coming from a background
in classical education, my main draw for visiting
this corner of the globe was the amount of history
involved. Lands fabled in stories of Jason and the
Argonauts, they lay on the cusp of the expansive
empires of Alexander the Great and later on, the
Romans; coins from these periods being on display
in Mestia and Tbilisi museums. Some of the oldest
Christian lands in the world, Georgia and Armenia sit
on a crossroad of Christian and Muslim cultures and
because of this, these highland countries have a long
and bloody history of conflict. They boast dramatic
alpine landscapes which hide equally dramatic stories,
from ancient times all the way through to the last
days of the USSR.
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