Mt Kazbeg and the night at Jonny’s court

Not for the first time, I had to throw common sense over board and break all the rules. I was standing at an altitude of 3200m above sea level at the bottom of the Gergeti glacier in the Georgian part of the Caucasus, not far from the border to Russia, about to do something really stupid….

To get to this place, I had flown at short notice to Tiblisi and had driven across the mountains, before leaving my car near the iconic Holy Trinity Church, which is arguably the most famous motif in the whole of Georgia.

Ascending constantly for 2 hours, I had reached the Arsha Pass at nearly 3000m.

What awaited me here was probably one of the most stunning mountain views I have ever seen:  Mt Kazbeg, towering by a large margin over the surrounding summits, was right ahead of me, but separated by a deep gorge, which had been cut in millions of years by the once giant glacier.

After resting there for a short while and enjoying the view, I had then carried on pass the beautifully located and expertly built Alti Hut. Its more Alpine design had its origin in a cooperation between a Georgian business man and Swiss, German and Czech carpenters and engineers and some considerable EU funding. The wood panelling as well as the vintage posters of well known Swiss ski resorts and mountains on the inside walls of the guest room looked very familiar to me.

   

From here it had been a more gentle incline to the glacier, but walking at this altitude, each step took considerably more time.

Standing at the bottom of the glacier, I recalled the lessons I had learned at a glacier course in Norway many years ago: “Never walk on a glacier on your own. Always rope up. Inform people where you are going and when you are planning to arrive…”. All very sensible points, but all not very practical in my situation and hence all to be ignored…… At least I had the good sense to bring along light crampons and a sturdy hiking pole, which had to make do instead of an ice axe in case that I slipped.

The glacier had to be crossed to reach my place to stay for the night – an old disused Russian weather station, also known as Bethlemi Hut, at 3650 m above sea level, half way up to the summit of Mt Kazbeg, the fabled mountain, which according to legend had been the site where the Titan Prometheus was chained to a rock after stealing the fire from the Olymp to give it to humanity. To make his fate a bit more unpleasant, he was then visited every day by an eagle, which was feeding of his liver…..Being a god himself, this didn’t kill him and he even regrew a new liver over night, but the eagle had the bad habit of returning every day….

This admittedly was the least of my concerns when I started walking up on the solid but very abrasive ice of the glacier, which was covered with rocks and with centuries worth of decaying plant and animal material. Slipping here would have been painful and would probably have resulted in a certain wound infection.

While progressing slowly but with a lot of care, I suddenly heard some steps behind me……a rider with a pack horse was passing me! This was both an unexpected as well as a welcoming sight: if a horse could make it across the glacier, so could I!

And sure enough, following roughly in the track of the horses, I eventually made it safely to the other side.

Climbing here another steep 100 or so meters, I had arrived at the iconic building, which, as I would soon find out, presented me with the two sides of the old Georgia and of travelling in many parts of Eastern Europe in general.

During my research for this adventure, I had come across a number of stunning images of this former meteorological station, which is now used as a mountain refuge and the basecamp for all ascents of Mt Kazbeg.

But what I found was sobering…..

A run down, unheated building, that could easily have featured in a Solzhenitsyn novel. Filthy, unlit corridors, some broken windows and no proper sanitation. The communal area, which was hard to find, was cluttered and uninviting and the whole place was in a state of neglect, which was testament of the absence of a well organised and funded national mountaineering association. This certainly wasn’t the Alpen Verein….

No wonder that most professional tour organisers preferred to let their clients stay in tents around the building, despite the ground been littered with pieces of broken glass, rusting metal and various sorts of rubbish in general.

A small private enterprise had occupied the (also unheated) basement, where they provided some form of hospitality by selling poor food for horrendous prices.

Matters didn’t improve, when I was shown my place for the night….

A damp, also unheated room, where the remnants of cheap soviet style wall paper was peeling of its mouldy base; with four bunk beds, which were thankfully covered with a faux leather lining, that regretfully, after having seen decades of use, was torn in several places.

Welcome to the Gulag…..

On the bunk next to me I found Dimitri, who was just half conscious and trying to find some sleep, after having successfully attempted to summit Mt Kazbeg in the early hours of the morning.

When matter couldn’t deteriorate much further, I decided to find a reception to at least pay for my night’s stay. But then, everything changed….

Down the corridor, there was a single glass door that emitted some warm light and when entering,  my whole body felt the presence of a small wood burner at one end of the room.

Here a group of men were gathered around a table which was laden with bread, cucumbers and tomatoes, cheese and cold meats, while red wine and home made brandy was flowing freely. The lively conversation, that had accompanied the feast, stopped abruptly when I  passed through the door – I had entered the realm of Jonny, the custodian……

Once I had introduced myself, referring to the reservation I had made just the previous day with the help of my Georgian landlady, I was invited to the table to sample some quite remarkable homemade brandy, which was then followed by the insistence to try the bread, the cheese and well pretty much everything on the table.

It soon became clear, that this was the only show in town and there were just two ways to stay in it – by telling some good stories or by contributing to the feast. By being both a vet and a traveller, there was no shortage for the former, while the latter could be organised in form of another bottle of wine from the small restaurant (which unsurprisingly had no guests….).

As the evening drew on, it turned out that over the decades, famous mountaineers like Reinhold Messner or the Russian singer and songwriter Vladimir Vysotsky had been sitting at this table and attended Jonny’s or his predecessors’ court.

Jonny was one of these fascinating individuals who don’t need to travel to meet people or to see the world – the world was coming to him.

Sitting in this small, somewhat cluttered room, adorned with images and memorabilia of friends, mountain guides and personalities of the last 100 years, with pack horse drivers, mountaineers of different nationalities and Georgian guides entering his court at regular intervals, Jonny just had to lean back, chain smoke his thin hand rolled cigarettes, enjoy whatever beverages his visitors had carried in their backpacks or on horse back across the glacier and be entertained.  

With steadily increasing alcohol levels, it then became time for the – at least in this part of the world – inevitable toasts. They included not only absent friends, friendship, the mothers (and women in general) and – on my account – a praise to the Georgians as the Caucasian unifiers, which was – needless to say – well received.

As the evening drew on, Lasha, a bearded mountain of a man, sitting on the other side of the table, got hold of the battered guitar, that had been resting on the floor next to the table, and gave a perfect evening the final touch with some Georgian songs.

Yes, may be I had to climb a mountain for it, but finally I had found it, the famous Georgian hospitality ! 

In the meantime even the sky outside had cleared up and the mountain tops around us appeared in a warm evening glow, so that the whole atmosphere around the Bethlemi Refuge didn’t appear quite as depressing.

The conversation, the smoking, the laughing and the drinking went on well into the night and probably much longer than would have been acceptable in a much more organised refuge, but as I finally settled into my decrepit bunk next to the now snoring Dimitri, I thought to myself that such is the life in the Caucasus – not everything is perfect or working as it should, but this in return leaves room for spontaneity and human warmth, which so often appears to be missing in our over-regulated societies.