Exploring Omalo, Georgia

Exploring Omalo, Georgia

Entering the village of Omalo, Tusheti
The village of Omalo

Our six plus-hour odyssey driving up one of the World’s Most Dangerous Roads in the Republic of Georgia brings us to the village of Omalo, located in the middle of Tusheti National Park at about 7,000 feet above sea level. It is a tiny hamlet with about 50 inhabitants set in an emerald green meadow. Clusters of stone and wood houses cover the hillside at the base of a rocky crag in the shadow of the remaining five towers of Keselo.

The entire population of Tusheti numbers about 2,500 with about 50 or so inhabitants in each of the villages during the summer months. Only 1-2 families remain in Omalo during the winter when up to 14 feet of snow cuts off the entire province from the rest of Georgia.

The towers of Omalo rise on a crag above the valley
The towers of Omalo, Tusheti

Even though this is the administrative “capital” of Tusheti, there are no stores, no hotels or restaurants, and only dirt roads. It is also one of the most magical locations we have found in all our travels.

The Tush are semi-nomadic people, albeit many with college educations and all with cell phones. The majority, together with their sheep and cows, travel between their summer villages and pastures high in the Caucasus Mountains and their winter lowland homes in Kakheti, in the villages of Zemo and Kverno Alvani.

There is a lovely legend about how the Tush acquired their land in Kakheti. In the 17th century, the Tush (who were fierce and independent fighters) provided Kakhetian prince Bidzina Choloqashvili with military support to defeat the then Persian invaders. The prince promised them a reward, and the Tush leader, Zezva Gaprindauli, asked for land where his people could spend the winter months. Prince Bidzina said that he would give them as much land as Zezva could cover with his horse in one day. Setting out from his mountain hamlet, Gaprindauli galloped his horse down the mountain into the lowlands until it dropped dead, near the town of Kverno Alvani. The prince honored his promise, making this area of Kakheti the winter home of most Tushetians. Today there is a monument to Gaprindauli’s horse just outside town to commemorate its valiant efforts to cover as much distance as possible.

The stone and wooden Shina guesthouse, Omalo
Shina Guest House, Omalo

We pass through Omalo twice during our time in Tusheti. During our first visit, we are accommodated in a guesthouse at the entrance of the town, The Shina. It is a stone and wood two-story building with gingerbread lattice woodwork along the edges of the balconies, typical of the lowlands.

The room is basic but very clean, containing twin beds covered with thick woolen quilts. The greatest luxury is an ensuite bathroom (the only one we will have during our entire stay) with a toilet, sink, and shower. Like all the guesthouses in Omalo and the rest of Tusheti, electricity and hot water are provided by solar energy – assuming it hasn’t rained all day. That means that the only time you might find some hot water is in the evening. The power is turned off at 10 pm when it is assumed everyone is in bed.

Omalo, Tusheti, Sargiri Guesthouse
Big screen window, Sargiri Guesthouse, Omalo

Meals are served in an attached lounge with an enormous fireplace. In true Georgian tradition, they are plentiful and delicious. For dinner we feast on stuffed peppers, beef stew with roast potatoes, tomato and cucumber salad, cheese, bread, accompanied by rounds of toasts – to Skartvelo, Omalo, our deceased relatives, our parents, children – the list goes on and on. Fortunately, as a visitor, you can get away with sipping your wine and are not required to down a glass with each toast!

Several days later we pass through Omalo again and end up spending the night because a landslide has cut us off from our intended destination. This time we stay with a family at the Sargiri Guesthouse, immediately beneath the towers that are all that remain of the fortress of Keselo. The family lives on the lower floor. On the upper floor are five rooms, each with twin beds covered with woolen quilts. The bathroom and shower are down the hall next to the living room. Here the hot water is provided by a wood burning stove in the shower, making the room toasty warm. Unfortunately, the warmth doesn’t reach the bedrooms; that night we wear layers of clothing, including our down jackets and socks to stay warm!

Sargiri Guesthouse, Omalo, family museum
Small Tusheti Museum, Sargiri Guesthouse

In a corner of the living room, a small museum houses Tushetian artifacts, which the family discovered when building their house. These include musical instruments, pots, saddles, and traditional clothing.

In the kitchen, a giant open-air window faces the mountains and the valleys below. It is like a natural large screen TV where you can sit and watch the world of Omalo go by.

To work up an appetite we hike up to the towers above the guesthouse to watch the sunset over the valley. There is something quite magical about ancient stone towers silhouetted against the snow-capped Caucasus Mountains. You can almost imagine a fairy-tale Rapunzel standing in the upper story window waiting for her prince to appear.

These towers, however, served a very serious purpose. They provided refuge for the local Tushetian villagers from invaders, raiders, and others with nefarious intentions.

There are towers all across Tusheti. Some are watchtowers, designed to give the alarm down the line, using smoke or fire, in the event of invasion or danger. Others, like the ones clinging to a steep crag above Omalo and the Gometsari Valley, are “residential” towers where the villagers would take refuge when danger loomed.

Originally, there were 13 of them, constructed during the Mongol invasion of Georgia in 1230 and used until the 18th century. Built of slate without the use of mortar, they are 3-6 stories high with a low entrance door on the first floor that would force any intruder to stoop over to enter, thereby putting him at a disadvantage. The ground floor, typically, housed the livestock. During the winter, the animals provided a source of heat for the family living above.

One of the five towers of Omalo, Tusheti
The towers of Omalo

The middle floors were living quarters for the multi-generational family. Our guide explained that everyone slept on one long bed on the second floor – parents, grandparents, children, husbands, wives, brothers and sisters. Only newly-weds were given a modicum of privacy.

The top floor was built to be an attack position, with windows designed so that arrows could be fired down onto possible intruders.

As more lowland style houses were built, the towers fell into a state of disrepair until 2003 when work began to rebuild them. Henk and Eliane Hooft, a Dutch couple living in Tbilisi, originally sponsored the reconstruction before creating the Keselo Foundation, designed to help in the restoration of Tusheti’s treasures, using traditional building techniques. We saw evidence of the outstanding work that has been done so far in many of the mountains villages we came across in our travels. Thanks to them, visitors will be able to marvel at these medieval treasures for years to come.

Wooden and slate house, Omalo
Slate-roofed house, Omalo

IF YOU GO

Our travel was organized by Wild Georgia.
If you are an independent traveler, information about the Shina Guesthouse in Omalo can be found on their website.
The Sargiri Guesthouse in Omalo can be contacted at +599-775543.
There is a dedicated Facebook page for booking guesthouses in Tusheti
https://www.facebook.com/directbookingtusheti.
For more images of Tusheti, go to www.allegriaphotos.com

 

 

 

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