Dan Skean

“The tour of the South Caucasus in 2018 ends where the book began, in the mountains. The extraordinary natural features of the Caucasus cross all political boundaries, and its extraordinary landscape and outstanding biodiversity are its often-hidden glory. Foreign visitors are awestruck by these landscapes, still far less developed than the alpine zones of western Europe. The World Wildlife Fund has named the wider Caucasus region—stretching into Russia and Turkey—one of thirty-five “biodiversity hotspots” on the planet, with over 1,650 indigenous plants and animals in nine climate zones. To name but three examples of this biodiversity: the mountains of Georgia and Azerbaijan contain more species of oak than western Europe, as they survived the last Ice Age; a few mountain leopards still prowl the highlands of Armenia; and less than 200 “goitered gazelles” are to be found on the borders of Azerbaijan and Georgia. Some natural spectacles draw visitors from all over the world. From late August to early October, birdwatchers come to the Black Sea coast of Georgia to see the annual migration southwards of millions of birds of prey through a 10-kilometer-wide corridor between the sea and the Lesser Caucasus Mountains known as the “Batumi bottleneck.” On October 2, 2014, after days of rain kept the gates of the corridor closed, an astonishing 271,000 birds were counted flying through and darkening the skies.”
― Thomas de Waal, The Caucasus: An Introduction