Few journeys offer the prospect of so pleasant a destination or more luxurious accommodations than the Stairway to Heaven. Those of us not lucky enough to secure a ticket on that ride will have to settle for more mundane adventures, perhaps something with less delicate transportation facilities and sparser lodgings. With meagre options at hand these days, many are reduced to mitigating their Wanderlust by perusing old road maps and prints, which can offer an ephemeral, albeit still enjoyable, substitute.
![I. N. Kushnerev', cartographer. Kavkaz'' Prodol'nii Profil' Voenno-Gruzenskoi Dorogi ot' Gorodo Vladikavkaza Cherez' Krestovii Perebal' do Goroda Tiflisa. // Plan' Mestnosti Voenno-Gruzenskoi Dorogi. [19--]. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.](http://blogs.loc.gov/maps/files/2021/01/Resized-scaled.jpg)
I. N. Kushnerev’, cartographer. Kavkaz” Prodol’nii Profil’ Voenno-Gruzenskoi Dorogi ot’ Gorodo Vladikavkaza Cherez’ Krestovii Perebal’ do Goroda Tiflisa. // Plan’ Mestnosti Voenno-Gruzenskoi Dorogi. [19–]. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
Geographically speaking, a trip along the road would take us across continents, from Europe to Asia. Historically, we could travel back centuries, as, indeed, the road has roots in antiquity. That intrepid voyager, Strabo, in his Geographica, refers to the great central pass of the Caucasus as Porta Caucasica and Porta Cumana, today the granite walls of the Darial Gorge that define a small portion of the border between Georgia and Russia. Somewhat later the less-traveled but otherwise worldly Ptolemy, in his own treatise on geography, identifies it as Porta Sarmatica, which implies it to have been a gateway between ancient Iberia and Armenia Major. Whatever its name, Darial Gorge, lying on the northeastern flank of Mount Kazbek, seemed the ideal place to maintain a fortress, as affirmed in the late nineteenth century print below.
![[Military road. Fortress in the Dariel Ravine, Caucasus, Russia]. Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division.](http://blogs.loc.gov/maps/files/2021/01/service-pnp-ppmsc-03700-03787v.jpg)
[Military road. Fortress in the Dariel Ravine, Caucasus, Russia]. Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division.
Following its annexation of Georgia in 1801, Imperial Russia undertook the road’s improvement to facilitate its inexorable drive into the Caucasus. Prior to that, during the reign of Catherine the Great (1762-1796), the Russian Army had surveyed and upgraded a route along the major rivers for the transport of troops and arms, in the process establishing a military outpost and jumping off point at Vladikavkaz. Soon after, the Caucasus became a place of exile for poetic young dreamers who chafed under imperial authority — my favorite kind of people! — and, by early nineteenth century, the combined beauty and savagery of the region began to attract more than just soldiers.
![[Mikhail IUr’evich Lermontov, half-length portrait, facing front]. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.](http://blogs.loc.gov/maps/files/2021/01/service-pnp-ppmsc-01500-01511v-189x300.jpg)
[Mikhail IUr’evich Lermontov, half-length portrait, facing front]. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
Over the years travel writers and publishers have found it impossible to resist effusing over the road’s scenic virtues. One of the most prominent of them, Karl Baedeker, in his 1914 travel guide to Russia, called it “one of the most beautiful mountain roads in the world,” as he recounted in detail the route from Tiflis (Tbilisi) to Vladikavkaz.
![[The road, near Passanaur, Groussie, (i.e., Georgia), Russia, taken between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900]. Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division](http://blogs.loc.gov/maps/files/2021/01/service-pnp-ppmsc-03800-03805v.jpg)
[The road, near Passanaur, Groussie, (i.e., Georgia), Russia, taken between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900]. Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division.
At the “gigantic ice pyramid” of Mount Kazbek, the writer extols on the magnificent scene to be had from the Church of Tzminda-Sameba (Holy Trinity), as it must have appeared over a century ago.
![[Military road. Fortress in the Dariel Ravine, Caucasus, Russia]. Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division.](http://blogs.loc.gov/maps/files/2021/01/service-pnp-ppmsc-03800-03804v.jpg)
[The road, the kasbeck and the church, Groussie, (i.e., Georgia), Russia, taken ca. 1890 and ca. 1900]. Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division.
![[The road, the first bridge, Groussie, (i.e., Georgia), Russia, taken between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900]. Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division.](http://blogs.loc.gov/maps/files/2021/01/service-pnp-ppmsc-03800-03803v.jpg)
[The road, the first bridge, Groussie, (i.e., Georgia), Russia, taken between ca. 1890 and ca. 1900]. Detroit Publishing Company Archives, Prints and Photographs Division.
Neither a map of the Georgian Military Road nor my tepid description can convey the sheer magic of following it for the first time. Nevertheless, having crested the range, if only in our imaginations, it will probably be the closest any of us ever really get to Heaven, either at the end of this life or on an old road map.
![[Tipy Dagestana]. Though Dagestani, fierce and noble “savages” like this dignified couple in traditional dress were among the phenomena that enticed travelers along the Georgian Military Road in the early twentieth century. Prokudin-Gorski photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.](http://blogs.loc.gov/maps/files/2021/01/service-pnp-ppmsc-04400-04437v.jpg)
[Tipy Dagestana]. Though Dagestani, this dignified couple in traditional dress were among the phenomena that over the years have enticed travelers to the trek the road. Given their formality and dignified appearance, one can only wonder if this was the first and only time they were ever photographed. Prokudin-Gorski photograph collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
February 18, 2021 at 8:01 pm
Thanks for the fascinating story. Terrific to see those wonderful Detroit Publishing chromolithographs play a helpful role in a new context! And Prokudin-Gorski photo. All connecting dots with the nifty maps!
February 22, 2021 at 12:11 pm
From where does the description of the Dagestani couple come? I would not use the word “savage,” as this plays into to the imperial Russian idea that the North Caucasus people are somehow in need of the civilizing benefaction of the Russian people. The latter have proved, and continue to prove under Putin, that the civilizing effects of Russia are something to be avoided.
February 22, 2021 at 3:00 pm
The wording is mine, and it was meant with irony. “Savage” is in quotes to offset imperial Russian’s condescending attitude toward peoples of the Caucasus. And, I agree, Russian influence in the Caucasus has been anything but civilizing, which is why I noted it. In the following sentence I pointed out the couple’s stately appearance and dignity, thinking that would lessen the sting.