In Georgia’s rural mountains, pristine powder snow blankets rumbling tension

The tranquility of Bakhmaro under a matte of velveteen March powder is broken only by the powerful thrum of a snowcat vehicle.

There are no clanking chairlifts dotting these remote Georgian hillsides. No eisbars blaring cheesy Alpen pop across the hills. Just skiers and snowboarders keen to sample the best of the Caucasus backcountry, and the Goldilocks snow conditions luring curious skiers to this former Soviet nation, which also happens to be at the nexus of a geopolitical hotspot. 

Our glissade among the trees is basically controlled falling through bottomless powder. But that is only part of the story. As our guide Shota Komakhlidze hoists me back up into the heated cab of the snowcat, he begins to explain how skiing and tourism have become conjoined acts of Georgian hope and resistance. 

Bakhmaro nestles at nearly 2,000m in the Meshketi range of Georgia’s Lesser Caucasus mountains. It peers north over the ancient silk route connecting Europe with Asia, from the Black Sea to Tbilisi. Over millennia, Georgia’s proud tradition of welcoming visitors has thrived, in spite of surviving through invading empires from Rome to the Soviet Union. Now Georgia faces another threat – a militarised and expansionist Russia. 

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My lesson starts with Georgia’s stunning geography. Looming over the horizon in the Greater Caucasus is Europe’s tallest point – Mt Elbrus at 5,642m. It’s 100 miles away across Georgia’s central lowlands but strikes a formidable sight, and as I garble awestruck observations, Shota responds with a resigned sigh. Elbrus is in Russia, which in 2008 invaded what was then northern Georgia. Moscow still occupies the restive mountain territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are recognised by the UN as Georgian lands. 

Shota patiently redirects my gaze towards Georgia’s undisputed alpine treasures: the mighty twin summits of Mt Ushba – a notoriously treacherous mountain whose name translates ominously to ​‘Witches’ Sabbath’. And Mt Shkara, Georgia’s tallest, but still smaller than Russia’s domineering Elbrus, by some 400m. 

For Shota, these mountains are a political tableaux of the region’s contested history. Russia continues to threaten the border, and ever since Georgia’s disputed elections of 2024, daily demonstrations against the country’s new pro Moscow government take place in the capital Tbilisi. 

“We just want to lead normal lives, like everyone else in Europe,” Shota tells me. 

And, as I will learn, many of Shota’s team are deeply committed to Georgia’s protest movement.

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Morning dawn tips indigo over the 2,760m Mt Sakornia, Bakhmaro’s main peak. The leonine roar of the snowcat means it’s time to load up for the summit as our driver – fittingly named Aslan – warms the engine. 45 minutes later, I’m clicking into extra-wide powder skis and we traverse a sketchy ridge towards a pristine panel of thigh deep snow. These undisturbed powder fields are precisely what we’d come here for. I’m buffeted by weightless plouffes of ​“cold smoke” as I chase Shota’s chuckles wafting back up the bowl. 

Shota grew up in high altitude camps across Georgia with his mountain guide father, as the country was cleaving independence from the Soviet Union. Back in 1993, Georgia was beginning to open up to the world and Shota’s dad had hoped his son would follow a lucrative career in IT. But Shota and his brother George were determined to build Georgia’s alpine tourism instead – first launching Climbing Georgia, followed in 2019 by Catskiing Georgia, based in Bakhmaro. 

Bakhmaro has long been feted as a temperate summer resort, but during the snows of winter it becomes a ghost town, kept alive by a handful of small but growing snow cat operations. Therein lies another clue to Shota’s predicament. The village recently began to gain legendary status among adventurous riders looking for somewhere relatively safe and predictable. It’s regularly pounded by fecund storm systems rolling in from the warm Black Sea just 30 miles away. The snow gods have truly blessed this land.

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I met Shota’s 21-year-old niece Elene Komakhidze when she picked us up in Tbilisi for our six-hour drive to Bakhmaro. It only takes her minutes to tell me exactly how she feels about her country’s recent past – and its future. 

“The government stole the [2024] election by bribing rural people with potatoes,” she alleges. ​“But my generation will not be bought.”

It’s impossible to miss the many EU flags adorning buildings. Elene points out the road where she and her student friends still protest every weekend. Elene is studying law but she works for her uncle during holidays as a snowcat assistant. Like many Georgian Gen Zs, she feels the country’s future lies to the west, rather than Moscow. She’s outraged that the recently elected, pro-Russia, Georgian Dream government reneged on moves towards EU membership. One of her friends is still in jail after what she alleges were trumped up charges following his arrest at a demo. 

But Elene is defiant. ​“I’m not scared,” she says. ​“If they put me in jail, I will be with my friends”. 

Sharing our meal in the lodge that evening is David Lominashvili, Shota’s operations manager. David says he too was detained at a protest but he got off lightly. He tells me that one of their colleagues at Catskiing Georgia had his legs broken by the security services.

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For more than 500 days, demonstrations every single day led mostly by Tbilisi’s youth, have seen people take to the streets to demand new parliamentary elections and the release of political prisoners. The Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association has recently filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights alleging torture of demonstrators and abuse of power by the security forces.

In February, the Council of Europe’s anti-torture Committee reported that it had been inundated with allegations of brutal beatings carried out on protestors in the days after the election. It also slammed Tbilisi’s decision to abolish the independent investigation body into police misconduct. 

The Georgian government’s official response was that the protests had ​“turned violent, with attacks on parliament, property destruction, and injuries to police officers… with evidence of coordination with political groups.” But it insisted there had since been positive developments, and it is ​“committed to human rights standards.”

Shota says this situation just motivated him to bring Georgia’s resistance movement to the mountains. After the 2024 elections, a rumour spread that the new Moscow friendly President was planning to visit Bakhmaro for a PR stunt, to be set against magnificent snow laden peaks. Shota and his team planned an insurgent ski-based protest. Shota’s brother – Elene’s dad George – was to ski right into the photoshoot and unfurl Georgian and EU flags high above the town. But the President never showed up and Shota was denied his showdown. 

“This government is like Caligula’s horse,” Shota smirks, referencing the infamous Roman emperor who anointed his favourite steed as a puppet consul in order to mock the senate. Moscow, they believe, is Tbilisi’s real master. Not the Georgian people.

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But beyond the political is the practical, and Shota along with the other snowcat operations of Bakhmaro are bringing jobs to an area that offers little else in winter. Tourism accounts for around 15% of Georgia’s economy, and is growing. 

Bakhmaro is a wild west though. Its snowcat operations are currently completely unregulated – there is zero governance or oversight. And from the outside, that is a disaster waiting to happen. Mountain folk are used to managing danger, but the untouched powder fields that foreign tourists travel round the world for risk becoming victims of their own success. Paramount in Shota’s mind is safety. Anyone can just turn up with a snowcat and start taking punters wherever they like, but a bad accident in Bakhmaro would be bad PR for all of them. 

Shota says Bakhmaro’s 40 sq miles of terrain are enough to keep about 150 skiers or snowboarders a day fully stoked. But during busy periods, Bakhmaro’s three existing snowcat operations are already towing around between 150 and 200 riders in search of fresh powder. They are all chasing the same lines, without any rules.

Despite Shota’s mistrust of politicians, he says Bakhmaro’s relationships with the technocrats in Georgia’s tourism directorate are good. He’s currently writing a report which will recommend Bakhmaro limits skier numbers, and require all mountain guides to have the highest qualifications. He says that amongst the local guides there is a shared goal to make winter tourism benefit everyone, and reminds me that through empire after empire — Georgian unity has prevailed. 

“We have to make this work”, he says. And when will these new safety rules be in place? ​“Next season, hopefully.”

Another crisp morning and the Black Sea sparkles to our west as Aslan’s snowcat purrs up one of Bakhmaro’s highest ridges to face Turkey. Mt Ararat – supposedly the ultimate resting place of Noah’s Ark – lies just 100 miles to the east. 

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For centuries, Georgia has been shaped by forces that lie far beyond its own borders. It has always found ways to make the most of its formidable location for trade, be it Tbilisi’s 19^th century silk route caravanserai, or the exciting potential of its future ski industry. 

Today, Shota is guiding with his friend and Bakhmaro local Irakli Kapanadze. We ponder the jaw dropping vista before us that faces the direction of Iran, only a couple hundred miles to the border.

Irakli was born not far from here at the Abastumani Astrophysical Observatory during Soviet times. Irakli’s parents were astrophysicists who spent their lives peering into the cosmos for answers to big questions. As Irakli and I crane our necks upwards, the sky is disconcertingly busy. Myriad vapour trails from passenger jets strafe the sky across a crowded latitudinal path. 

“Why so many planes here?” I ask.

“Iran,” the simple response. 

These planes rerouted away from the US-Israel invasion and bombing campaign, and Iran’s response. A visual reminder of Georgia’s precarious task – a tiny nation of under 4 million, once again picking its way around complex global geopolitics. 

Shota tells us it is time for our last run, and warns us the sun and wind have now blowtorched the snow. Conditions will be mixed.

“You don’t have to ski this”, he chuckles with a wry grin, ​“but it will be fun”.

Bakhmaro nestles several miles below, serried ranks of sharp roofed shepherds huts arranged like a giant’s cheese grater tilted on its side. As we gingerly edge our way home, a group from a different snowcat firm barrels uncomfortably close to us. Shota is visibly annoyed. This mountain traffic jam is precisely the kind of situation he hopes regulation will prevent. 

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We are only metres from a hidden hazard that the group behind us didn’t foresee. They are now teetering on top of a 20ft cornice (overhanging snow shelf) that’s begun to collapse into a natural halfpipe below. What on a good day might have been an exhilarating feature to jump now has car size lumps of ice strewn across a femur snapping landing zone. 

Shota traverses us away from danger; once he’s checked the other group is safe we ski down to our snowcat waiting at the junction of a summer road that snakes gently back to town. 

“Want a lift?” asks Aslan, his head poking from the window, Elene smiling beside him.

We decline and descend from the alpine into the woods; precious pockets of shade reappear, protected from sun and wind. Last run of the day – last run of the trip – Bakhmaro blesses us once again. Wisps of white stuff spin high as we disturb the few boughs still laden with Black Sea storm snow.

Shota is grinning from ear to ear as we regroup with the snowcat a final time. No wonder he’s made Bakhmaro his home. 

Keme Nzerem is a broadcaster and freelance journalist. Follow him on Instagram.

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