NO BORDERS IN THE MOUNTAINS
“Richard, if you travel in Russia alone then you are a dead man. I don’t think you understand what Russia is.”
THESE WERE THE STARK WORDS of warning that I received from Igor – a software engineer from Moscow – a few days after I’d arrived in Russia during the summer of 2018. Igor had thankfully intervened during a heated exchange I was having with park officials, who were refusing access to a popular hiking trailhead in the foothills above Sochi. He defused the situation and led me away quietly. Passing walkers eyeballed us curiously as he spoke to me in broken English. Igor’s eyes met mine with a look of deep concern. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
I told him my carefully laid plans. I was about to begin a two-month hike across the entire Greater Caucasus mountain range, following a route I’d pieced together using satellite imagery, Russian mountaineering websites and Soviet-era maps. First, I’d hike across several North Caucasus republics from the Black Sea in Russia; I’d cross over into Georgia; and then via Azerbaijan I’d reach the Caspian Sea, 1200 kilometres later. It was the most challenging long-distance backpacking route I’d ever attempted.
Wild frontier
It wasn’t just the alpine terrain and the lack of infrastructure that made the Greater Caucasus range an intimidating backpacking destination – it was
