Great Journey 🏍 Day 355
Right on the Russian border, deep in the Darial Gorge between mountains several thousand metres high, stands the Dariali Monastery, completely rebuilt in 2006 (or thereabouts). Nothing antique, preserved. No, completely new. With old and new elements, the monks sell handmade souvenirs.
We creep around the church, visit it, go to the monastery on the hillside above and are fascinated by this place: peace. Clarity. Power. And once again: mountain energy.
Opposite, the puny remains of the Dariali Fortress, popularly known simply as the Tamar Fortress. There was the rapacious and mild (does that go together?) Queen Tamar Mepe. And then there was the poet Rustaveli, who secretly fell in love with her, wrote countless poems on her and whose love remained unrequited throughout his life. It is more than understandable that the people fancied his pining lines in hard times. Hence the name Tamar Fortress.
And since, as is well known, all good things come in threes: the third structural mention. The border crossing from Georgia to Russia. We look longingly across, thinking about what it would be like to continue our journey in Russia.
Since Russia does not issue tourist visas for overland travellers at the moment, or hardly at all, the question hardly arises for us. We also have to bear in mind that autumn will soon be upon us and that we would prefer to visit Russia in spring and summer. And yet: we can still dream. And we do so extensively while trudging down from the monastery, watching the queue of trucks and marvelling at what is probably one of the most scenically impressive border crossings of our journey so far.
#Dariali Monastery #Darial Gorge #Border Crossing #Tamar Fortress
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