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Discovering things I wouldn't believe existed. We passed a strange isolated village on the way to David Gareji. Called Udabno, it is still populated by Svan people from the mountains of north west Georgia. In the late 1880s, the Soviets relocated several Svan families from their remote green mountainous villages to this dry fruitless area, in order to create a kind of a defending point against possible threat from Azeri side. Now nothing has changed: the dominating ethnic group among the villagers is still Svans, and the conditions didn’t became better: +40 degrees in summer, dry winds, cold winter… Udabno means “desert” in Georgian, and it is the best name for such a place.
Udabnohas recently got a new lease of life from a Pole named Ksawery. He reckoned that there was a business opportunity feeding the travellers going to and from David Gareji Monastery, and created the Oasis Restaurant and Hostel, which is now a thriving business employing lots of local people. In the whole village with around 800 inhabitants there is a school and a shop, and endless dry steppes – basically that’s it
It is difficult to get any information on the Svan relocation - I would guess that Georgia is not very proud of whatever role it had in this.
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Signagi or Sighnaghi
This is a town in Georgia's easternmost region of Kakheti. Although it is one of Georgia's smallest towns, Signagi serves as a popular tourist destination due to its location at the heart of Georgia's wine-growing regions, as well as its picturesque landscapes, pastel houses and narrow, cobblestone streets. Located on a steep hill, Signagi overlooks the vast Alazani Valley, with the Caucasus Mountains visible at a distance.
The town rose in its size and population and became an agricultural centre under the Soviet Union. The severe economic crisis in post-Soviet Georgia heavily affected the town, but a major reconstruction project recently launched by the Government of Georgia and co-funded by several international organizations intends to address an increasing tourist interest and modernize infrastructure.
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