Все фотографии Кита Юена – kityuen.co.uk Первое, что бросается в глаза в Дано, так это то, что оно выглядит как портал в далекое прошлое. Эта дикая и необузданная деревня, изолированная высокими горами Тушетии в северо-восточной провинции Грузии, кажется забыта всеми, кроме Бога. Вас можно простить за то, что вы решили, что попали в феодальную эпоху, если бы не солнечные панели, прислоненные к древним каменным стенам.

Следующее, что вы замечаете, - это глаза, которые примирились с одиночеством, известным только высоко в горах. Гордые лица людей состарились вместе с их каменными развалинами. Их руки грубы от выпаса овец и замковых заборов, а голоса хриплы от курения, криков и громкого пения во время супра – пиршества, где любовь и гнев чередуются или происходят одновременно.

И вот я сижу на одной из этих супра, переполненный эмоциями лондонец с Google Translate и думаю, что нахожусь в большем бедственном положении: от того, что проглотил восьмую рюмку чачи, или от того, что «случайно» пролил её.

Конец сентября, и в конце стола, освещенного только гудящей налобной лампой, я наблюдаю за Байрамом, старейшиной пиршества и самым опытным пастухом. Каждый его смех вызывает равные количествами радости и боли - он сломал ребро накануне. Я спросил его, сможет ли он всё ещё проводить стадо вниз по горе к своим зимним пастбищам в Алвани, ниже Кахетии. Получив опыт в прошлом весной по пути из Алвани в Дано, я предложил в этот раз идти впереди.

«Собака не умирает от хромоты», - ответил мне Байрам с хмурым выражением. Это фраза, которую я часто слышал от него раньше.

***

Левани «Байрам» Татаорадзе легко узнать издалека по его медленно, сутуло-хромающей походке, когда он трудится на ландшафте. Иногда он закутан в набады – овечье полупальто, которое пастухи носят с древности. Его изможденное лицо, на котором виден далекий, задумчивый взгляд, полно контуров и седых волос. Он получил свое прозвище – «Байрам» - от мусульманского праздника, однако он вовсе не весел. Этот пастух более упрям, чем его козы, которых мы гнали по всему Кахетии прошлой весной, пока наши голоса и ноги не сдавались.

Но под его упрямством и усталостью скрывается нежный, добрый, глубоко религиозный человек, который добросовестно ведет свое стадо к лучшим пастбищам. «Добрый пастырь», чью сложную натуру я полон решимости понять, несмотря на языковой барьер.

Рожденный в 1965 году, Байрам вырос в седлах осла. «Наши ноги онемели, мы плакали», - смеется он. Байрам не был stranger к трудностям и неудобствам. Тогда не было дорог в Тушетию, а ежегодная миграция овец между зимними и весенними пастбищами составляла 200 километров пути пешком с припасами, молодыми ягнятами и детьми, прикрепленными к ослам и лошадям.

Выросший в семье пастухов, которые передавали профессию на протяжении пяти и более поколений, он уже принимал участие в трансферте.

*All photographs by Kit Yuen – kityuen.co.uk The first thing you notice in Dano is that it looks like a portal into the distant past. This wild and untamed village, isolated by the high mountains of Tusheti in Georgia’s north-eastern province, seems forgotten by all except God. You’d be forgiven for believing that you’d stepped into the feudal era, were it not for the solar panels leaning against ancient stone walls.

The next thing you notice is the eyes that have made peace with a loneliness known only in the high mountains. The proud faces of people have aged along with their stone ruins. Their hands are calloused from tending sheep and barbed fences, and their voices are hoarse from smoking, shouting, and loud singing during supras, feasts where love and anger take turns or happen all at once. 

And there I sit at one of those supras, an overwhelmed Londoner armed with Google Translate and wondering whether I am in bigger trouble from gulping that eighth shot of Chacha down my throat, or from “accidentally” spilling it. 

It’s the end of September, and at the end of the table, lit dimly only by a buzzing headlamp, I watch Bairam, the elder of the feast and most experienced of the shepherds. Each of his laughs brings out equal parts of joy and pain – he’d broken his rib yesterday. I asked him if he would still be able to drive the herd down the mountain to their winter pastures in Alvani, lower Kakheti. Having gained the experience last spring en route from Alvani to Dano, I offered to lead from the front this time.

“A dog doesn’t die from a limp,” Bairam frowns in response. It is a phrase I’d often heard from him before.

***

Levani “Bairam” Tataraidze can easily be recognised from afar by his slow, hunched limp as he labours across the landscape. He is sometimes wrapped in a Nabadi, a sheepskin overcoat used by shepherds since antiquity. His weathered face, etched with a distant, pensive expression, is full of contours and grey hairs. He takes his nickname – “Bairam” – from a Muslim festival, yet he is anything but festive. The shepherd is more stubborn than his goats, which we’d chase up the length of Kakheti last spring til our voices and legs gave out. 

But beneath his temper and weariness lies a gentle, kind, devoutly religious man who dutifully leads his flock to better pastures. A “Good Shepherd” whose complexities I am determined to understand, despite the language barrier.

Born in 1965, Bairam grew up in the saddlebags of a donkey. “Our legs would go numb, we’d be crying,” he laughs. Bairam was no stranger to hardship and discomfort. There were no roads into Tusheti back then, and annual sheep migration between winter and spring pastures was a 200-kilometer journey taken on foot with supplies, young lambs, and children all strapped to donkeys and horses. 

Raised by a family of shepherds who had passed down the profession for five or more generations, he had already taken part in transhumance when he was too small to even walk.

Transhumance is the semi-nomadic pastoral practice of seasonal livestock migration. Unchanged through centuries, it is a lifestyle with dwindling practitioners who stubbornly choose to hold onto this simple yet difficult life, which has more in common with our shared nomadic ancestors than us, the city dwellers. The mountains act as a natural barrier to social and technological changes, so the impassable cliffs of Tusheti have for centuries insulated the shepherds from the never-ending political upheaval of the rest of Georgia. 

The herds are driven to the lowlands in September for winter pastures. With spring, they return to fresh mountain grass. The journey from Vashlovani, Georgia’s far east, to Dano spans 250 kilometers and takes 10 days. It crosses the notorious Abano pass, known as one of the most dangerous roads in Europe.

***

Bairam jokes about tourists looking for museums in his village. “Look, the entire Dano is a museum!” he laughs. 

Among the stone dwellings, pagan monuments still stand faithfully. Bairam, a devout Christian, crosses himself before the crucifix, yet on the same day, leaves coins to the pagan Gods. But stubbornly clinging to pre-Christian, ancient traditions whose purposes lie half forgotten reveals a rebellious spirit more than a conservative one.

The local architecture and folklore, too, tell stories of battle and rebellion.

Nestled among these dwellings are ancient defensive towers, erected centuries ago to repel invaders. “Tushetians are always the first standing on the front lines,” the old shepherd says. “We are known across Georgia as fierce warriors”. 

It’s easy to assume that locals owe their strong features, work ethic, and lively spirits to these harsh landscapes. But Bairam offers a more complex explanation.  

“They don’t really know when people started migrating into Tusheti, but people moved from the valleys centuries ago to protest landowners and rulers.”  These outlaws and bandits, once seeking freedom from the kingdom to make their own way from the law, would go on to become its fiercest defenders.

That reputation earned them the favour of the Kakhetian kings, who granted them lands around Alvani, a valley some 100 km across the pass. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, the valley would evolve from plain fields used for winter pastures into a permanent residence for many Tush.

***

Life in the mountains is fraught with danger. Bears and wolves frequently sneak into campsites, taking off with lambs. The weather and the pass often kill many. Each loss means fewer funds to care for the herd and survive the year. 

The first night I met the shepherds back in spring, I lay drunker than I’d ever been within an hour. The stars spanned across the night sky faster than usual. I was later woken up by sheep nibbling on me, to Bairam’s restless shadow dancing by the campfire, occasionally casting his torch to watch for bears and escaped lambs.

It was not until Abano Pass came into sight the next afternoon that I learned what had kept the worried shepherd up all night. Spring had come late this year. Landslides were sweeping across the path ahead, and the snow on the infamous pass was still two meters high, covering the only route into Tusheti. The two hired hands, who had driven ahead to set up campsites with their tractor, carrying supplies and sheep too weak to walk, had to turn back, while I and the two Tataraidzes, Bairam and his cousin Misho, loaded the baggage onto our backs and a single donkey. 

The shepherds, usually loud and animated, now fell silent.

Where one sheep panics, the entire herd follows to certain death. One lamb had already been swept off the pass by raging rivers from the late snowmelt. Misho, the headstrong owner of the herd, had erupted furiously, screaming at the gods as it fell into the abyss.

I’d asked Bairam if he could cross the icy pass, noting his hobbled footsteps. 

“A dog doesn’t die from a limp,” he frowned with determination. It was the first time I’d heard the phrase, but with no internet signal, I couldn’t translate it then.

***

By his adolescence, Soviet-era infrastructural changes had begun to penetrate Bairam’s seclusion. A road into Tusheti was built in the 1980s, and many shepherds quickly traded their horses for tractors. Traditional farming methods were abandoned; scythes were left to rust as winter supplies could now be bought in the lowlands. Traditions were traded for convenience. The herds swelled, and the shepherds thrived.

Soon, however, those same roads would carry Bairam to lands far more distant. In the late Soviet years, the young Georgian was conscripted and deployed to Hungary to enforce the communist regime in Europe.

But greater changes awaited him as he found himself back home. In the late 80s, the national liberation movement took force in Georgia, and by 1991, the country regained independence. Having found