For 15. 000 kilometers, an almost continuous mountain system called the Alpide Belt spreads from the Moroccan Atlas Mountains to the summits and volcanoes of Sumatra and Java, encompassing the most extreme mountains of our planet. Along this topographic brush stroke across the world map, a thin but clearly defined line stands out, marking an impenetrable barrier that divides the continents.
Connecting the Black and Caspian Seas, the Caucasian Mountains have been uplifted during the collision of the Arabian and Eurasian Tectonic Plates, and since then have defined its climate, culture and biodiversity. In this video we will have a closer look at the geography surrounding this enormous barrier, and afterwards dive into some peculiarities of its history, and how it not only separates two continents, but also the global mountaineering community. Chapter 1: The Physical Geography Connecting the Black and Caspian Seas with a nearly straight line of towering mountains, the region of the Caucasus encompasses everything from the Kuma-Manych Depression in southern Russia all the way to the Turkish Pontic Mountains and the Aras River between Azerbaijan and Iran.
Within this broader Caucasian Region lie the Caucasian Mountains, that spread with two very distinct ranges between the seas. To the south, the more mellow and older Lesser Caucasus Mountains are arching from eastern Turkey to northwestern Iran, while curving through Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Formed by the first collision between the Arabian and Eurasian tectonic plates around 60 million years ago, the natural forces of glaciation and erosion have played a significant role in smoothing out the rugged surface here.
Running parallel to the north, the younger brother on the other hand still has many rugged signs of its youthfulness and draws a nearly straight line from the Taman Peninsula between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov to the Absheron Peninsula of Azerbaijan. Having only formed around 25 million years ago, a lot more tectonic and volcanic remnants can be found along this line, with enormous dormant stratovolcanoes and countless geothermal features scattering the landscape. The watershed of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, shared by Russia to the north and Georgia and Azerbaijan to the south, runs along a total of seven mountains surpassing the 5.
000 meter mark, with the area in between them being equally inhospitable. The pointy summits of these giants have had deep gorges carved out throughout time, which today are occupied by over 2000 separate glacier fields. Most of these glaciers are smaller than 1 square kilometer in area, which is why they are commonly referred to as pocket glaciers, and their future is uncertain.
Tracking the glacier inventory of the Greater Caucasus Mountains over the last quarter decade, a decrease of surface cover exceeding 30% has been recorded, and these pocket glaciers will be the first to go. The largest glacial ice mass is nestled between the two majestic stratovolcanoes of Mount Elbrus and Mount Kazbek. Mount Elbrus, entirely within Russian territory, is the tallest peak of the Caucasus, soaring to an impressive 5,642 meters above sea level.
Widely recognized as a dormant volcano, it stands unchallenged for thousands of kilometers, with a prominence of 4,750 meters, nearly matching the elevation of Mont Blanc, making it the 10th most prominent mountain in the world, but more about its peculiarities later in the video. In contrast, Mount Kazbek, which lies on the Georgian-Russian border about 180 kilometers to the east is still assumed to have active volcanic features lurking inside of it and since it last erupted as recently as 750 BCE, it is sparking ongoing debates about its current status as an active or dormant volcano. This striking peak is not only the most picturesque mountain of the region, but its pyramid summit is also enshrined in local legend as it is said to be the mountain where the georgian version of Prometheus is chained to for stealing fire from the gods.
The vast snow and ice masses that crown the Greater Caucasus inevitably lead to significant meltwater, especially during the spring months as temperatures rise. As this meltwater descends the mountain slopes, it carves deep gorges into the landscape, creating broad arteries between them. Once the spring flood recedes, the raging rivers give way to a mesmerizing network of braided mountain streams, winding through the sparse vegetation.
As the waters travel farther, they combine their forces, forming extensive drainage basins in the foothill valleys. After being blocked by the occasional hydropower plant, vast alluvial basins have formed between the two Caucasus ranges, with the Roni River draining the west into the Black Sea, and the Kura passing by Tbilisi and then draining nearly the entirety of neighboring Azerbaijan. Covering over 1,000 kilometers or 600 miles in length and 5,000 meter, or 16,400 feet in elevation difference, within this narrow strip of mountains a remarkable diversity of natural features has emerged, bringing us to… Chapter 2: Diversity of the Caucasus Ranging from Polar Tundra in the center of the mountain range to arid desert just under the foothills to the east, with a dozen other distinct climate zones in between, the Greater Caucasus Mountains are a true allrounder when it comes to nature.
Frozen wastelands are sitting right above deciduous forests with mesmerizing autumn color changes, while the whitewater streams then continue through lush meadows and back into the barren steppe around the two seas on either side. This ecological diversity has given rise to an intricate food web, with great predators like the Eurasian Grey Wolf, Caucasian Leopard and Syrian Brown Bear dominating the various goats, antelopes and deers wandering the habitats. When roaming the mountains and valleys of the Caucasus however, sights of these animals are rare, but what you will get to see are the remnants of the rich caucasian history.
Abandoned castles and fortifications from over a thousand years ago are occupying the hills and gorges, overlooking the braided rivers, and giving an insight of just how long the history of civilization dates back in this region. Lying just one mountain range away from the fertile crescent, the birthplace of human civilization, the earliest artifacts of civilized human history date back all the way to the bronze age, making the Caucasians, contemporaries to the Egyption Pharaohs. Since then, culture and traditions have been sprawling between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus and hundreds of kingdoms, tribes, states and Empires came and went.
Lying on the Crossroad of the continents between Asia and Europe, strong outside powers like the Persians, Ottomans and Russians have continuously fought over the Caucasus and only for brief moments in history have the people of the Caucasus been living in their own states. Despite this, the various ethnicities have developed and held on to their unique cultures, embracing their food, traditional winemaking methods, and especially their languages. The only 10 million people that live in the broader region have evolved countless languages of which a total of 28 languages are still around today, whose origins belong to 3 completely different language families, with seemingly no connection between them today.
While diversity is something to celebrate and to be proud of, in the case of the Caucasus, it hasn’t always brought a blessing with it. Politically, this diverse regional cultural identity has often separated the various groups of people, been a cause for oppression and led to many independence movements on all sides of the Caucasus, which brings us to Chapter 3: Peculiarities of the Caucasus When following the towering mountains on Google maps, one can not help but notice several dashed lines dissecting the nation of Georgia. These areas are called South Ossetia and Abkhazia along Georgia's northern border with Russia and the cultural diversity here has disturbed the peace for many decades now.
Compared to the rest of Georgia, these regions have a vastly different cultural background, with South Ossetians drawing their heritage back to Iranian Nomads in the 8th century, and the Abkhazian ethnic identity starting with the first Abkhazian Kingdom in the year 850. For the majority of their history from these starting points, both regions have been absorbed by larger entities over and over again, but their identity remained to this date. Fast forward to the Soviet Union, and the regions were finally granted some levels of autonomy again within the Union, being administered as autonomous republics.
With the start of the 1990s however and the Soviet Union falling apart into its constituting Republics, this autonomy was revoked again as they were allocated to the newly formed Republic of Georgia. Independence movements ensued pretty much immediately and almost 2 decades of tension boiled down to an armed uprising in 2008, where Russia quickly sided with the separatists, and supported their claim for independence with their military power. To this date, only 5 countries in the world recognise the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia while nearly every other UN member sides against the perspective of Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru and Syria, declaring these regions as Russian occupied territory of Georgia.
Across the border on the Russian side, many of the same political developments have occurred since the fall of the Soviet Union, but a strict crack down by central Russian forces has kept the independence movements silenced. Moving away from these political stories, there is one more quite peculiar conflict which is caused by the Caucasus sitting right on the border of two continents. Unlike most other Continents, with a quite distinct border between them, like the strait of Gibraltar, the Isthmus of Suez or the Isthmus of Panama between North and South America, the border between the continents of Europe and Asia is a bit more ambiguous.
In most contexts this doesn’t really play a major role though, but some mountaineers have quite strong opinions about where this line should be drawn. The American mountaineer William Hackett pioneered the idea of what is today called the seven summit challenge, in which a person climbs the tallest mountain of each of the 7 continents. In his definition from the 1950s, the european-asian border was drawn from the sea of Azov along the Don river and then to the Caspian sea, placing Mount Elbrus safely within the Asian Continent.
This definition, originating from ancient Greek philosophers, has been questioned in the recent century though, and many geographers now prefer to follow the foothills or crest of the greater caucasian mountains to draw a border between the Black and Caspian Sea. This change of perception led to a drastic change in the list of the seven summits in the following decades, with Mount Elbrus replacing Mont Blanc as the european representative, and this newer definition has since been followed by the famous mountaineers Richard Bass, the first person to successfully summit the seven mountains, and Reinhold Messner, the first person to do so without the use of supplemental oxygen around a year later. Following different definitions that are around today, these 7 potential dividing lines persisted but no consensus has been found yet.
All in all, the Caucasian mountains are standing as a fortress between two worlds, building a bridge and a wall between Europe and Asia at the same time. The steep slopes of the Greater Caucasus mountains are home to a unique strata of flora and fauna, surrounded by the lush and dry valleys, raging rivers and fascinating cultures. If you want to learn more about the most interesting regions of our planet like the Rocky Mountains or Patagonia, you can check out one of these videos here, and to not miss any future uploads, be sure to subscribe.
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