Year after year these Georgian shepherds guide their flocks to pasture and keep an ancient tradition alive
. There he observed how sheep farmers incorporated new methods in breeding and cheese making while preserving the heritage ways. Giorgi experiments with different heirloom techniques to make sheep’s milk cheese, which is cured in a sheepskin sack, called agiving the cheese its name: Tushetian guda.
To get here, you take a footpath at the road’s end. The narrow trail zigzags along a steep, forested slope for several miles. The view is breathtaking, silence dominates. Nothing hints at a human presence except for the lone sight of Vestomta in the distance, the size of the palm of a hand against the backdrop of mountains, hanging between sky and earth.
Robizon’s wife, Tina Beladidze, provides crucial business savvy and logistical support for the family business. She’s in charge of negotiating rates and paying the shepherds. And the sheep aren’t the only animals to make the journey to Tusheti. Later in spring, she’ll herd the family’s cattle to the highlands. Tina also runs the family hotel in Vestomta, offering traditional Tushetian fare to tourists.
Tushetian folk tales and legends that predate the arrival of Christianity in the fourth century recount stories of sheep breeding, from a time when slate temples adorned with beeswax candles hosted ancient rituals.
Giorgi and I met up with the shepherds in the evening, in the village of Pshaveli, where they had begun the so-called washdown to disinfect the sheep—ridding them of parasites before they enter the pristine mountain pastures. The free, government-run disinfecting stations are still closed this early in May, so the Karsamaulis paid to use the old, private bath in Pshaveli, a practice that predated the new system.
The morning after the washdown, the shepherds began herding the flock up along the Pshaveli-Abano-Omalo road—the most treacherous in Georgia but usually safe for those who travel on foot. It follows the Stori River gorge through the Abano Pass up to Omalo village. In the Karsamaulis’ yearly ascent, it’s actually the least dangerous part of their seasonal migration—that is, in fair weather. A downpour, like the one we witnessed, adds peril.