ARTICLE: Tracing Fault Lines Through the Caucasus Mountains

By Hugh Barnes - Special to The St. Petersburg Times

The snowcapped mountains of the Caucasus, which stretch for more than 1,000 kilometers between the Caspian and the Black Sea, owe their existence to a geological collision. Twenty-five million years ago, the landmasses of Europe and Asia crashed into each other, pushing the edges skyward. In “The Ghost of Freedom,” a new history of the region, Georgetown University professor Charles King describes a recurring pattern of upheaval and confrontation. He begins with that prehistoric clash of continents and ends with Russia’s recent military adventures in Chechnya, which have left more than 75,000 people dead and several times that number homeless.

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Hugh Barnes is the Russia editor of openDemocracy.