PHOTOGRAPHY: Tsalka in Georgia. Von Nicolas Landru

On the Highlands of the Lesser Caucasus behind Tbilisi in the Kvemo Kartli region, the Tsalka region is a remote and sparsely inhabited area of Georgia. Its inhabitants are mainly Armenians and Georgians who where relocated there from their home regions, where their villages got destroyed by lanslides between 1998 and 2005. Formerly, the region was mostly inhabited by Greeks, but they emegrated to Greece in masses during the 1990, thus the Georgians moved into their abandoned houses. Tensions between Georgian Svans and Adjars and Armenian-Greek older communities remain strong, although improvement occured since some years. Roads around Tsalka are in an advanced state of disprepair, contributing highly to isolate this curious highland place.