The old Georgian Military Road

A slope in the Darial Gorge - a natural display for outdoor video projections

A steep rock is located on a spur of the Rocky Range, hanging over the Terek in a picturesque place in the Darial Gorge, 10 minutes' drive from the city of Vladikavkaz. The old (historical) Georgian Military Road once passed under it. The Georgian Military Road (in Ossetian Arvykomy fændag, literally: "the road of the Heavenly Gorge") — from the beginning of the 19th century, the name of the road through the Main Caucasian ridge connecting the cities of Vladikavkaz (North Ossetia) and Tbilisi (Georgia). It has been known since ancient times as the Darial Pass. The road follows an ancient historical path that connected the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia through the Darial Gorge, its description is available even among the ancient Greeks (Strabo).

The Georgian Military Highway played an important role in the development of economic ties between Russia and Transcaucasia. In different years A. Griboyedov, A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, Nicholas II, A. Chekhov, V. Mayakovsky passed through it

Interesting facts

In 1910-1914, it was planned to build an intercity tram line along the Georgian Military Highway from Vladikavkaz to Tiflis with a length of 202 km, providing power to the contact network with several mini-hydroelectric power plants, but the project was not implemented due to the outbreak of World War I.
Recently, this place has been chosen by people of contemporary art, who are planning to hold a media festival here aimed at acquainting the local public with the works of musicians, performers, and media artists. In 2019, as part of the closing of the 12th International Symposium "Alanica", organized by the "Alanica" Foundation and the North Caucasus Branch of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, a large-format projection of a video project of the performer, percussionist, jazz musician Sergei Tarasov dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Woodstock Music Festival was made on the slope.

Photo and video materials by Eugeny Ivanov
Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0)