Svaneti

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Coordinates: 43 ° 4 ′ 10 ″  N , 42 ° 34 ′ 10 ″  E

Historical region of Lower Swanetia in Georgia
Historical Upper Svaneti Region in Georgia
Forest areas in Upper Svaneti
Svaneti fortified tower

Svaneti ( Georgian სვანეთი / Swaneti) is a historical-geographical region in northern Georgia in the Greater Caucasus . Svaneti is historically viewed as a culturally closed space with a special history and architecture as well as other specific social and economic conditions. Politically, Svaneti is today divided into the regions of Mingrelia and Upper Svaneti and Ratscha-Letschchumi and Lower Svaneti within Georgia . The most important city in Svaneti is Mestia , the administrative capital of Upper Svaneti . Svaneti is one of the most popular travel destinations in Georgia and is best known for its largely untouched mountain landscape and the special architecture of its mountain villages such as Kala, Mulachi and Ushguli (Ushguli). Svaneti was therefore recognized by UNESCO as a special cultural landscape with Ushguli, in particular the district of Tschaschaschi, which was declared a world cultural heritage .

Location, political structure and natural area of ​​Svaneti

The view into the upper river valley of the Zcheniszqali shows the pasture areas typical of Svaneti.

Svaneti is located in northwest Georgia and borders from the south on the republics of Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria of the Russian Federation . A distinction is made between Upper Svaneti (Georgian Zemo Swaneti ) and Lower Svanetia (Kvemo Svaneti). These two regions as parts of the respective administrative units Mingrelia and Upper Svaneti (Samegrelo-Semo Svaneti) and Ratscha-Letschchumi and Lower Svaneti (Racha-Letschchumi da Kwemo Svaneti) are separated by the Svaneti Mountains . In Upper Svaneti, around 14,600 people live along the main valley of the Enguri ( Mestia municipality ), and a good 9,000 in Lower Svaneti ( Lentechi municipality ). Lower Svaneti lies between the Svaneti and Letschchumi mountains in the valley of the Zcheniszqali . In Svaneti, the number of inhabitants has fallen sharply since the end of the 1980s as a result of emigration for ecological and economic reasons. The emigration took place mainly to Niederkartlien ( Kvemo Kartli ), a region south of Tbilisi. A current population number cannot be given with certainty, as the people mostly remain registered in their home region despite emigration and have now started to migrate back due to the growing tourism to Upper Svaneti. In addition to Upper and Lower Svaneti, Swans have settled in the Kodori Valley , a longitudinal valley also known as the Dali Gorge, and which lies in the Republic of Abkhazia, which has split off from Georgia, since the 19th century . In the course of the Georgian military intervention under President Mikheil Saakashvili against the breakaway republic of Ossetia in 2008, these Svanes were driven out of the Kodori Valley by Abkhaz and Russian military units and migrated to Lower Cartlia and Upper Svaneti.

The highest mountain in Svaneti (and thus in the whole of Georgia) is the 5193  m high Shchara in the main ridge of the Greater Caucasus on the border with Russia . In addition, the peaks of Tetnuldi ( 4858  m ) and Ushba ( 4710  m ) shape the landscape of Upper Svaneti. The structure of the Svaneti mountainous region ranges from different forest levels (spruce and fir, beech, hornbeam and oriental hornbeam forests and birch forests) to alpine meadows to a rocky and glacier zone, with the relief running along the two main rivers Enguri and Zcheniszqali great ruggedness is characterized by deeply incised, sometimes difficult to access side valleys and high mountain passes. Swanetien has a high biodiversity and a number of endemic species of plants (including the bell flower Campanula engurensis that thistle Lamyropsis charadzeae and the finger herb Potentilla svanetica ). The upper tree line is around 2200 meters, whereby it should be noted that this is 200 to 300 meters lower than the natural limit due to centuries-old pasture management and logging and the slopes facing the sun are characterized by significantly lower logging, around the slopes near the settlement an arable one To make usage accessible. Natural risks for people such as heavy rain or heavy snowfall, avalanches, landslides and mudslides are closely related to the natural environment. Sustainable forms of forestry are only just emerging.

The climate in the middle areas is humid with cold winters and cold spells that extend well into the summer. In the higher areas the number of warm months decreases, in the highest areas there is no real summer. In the lower elevations of Enguri and Zcheniszqali, winters are moderate and the number of summer months is increasing.

Svaneti as a cultural space

In Georgia to this day it is widespread to ascribe certain mentalities or ways of life to ethnic and regional groups. And it is also common among Georgian scholars to associate certain traditional social ideas with certain ethnic groups. Because of their special historical references, swans are often seen as the bearer and keeper of Georgian culture in a certain pure, unchanged form. However, the people living across Georgia who see themselves as Swans and are referred to as such from the outside are of course far from being a homogeneous group. In the Swanish self-perception, too, this leads to seeing oneself as a group that differs from others and seeing oneself as a group that is in a certain way free with its own rules, laws and ways of life. Current surveys of the Caucasus Barometer from 2017 show that 74% of the population of Georgia are still convinced that it is important for a good citizen to preserve and protect traditions.

Historical references

When it comes to the Swans as a population group or Svaneti as a space, scientific and popular scientific literature repeatedly refer to certain historical events or phases that are used to characterize what is seen as typical of the region and its population or what is specific Way to distinguish.

The Swans are mentioned by both the Greeks and the Romans. In the 4th century BC The Greek chronicler Xenophon describes the Swans. Presumably they moved in the 3rd century BC. From the plains to the remote mountain regions. The Swans were described as a warlike people by the Greek geographer Strabo (63 BC - 23 AD).

The Principality of Svaneti became part of the Georgian Kingdom around the 12th century during the so-called Golden Age between the 11th and 13th centuries. After the break-in of Mongolian forces, the Georgian kingdom increasingly split into many regional rulers with individual feudal lords. In the 15th century, the Principality of Dadeschkeliani- Svaneti arose in western Upper Svanetia, the Principality of Lower Svaneti (after the princely family who ruled both Mingrelia and Guria in the Middle Ages , also called Dadiani- Svanetia ) and the so-called Free Svaneti in eastern Upper Svanetia . The latter enjoyed a high degree of autonomy because there was no family line there that was so strong that it would have essentially determined the political and economic conditions. The entire Enguri valley from Mestia onwards can best be described at this time as an association of independent village communities, each with its own administration, its own jurisdiction and the ability to implement community-related political acts. Svaneti was associated with the Georgian empires throughout the Middle Ages, despite its remote location. In Upper Svaneti alone, over 100 Georgian Orthodox churches were built in the Middle Ages , most of them at the height of church architecture between the 9th and 13th centuries.

Between 1857 and 1859 Lower Svaneti was annexed by the Russian Empire . Upper Svaneti followed in 1864. In 1864 the German naturalist Gustav Radde toured the region.

View of the Zcheniszqali in Lower Svaneti shortly before the pass towards Upper Svaneti towards the Enguri Valley.
View of the Zcheniszqali in Lower Swanetia shortly before the pass in the direction of Upper Swanetia towards the Enguri Valley.

Already under the influence of the Russian Empire during the Caucasus Wars (1817–1864) and the Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918–1921), there were strong efforts to dissolve traditional legal ideas, as they are spread throughout Georgia and especially in Svaneti and effective in everyday life were, e.g. B. in the form of community assemblies, councils of elders and mediation courts, because they stand in the way of the modernization of society and the implementation of central government law.

During the time of the Soviet Union , these efforts were continued and deepened with the establishment of Soviet courts and the implementation of criminal proceedings to implement the Marxist-Leninist ideology, but met with strong resistance from the population of Svaneti and the rest of the population of Georgia, because the Soviet system was predominantly Colonial power was perceived. In the Caucasus in particular, the introduction of the Soviet legal system did not take place consistently, as the courts and prosecutors were simply overwhelmed by the multitude of possible cases. At the same time, traditional legal bodies such as councils of elders and mediator courts were always retained. Until the end of the Soviet Union, cases are documented for Svaneti in which people were both members of a Soviet legal institution and also worked in traditional mediatorial courts, which was actually excluded. This was due to the fact that in Soviet Georgia a distinction was established between capital crimes and anti-Soviet crimes, the negotiation and condemnation of which the state rigorously attracted and so-called private matters, in which the parties were allowed to seek an extrajudicial agreement, e.g. B. via instances of traditional law.

Another momentous event in the history of Svaneti was the ecological and social catastrophe in the winter of 1986/87, which was caused by continuous, unusually heavy snowfall and as a result, depending on the sources, 80 to 100 people lost their lives in Upper and Lower Svaneti lost. As a result, around 16,000 people were evacuated and permanently resettled in other regions of Georgia, mainly in villages in Kvemo Kartli , south of Tbilisi.

Mestia, the administrative capital of Svaneti around 1900.
An elder's chair (makhushi) in the private ethnographic museum of a family in Zhibiani (Ushguli).
An elder's chair (makhushi) in the private ethnographic museum of a family in Zhibiani (Ushguli).

The devastating time of the secession wars and civil war after 1990 for the people of Georgia also affected Svaneti through z. B. the resettlement of swans from Abkhazia is significant. The local economy was reduced to subsistence farming. The supply of products from humanitarian aid and the supply of the residents by relatives from other parts of the country represented a vital addition. The people commuting between mountain villages and other regions of Georgia were constantly exposed to the danger of being robbed by militias, paramilitaries and armed gangs. It was not until 1995 that the state succeeded in gradually bringing the mountain region back under rule of law over the next 10 years.

Traditional legal ideas and legal practices

It is widely recognized among Georgian scholars that the main source of medieval law in the earlier kingdoms of the Caucasus was oral legal systems. Individual elements from it have a high degree of persistence up to the present day, so that traditional legal concepts still regulate the daily dealings between the individual and the community, especially in rural regions.

Current studies on traditional law distinguish four dimensions of the Swan's traditional understanding of law: a social dimension, a practical or an action dimension, a religious dimension and a moral dimension. Thus, traditional legal concepts are highly integrated into the everyday practices of daily life in that they regulate the social life of families and the more distant members of the lineage within and across the village communities. Associated with this are the social roles of men and women, inheritance and marriage practices, ideas about how to deal with one another in the family with principles such as respect for the views and decisions of the elderly. These principles or rules of conduct also have a moral dimension. I.e. Values ​​such as honesty, a sense of honor, trust and the belief in the importance of the family are associated with strong moral feelings and are often additionally anchored in religious practices.

One of the main reasons for the persistence of traditional ideas among Swans is seen in the Swan understanding of ancestry ( gvari as male lineages of the father), which is directly linked to the right to property on land. This results in procedures or practices that regulate the negotiation of property relationships between family lines, which in turn arise from marriage relationships (division of the gvari into so-called brotherhoods, samkhub or lamkhub as branches of the male lineage, whose members are viewed as brothers). The family branches of the same surname are referred to as temi on the one hand, and all areas of a locality as a territorial unit on the other. The family lineages are thus strongly inscribed in the entire cultural landscape of Svaneti, which is why even the restrictive Soviet system was not able to implement collectivization in the last instance in such a way that the way people deal with the land they cultivated broke away from traditional notions of property.

As a result of the disintegration of the Georgian state after the collapse of the Soviet Union, including in the Georgian-Abkhazian war (Georgia, Georgian-Abkhazian war), there were violent processes in Svaneti such as blood feuds, bride robbery, robberies by robber gangs, arbitrary land distribution and land seizure, which the Violent practitioners often carried out by invoking traditional law. By the local population, however, these acts were mostly seen as a violation of Svanese standards of honor, because they obviously served to implement the power interests of local elites.

The wooden body of the balcony of a guest house in Upper Svaneti shows the Soviet insignia hammer and sickle.

Institutions of traditional Svana law are community gatherings chaired by an elder ( makhushi ), within which community interests such as fraud, violation of religious norms or marriage matters as well as individual interests such as harming another person, theft or defamation are discussed. So-called mediation courts analyze conflicts and try to find a balance between interests. There are no fixed content rules or texts that are referred to. Each case is renegotiated, which means that the practice of negotiation, ie the process of establishing equality and justice, is of central importance (practice or action structure).

The central practice for the implementation of traditional law is the oath on the icon ( khatze dapitseba ). For the believer, this represents a kind of contract that the swearer enters into with God, e.g. B. to prove his innocence, to assure a certain behavior to be changed towards the community or a compensation payment towards the injured party. Thus the practice of the oath on the icon represents the highest moral authority in the Svaneti legal and community understanding. The elders or mediators also swear by the icon in order to gain recognition from the parties (e.g. in the oath to treat all parties impartially and equally, tanastsorobis pitsi ).

The fact that dealing with icons is such a central element of everyday life also has consequences for other religious practices. These are strongly interwoven with popular religious elements and are therefore rarely led by official priests of Georgian Orthodoxy, but carried out in everyday life by family elders in residential buildings or the small churches known for Svaneti.

Religious Practices: Georgian Orthodoxy and Popular Religious Traits

In the imagination of religious swans, death is only separated from life by a “thin wall”. They believe that their loved ones who have died take care of the salvation of the still living. That is why the living also care for the salvation of the dead. This wall metaphor can be read particularly well in the Swan religious buildings . On the inner walls of many Svaneti churches - as is usual in the Orthodox Church - saints can be seen, while secular personalities such as kings are depicted on the outside. Services in Svaneti are mostly held outside the church and not inside it. The space within the church is reserved for the souls of the deceased. The highlight of the memory of the deceased and the honoring of their souls is the annual Lipanali festival. If a person dies outside of his home, his soul wanders around freely and has to be captured and brought back. One of the funeral rituals in this case is that the three-stringed Fidel Tschuniri is played at the place of his death until dawn , so that the soul then returns to the house with the procession.

The Lamaria Monastery in Ushguli (Upper Svaneti) is one of the most important religious sites in Georgia.
The Lamaria Monastery in Ushguli (Upper Svaneti) is one of the most important religious sites in Georgia.

The Swans have an idea of ​​fate, according to which an infant receives an invisible writing on the forehead that determines when and in what way he will die. If the baby dies very early, it is said that he died "without writing on the forehead". Signs of fate appear in different ways in Caucasian folk poetry.

Characteristic of the Svaneti culture are circle dances with a mythological background, which often deal with hunting and fertility. In Svaneti more than anywhere else in Georgia, pre-Christian ideas have been preserved. Only here is the angi harp from the Iranian highlands played, which was widespread in the Middle Ages.

Svaneti economic area: agriculture and forestry, energy generation, tourism

Agriculture with arable farming and cattle breeding has always been the most important form of economy in Svaneti and today still ensures basic supplies for the majority of the population. Livestock is raised at a low production level, but it is of great importance as an additional source of income that goes beyond subsistence farming (meat, milk and dairy products). However, due to the fragmentation and limitation of the available areas in the narrow valleys, no significant increases are to be expected even with the introduction of modern methods. Among the field crops, only the potato is suitable for market production; However, the small average field size and a lack of mechanization also set limits here. Nevertheless, the knowledge of increasing production through collective forms of production, which goes back to the Soviet era, can be seen as market potential - however, cooperative forms of organization have not yet been adopted by the population.

The view of a row of houses in Chwibiani (Ushguli) shows the typical agricultural use of Upper Svaneti with potato fields and pastures.
From August to autumn in Ushguli (Upper Svaneti, Caucasus), pastures are mowed for cattle feeding in winter.
From August to autumn in Ushguli (Upper Svaneti, Caucasus), pastures are mowed for cattle feeding in winter.

The forest is used to obtain firewood and construction wood. The majority of the logging is illegal against the background of the continuation of the nationalization of forest areas from the Soviet era. Sustainable forest management is only just emerging. The marketing of carvings and furniture for tourism could represent a perspective for sustainable forest use. Without improved heating methods and insulation of the houses and a connection to Svaneti to the gas supply for heating and cooking, the forest areas remain increasingly endangered.

The potential for the use of regenerative energies in the field of hydropower is high, even if the establishment of new hydropower plants is controversial for ecological, political and social reasons. The largest hydroelectric power plant in the South Caucasus is the Enguri power plant, the dam of which is also the highest arch dam in the world with a length of 271.50 m. Turkey is already the largest consumer of electricity from a number of other hydropower plants in Georgia. However, the power supply in Svaneti is not always secured due to the insufficient solvency of the municipalities. The mountain villages in particular are always completely cut off from electricity for several days in winter.

Against the background of a rich cultural and ecological heritage, development potential for Svaneti is seen especially in tourism as hiking and cultural tourism. Attracted by the World Heritage status, it leads to at least a summer revitalization of dilapidated towns and thus represents the basic condition for a sustainable preservation of the cultural landscape. According to the Tourism Center in Mestia, the number of visitors increased from under 9,000 in 2011 to over 26,000 in 2014 to.

The challenges associated with this are highlighted in numerous current publications that emphasize both the need for economically and socially sustainable approaches and the particular threat to the architectural heritage through human influence as well as the threat to the structural substance through natural events such as avalanches and mudslides or landslides highlight.

As a result of the competitive pressure caused by the organization of renting via online platforms, the prices for accommodation in Svaneti are permanently too low, so that providers of private accommodation in particular hardly receive sufficient value for their investments in view of the high interest rates on small loans. The increasing number of seasonal returnees from Kvemo Kartli also increases the competitive pressure. In addition, the amount of rubbish generated by tourists is steadily increasing, which is also exacerbated by the fact that even Mestia, as the administrative capital of Upper Svaneti, does not have a sewage treatment system. Currently (as of 2019) there are no studies and findings on whether and to what extent tourists are aware of the particular ecological and social threats to the region from unsustainable tourist practices and behavior.

literature

  • Tony Anderson: Bread and Ashes. A Walk through the Mountains of Georgia . Vintage Random House: London 2004.
  • Heinz Fähnrich : Fairy tales from Svaneti . Suedverlag, Konstanz 1992, ISBN 3-87800-014-6 .
  • Lavrenti Janiashvili: Traditional Law in Soviet Times . Caucasus Analytical Digest 42 , 2012, pp. 5-7.
  • Wolfgang Korall: Svaneti - farewell to time . Kraft, Würzburg 1991, ISBN 3-8083-2005-2 .
  • Benno Pludra: How I wanted to travel to Svaneti . Children's book publisher, Berlin 1974.
  • Werner Rietdorf: Trip to the Caucasus. West Caucasus. Svaneti. Elbrus region . Verlag Simon, Pullach 1990, ISBN 3-7972-0168-0 .
  • Brigitta Schrade: Treasury of Svaneti: The restoration program of Stichting Horizon 1997-2006 in Georgia (with photos by Rolf Schrade) / Art treasury of Svaneti: The restoration program of Stichting Horizon in Georgia (with photos by Rolf Schrade) . Stichting Horizon, Rolf Schrade, Naarden / Netherlands, Mahlow near Berlin 2008.

Web links

Traditional dance
Commons : Svaneti  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Applis: The cultural (world) heritage Svaneti. An overview. In: stefan-applis-geographien.com. 2019, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Vinzenzo Pavan: Svaneti Towers, Fortified Stone Villages in the Caucasus. In: Glocal Stone. VeronaFiere - 46th Marmomacc Fair. 2011, accessed April 23, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Stefan Applis: River bed with ski terrace in Unterswanetien. 2015, accessed April 23, 2019 .
  4. ^ National Statistics Office of Georgia: Statistics on the Regions of Georgia. Statistical Office of Georgia, accessed April 23, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Stefan Applis: Tourism sustains, and threatens, Georgia's highland heritage. Tales of an authentic society living at the edge of time fail to account for higher living standards in the Soviet heyday. In: eurasianet.org. 2018, accessed on April 23, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Stéphane Voell, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili, Elke Kamm: Traditional Law as Social Practice and Cultural Narrative: Introducion. In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus. Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Cupueira, Marburg 2016, p. 21 .
  7. ↑ Nana Bolashvili, Andreas Dittmann, Lorenz King, Vazha Neidze: National Atlas of Georgia. Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2018, p. 75 .
  8. ↑ Nana Bolashvili, Andreas Dittmann, Lorenz King , Vazha Neidze: National Atlas of Georgia . Franz Steiner, Stuttgart 2018, p. 73 .
  9. ^ Jörg Stadelbauer: The Caucasus Natural Area . In: Eastern Europe (Ed.): Grenzland. Conflict and Cooperation in the South Caucasus . tape 65 , no. 7-11 , 2015, pp. 15th ff .
  10. ↑ Lavrenti Janiashvili: Traditional Law in Soviet Times. Caucasus Analytical Digest 42, accessed April 23, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Stéphane Voell, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili, Elke Kamm: Traditional Law as Social Practice and Cultural Narrative: Introducion . In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus. Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Cupueira, Marburg 2016, p. 20 u. 61 .
  12. ↑ Caucasus Barometer
  13. ↑ Stéphane Voell, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili, Elke Kamm: Traditional Law as Social Practice and Cultural Narrative: Introducion . In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus. Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Curupira, Marburg 2016, p. 21 .
  14. ↑ Kevin Tuite: Lightning, Sacrifice, and Possession in the Traditional Religions of the Caucasus (Continued from Anthropos 99. 2004: 143-159. ) In: Anthropos , Vol. 99, Issue 2, 2004, pp. 481-497, here P. 489
  15. ↑ Lavrenti Janiashvili: Traditional legal practice in Sovjet times . In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus: Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Curupira, Marburg 2016, p. 90 ff .
  16. ↑ Tamara Dragadze: Rural Families in Soviet Georgia: A Case Study in Racha Province . Routledge, London 1988.
  17. ↑ Lavrenti Janiashvili: Traditional Law in Soviet Times . Ed .: Caucasus Analytical Digest 42. No. 6 .
  18. ↑ Stéphane Voell, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili, Elke Kamm: Traditional Law as Social Practice and Cultural Narrative: Introducion . In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus. Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Curupira, Marburg 2016, p. 26 .
  19. ↑ Stefan Applis: Interior of a Machubi as an ethnographic museum in Zhibiani (Ushguli). 2018, accessed April 23, 2019 .
  20. ^ Jan Köhler: Parallel and integrated legal systems in a post-Soviet periphery: Svaneti in the High Caucasus. Freie Universität Berlin, 1999, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  21. ↑ Lavrenti Janiashvili: Traditional legal practice in Sovjet times . In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus: Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Curupira, Marburg 2016, p. 83 f .
  22. ^ Stéphane Voell: Local Legal Conceptions in Svan Villages in the Lowlands . Ed .: Caucasus Analytical Digest. tape 42 , 2012, p. 2 .
  23. ↑ Stéphane Voell, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili, Elke Kamm: Traditional Law as Social Practice and Cultural Narrative: Introducion . In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus. Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Curupira, Marburg.
  24. ↑ Stefan Applis: Teimuraz Nizharadze - the last director of the Ushguli sovkhoz. In: stefan-applis-geographien.com. 2019, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  25. ↑ Lavrenti Janiashvili: Traditional legal practice in Sovjet times . In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus: Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Curupira, Marburg 2016, p. 92-97 .
  26. ^ Jan Köhler: Parallel and integrated legal systems in a post-Soviet periphery: Svaneti in the High Caucasus . Ed .: Free University of Berlin. Berlin 1999, p. 2-5 .
  27. ↑ a b Stefan Applis: Soviet insignia in the balcony of the Zhareda guest house in Ushguli. 2018, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  28. ↑ Stéphane Voell, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili, Elke Kamm: Traditional Law as Social Practice and Cultural Narrative: Introducion . In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus. Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Curupira, Marburg 2016, p. 41 .
  29. ↑ Stéphane Voell, Natia Jalabadze, Lavrenti Janiashvili, Elke Kamm: Traditional Law as Social Practice and Cultural Narrative: Introducion . In: Stéphane Voell (Ed.): Traditional Law in the Caucasus. Local Legal Practices in the Georgian Lowlands . Curupira, Marburg 2016, p. 42 .
  30. ↑ Elguja Dadunashvili: Popular religious practices among the Swans . In: G2W Ecumenical Forum for Faith, Religion and Society in East and West. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. No. 6, Zurich 2011, pp. 24–26 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ascn.ch
  31. ↑ Stefan Applis: Soviet insignia in the balcony of the Zhareda guest house in Ushguli. 2018, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  32. ↑ Amiran Arabuli: Metaphors of Fate in Georgian Folk Poetry and Literature. Ethnographic notes from before the 21st century. In: Anthropos, Vol. 98, Issue 1, 2003, pp. 152–157, here p. 155
  33. ↑ Joseph Jordania: Georgia . In: Thimothy Rice, James Porter, Chris Goertzen (Eds.): Garland Encyclopedia of World Music . Volume 8: Europe. Routledge, New York / London 2000, p. 839
  34. ↑ Eric Engel, Henrica von der Behrens, Dorian Frieden, Karen Möhring, Constanze Schaaff, Philipp Tepper, Ulrike Müller & Siddarth Prakash: Strategic Options towards Sustainable Development in Mountainous Regions. A Case Study on Zemo Svaneti, Georgia. In: SLE Publication Series. Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture, 2006, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  35. ↑ Stefan Applis: Soviet insignia in the balcony of the Zhareda guest house in Ushguli. 2018, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  36. ^ Jörg Stadelbauer: The Caucasus Natural Area. Diversity, contrasts, risks . In: Eastern Europe (Ed.): Grenzland. Conflict and Cooperation in the South Caucasus . tape 65 , no. 7-11 , pp. 38 .
  37. ↑ Eric Engel, Henrica von der Behrens, Dorian Frieden, Karen Möhring, Constanze Schaaff, Philipp Tepper, Ulrike Müller & Siddarth Prakash: Strategic Options towards Sustainable Development in Mountainous Regions. A Case Study on Zemo Svaneti, Georgia . In: Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture (Ed.): SLE Publication Series . Mestia, Berlin 2006, p. 40-45 .
  38. ^ Jörg Stadelbauer: The Caucasus Natural Area. Diversity, contrasts, risks . In: Eastern Europe (Ed.): Grenzland. Conflict and Cooperation in the South Caucasus . tape 65 , no. 7-11 , 2015, pp. 38 .
  39. ↑ Marianna Cappucci & Luca Zarilli: New trends in mountain and heritage tourism: The case of upper svaneti in the context of georgian tourist sector. Geojournal of Tourism and Geosites 15 (1), 2015, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  40. ↑ Stefan Applis: Tourism sustains, and threatens, Georgia's highland heritage. Tales of an authentic society living at the edge of time fail to account for higher living standards in the Soviet heyday. eurasianet.org, 2018, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  41. ↑ Antoni Tarragüel: Developing an approach for analyzing the possible impact of natural hazards on cultural heritage: a case study in the Upper Svaneti region of Georgia. Thesis paper. University of Twente. Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, 2011, accessed April 24, 2019 .
  42. ↑ Frieder full & Jan Mosedal: Political-Economic Transition in Georgia and its implications for tourism in Svaneti. Researchgate, 2015, accessed April 24, 2019 .