Highways & Landscape Georgia 2024
This photo series took shape during a serendipitous road trip through the Caucasus. Serendipitous, because after landing in Georgia, we quickly discovered that passenger trains were nearly nonexistent, and the marshrutkas—those local minibuses weaving through the countryside—didn't exactly inspire confidence. So, we opted for the second best opportunity that came our way: renting a car from a random guy's cousin.
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The contrast between old and new is perhaps nowhere more striking than in Georgia’s road system. While local drivers still navigate the crumbling remnants of Soviet-era roadways, a newly constructed, fully electrified highway network is steadily carving its way through the country. As we zigzagged around enormous potholes, trying not to fall through deteriorating bridges, truck after truck thundered across a sleek blue steel viaduct two hundred meters above the river.
Though, our greatest fears throughout the journey were massive potholes and unexpected speed bumps by day; and suddenly appearing cows and the confused pedestrian wandering on the streets at night.
Few places illustrate the impact of international connectivity—or the lack of it—as vividly as the Caucasus. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region shifted from being an integrated part of a vast empire to an isolated periphery. With little investment in road infrastructure and an ever-increasing number of vehicles—largely thanks to an influx of second-hand and damaged cars from Western Europe—Georgia gained the unfortunate distinction of having the highest number of road fatalities per capita in the wider European region. That began to change only after significant “safety measures” were introduced in 2010.
In recent years, international institutions have played a major role in reshaping Georgia’s transport infrastructure. Given the country’s strategic position along the emerging “Middle Corridor” for trade between China and Europe, large-scale projects like the East-West Highway and the Batumi–Kutaisi connection have been funded by the European Investment Bank (EIB), the World Bank (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
