The Last Towers

Svaneti, in the high Caucasus of northwestern Georgia, is one of the most remote inhabited places in Europe. In winter, the villages of the upper Enguri valley are cut off for months at a time. The ancient defensive towers built by the Svans - some standing for a thousand years - remain, as do the people who have always lived in their shadow. This series was made during a single winter visit to the region. What it tries to hold is the texture of a few days spent in a place where time moves differently - where a man walks the same road his grandfather walked, where horses move freely through snow that has buried the cars, where the mountains at dusk look exactly as they must have always looked. The Svaneti I found was a place where daily life continues much as it has for generations. Not untouched, but unhurried — shaped more by altitude and winter than by anything happening beyond the valley.