17 December 2021

What were once iconic views of Georgia’s beautiful Khada Valley are slowly disappearing. Now, when you drive up the damaged road towards a narrow, 12-kilometre-long gorge...the first thing you see is no longer the famous tower of Iukho village. Instead, a massive, white and blue metal construction site appears. Trucks, roaring and echoing through the mountains, drive back and forth near cultural heritage monuments to provide materials for the Kvesheti-Kobi road towards Russia.

But scientists fear that it is not only the views that will be damaged by this massive infrastructure project.

Despite complaints from the local population and experts on cultural heritage, tourism development, and other areas, the construction of the controversial North-South Corridor (Kvesheti-Kobi) Road has started. On October 2021, the Georgian government and international bank representatives festively kicked off the digging of a 9-kilometre tunnel in in Kobi. This tunnel will link Kobi with the area of Zakatkari near Khada valley, which although it has not been studied by archeologists for the road project, nevertheless contains human traces from the Neolithic era...

The North-South Corridor Road project is funded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and implemented by the Roads Department of Georgia. The total cost will be up to USD 558 million, with the EBRD issuing a USD 60 million loan and the ADB a USD 415 million loan. The road envisages the construction of five tunnels and six bridges...

In 2020, the UNESCO-associated organisation International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) declared that Khada valley’s cultural heritage is at risk due to the Kvesheti-Kobi Road Project...