Challenges facing the mountain peoples of the Caucasus

Two geographers report on the current challenges facing the inhabitants of the Caucasus mountains on the borders of Russia and its southern neighbors, Georgia and Azerbaijan. The authors discuss the impacts of new post-Soviet borders and controls as well as unresolved conflicts in Nagorno-Karabakh, Chechnya, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and the Prigorodnyy district of North Ossetia, which have disrupted traditional ways of life and forced the peoples of the mountains to migrate or adjust their economic activities. Based on extensive field work in 2005-2006, and in the 1990s, they detect some signs of improvement in the new privatized environment after the difficult years of transition. However, the weak infrastructure of the region, combined with the high costs associated with development and modernization of peripheral locations, suggest that resettlement from the high mountains to the cities on the plains and piedmont is likely to continue.