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T. White - Nov 13, 2021 9:00 am - Voted 10/10
Very sad.I'm sorry to hear this. What a shame.
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Hiking, Mountaineering, Trad Climbing, Ice Climbing, Big Wall, Mixed, Scrambling |
Attention! Svaneti / Georgia robbery ALERT
Everyone considering going to Georgia for such reasons as backpacking or hiking or mountain climbing, please be advised!
The wave of crimes in which the tourists are the victims is rising in Georgia. There were at least 4 cases in the region of Becho village in Svaneti during the last two months. Very alarming is the reaction of the Georgian police. Tourism is the only source of income for the whole region (Svaneti do not produce anything except the tourist service). Nevertheless, local police neither investigate crimes, nor inform the new visitors about danger. The information of crimes is concealed by police, and that provokes the new, more serious crimes.
Preparing to climb Mount Ushba our team got into that accident in late September 2021. We were totally robbed right at the base of Ushba route, while sleeping in the Base Camp. The thieves got everything - climbing gear, clothing, cameras, documents, leaving a group almost naked. The total impact of the rubbery exceeds 30.000 Euro. Local authorities said they are sorry -it was all the government support for the victims. The reaction of the Georgian police was totally surprising - they have literally refused to act. The excuse for them (as the police officially state) was that the tourists provoked the locals by leaving their stuff unprotected outside of the tents (but the most valuable things like cameras, money and laptops were taken from the car). Also the police apply to the fact that such an accident happened in the area for the first time - which was a lie as we found a couple of days later. We were the forth group robbed in the area during the summer season 2021 (also we have got info about two more incidents in which the thieves were spooked by tourists). This could be only the tip of the iceberg as we got info from the open sources and related forums, not from the officials.The conclusion of our story is quite alarming. The Georgian police service revived and reformed by Michael Saakashvili in 2005 was quite effective for the 10 consequent years facilitating the development of the convenient tourist infrastructure. But at the moment, this police structure got corrupted and is getting back to its primary pre-reforming condition — which was a totally useless and corrupted structure.
Such a state of things is absolutely unacceptable and dangerous. Tourism in the country could work only on one main and uncompromising condition of the personal safety of every tourist coming to Georgia.The situation we recently discovered in Georgia in the summer 2021 makes the overview very different from the previous years. Now it becomes dangerous to travel in Svaneti, where the tourists are not protected by the government structures anymore.With a lot of pain, as I really love Georgia, I have to declare the following: until all the crimes against the tourists in Georgia are efficiently investigated and the criminals found and punished, the tourism in Georgia should be reduced to minimum or totally banned.
External Links
https://peterburg2.ru/news/gruppa-rossiyskoukrainskih-alpinistov-stala-zhertvoy-krupnogo-ogrableniya-v-gruzii-101022.html
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