South Tyrol and South Ossetia: commonality – 1

by Oleg Kusov

I did not come to Brener Autobahn, the highway connecting Germany, Austria and Italy, by accident. I spent some winter days at sea. The closest sea to my house was the Adriatic. The most suitable city for such a walk is Venice. Internet maps helped find out that the Italian coastal City of Trieste is 20 km closer to Prague, but is less popular than Venice. Despite the navigator saying that the shortest route is Prague-Saltsburg-Lienz-Venice, I took the shortest route Prague-Innsbruck-Verona-Venice. It was faster and more expensive, I had to use a fee paying autobahn.

You can enjoy the snowy mountain lines from a hotel on the south-eastern outskirts of Innsbruck. It is obviously beautiful. But curiosity was not changing into fascination. I tried to walk to the snowy line. I knew why. I was lucky to grow up at the south-eastern part of Vladikavkaz with only 15 km to the Glavny Kavkazasky Gorge. Icy rocks of the Stolovaya Mountain, the white cap of Kazbek, their peaks were shining in the sun in the morning. The home window shows grandeur mountains, inspiring many artists, including the author of the “Kazbek” painting. And now my window shows the Alps. I did not see anything good for myself in the “victory” of Vladikavkaz landscape. Travelling great distance, paying road fees, for European gas, wasting energy and time to realize that native Caucasus mountains are a lot more picturesque than the Alpine is a type of feasting victory. But the sense of superiority of the native over foreign did not last long. I was destined to compare and then the Alps started to gain superiority. I will pay attention to only some of them.

There are certainly no highways like Brener Autobahn in the Caucasus. Construction workers managed to built a wide and safe road at the very center of a wide gorge. The autobahn in tall mountains gave a feeling of flight over slopes at some points. It was built without cracks and patches. The car passed the crossing without notice. There was the old free serpentine highway. Locals used it. I wanted to try it out of curiosity. But I was put off by asphalt covered in snow and two-line traffic. The route from Innsbruck to Venice was 450 km long and was about to take the whole day. The advantage of European roads is that you can buy speed and comfort (about 14 km of the autobahn cost 1 euro).

Comparisons kept occurring in my head. Cozy restaurants with shops, telephones to call emergency services. A cable car passed with staring people so low that the feeling of road extreme disappeared. Skiers were going down right next to the autobahn. And not a single police officer! I passed a bus with armed law enforcers in Italy’s Trento. They looked as though they care about nothing, except the beautiful mountain landscapes. The bus had a sign Carabinieri. There are a lot more armed people in the Caucasus.

The rough snowy rocks of Austria’s Alps switched to flat slopes on the Italian side. Suvorov and his army had a lot more difficulties in passing the Alps than me in the Nissan Qashqai on the autobahn. Surikov’s dramatic picture gives a sense of dramatic effect of the Swiss Campaign. Judging by the icy slopes, the artist depicted Russian troops on the northern, Swiss part of the Alps. The southern slopes in Italy are a lot warmer and softer.

I came up to another analogy. The natural landscape on the Innsbruck-Verona road reminded me of the Vladikavkaz-Tskhinvali road. The north is snowy, with rough rocks, the south has warm slopes and coniferous forests. Moreover, I realized I was on my way to the historic region of Tyrol. The region at the south-eastern part of the Alps splits into the Austrian Tyrol and the Italian autonomous regions of South Tyrol and Trento. South Tyrolians fought for the independence of Italy in 1960s. They wanted to join their brothers living over the gorge in Austria. This is just as South Ossetians’ decision to free themselves from control of Tbilisi to join the northern ones, living over the gorge in Russia. Not only is the nature here similar, but the fate of peoples too. Tyrol, just as Ossetia, was split by mountains into different climatic conditions and states. Relations between South Tyrolians and Italians used to be the same as between South Ossetians and Georgians. The analogies made me look sideways more attentively, searching for expressive traits of modern Tyrol, a place that suffered from the same problem for over 40 years some Caucasus regions suffer today. Life has given me another surprise by setting my journey through such an illuminating region.

To be continued.