Friendship of Peoples Monument near Gudauri

The viewing platform with its mosaic wall stands on the Georgian Military Road just above Gudauri, right at the edge of the cliff over the gorge of the White Aragvi. The structure was put up in 1983 for the two-hundredth anniversary of the Treaty of Georgievsk and named the monument to the friendship of peoples. A semicircular wall of stone and concrete rests on wide arches, and its inner face is covered entirely with mosaic: the panel was assembled from designs by Zurab Tsereteli, and it lays out scenes from the history of Georgia and Russia in a bright, almost folk-print manner - horsemen, saints, suns, scenes of labour and of war. The smalt here is coarse, and the reds, ochres and blues have held for decades and read well even on an overcast day. A balcony is built under the arches, and from it the whole valley can be seen: green slopes, the loops of the switchback road and snowy peaks on the horizon. The site lies at about two thousand two hundred metres, the weather changes quickly, and clouds often pass straight through the platform. Stone benches are built against the wall, and the platform itself overhangs the drop by several metres. From here the road climbs further to the Jvari Pass, the highest point of the whole route.

On the map