Forty thousand years ago, the first bands of anatomically modern Homo sapiens roamed through this part of the Caucasus, inching toward an Asian continent undiscovered by the human mind. A thousand years ago, camel and horse caravans carrying precious goods from Asia to Anatolia and Europe curled around these rugged foothills of the Greater Caucasus range. And on a recent winter morning, the bustle of globalized culture—in the form of cars, oil pipelines, instant digital communications, and the trappings of modern tourism—stirred a haze of … antique wood-fire smoke.
What next?
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