When travelers go to the Pankisi Valley, the warnings often start before they arrive, usually from the mouth of a concerned taxi driver, not sure that they should drive tourists to this remote destination.
“‘Why are you going there? What are you doing? I don’t know, it’s not safe for you there,'” drivers say, according to Khatuna Margoshvili, owner of a guesthouse in the rugged and beautiful valley.
Pankisi in Georgia, the former Soviet country beyond the fringes of Eastern Europe, has long carried a reputation shaped more by news than tourism. In the early 2000s, Chechens who fled Moscow’s war on their homeland used the valley as a refuge. Russia alleged that some were ex-militants.
After the September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States claimed that al Qaeda operatives were present in Pankisi and speculated that Osama bin Laden was among them — allegations that have never been proven. The stigma increased in the 2010s, when ISIS recruited dozens of residents from the valley.
Today, it’s a different story, as visitors who make the trip are discovering. A 2023 report by the United States Agency for International Development described Pankisi as “peaceful,” and online searches for Pankisi Valley return listings for horseback riding tours, felting workshops and khinkali dough-making classes, rather than reports of Islamic extremism.
And while the US State Department continues to warn US citizens against traveling to the region, many are still making the trip.
“In the last two, three years, 80% of our guests came from America,” says Margoshvilli.
Unusual traditions
Pankisi in Georgia is the only place where women perform zikr, a rite rooted in Sufi mysticism. – Monique Jaques/Corbis/Getty Images
Tourism in Pankisi is still relatively new, and remains limited compared to more established destinations in Georgia. But the interest grew as the accommodations arose and the tourist operators began to include the valley in their itineraries.
Karolina Zygmanowska, a guide with Weekend Travelers Georgia, started organizing tours to Pankisi two years ago.
“People asked for the tour, so we started running it. The interest started after we heard that a number of guesthouses were opened there,” she says. “They have their own community, their own culture – their food is even a little different from other parts of Georgia.”
Most of the families living in the valley are Kists, descendants of Chechen and Ingush settlers who migrated to Georgia in the 19th century. They speak Chechen, along with Georgian and sometimes Russian. They follow Sufi and Sunni Muslim traditions in a predominantly Orthodox Christian country.
Every Friday, women from across the valley gather at the Old Mosque in the village of Duisi to perform zikr, a rite rooted in Sufi mysticism. Participants walk in a circle, singing, chanting and clapping as the pace gradually increases. Pankisi is the only place where women perform zikr, and visitors can ask to observe the ceremony.
Pankisi is close to Tusheti, a mountainous region already popular with hikers, but tourism in the valley itself is still taking shape. Over the past decade, community initiatives — many supported by foreign aid — have helped build a small tourism industry from scratch.
For some residents, the motivation to open up to tourists went beyond revenue. Margoshvilli is a member of the Pankisi Valley Tourism and Development Association (PVTDA), founded in 2018 by a group of women who hoped that tourism could help change the perceptions of the valley.
Their efforts have attracted international attention. In 2020, Lonely Planet included Pankisi in its guide to Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. That same year, Georgia’s tourism board began promoting the region on its website — just two years after a controversial counterterrorism raid in the valley.
Uncertain times
Guest house owner Khatuna Margoshvili says she is seeing more American visitors to Pankisi. – Askham poppy
Locals say unemployment has previously played a role in ISIS’s success in recruiting young people online, and the PVTDA describes tourism as “the only industry” currently available in the region. But the future of that industry is uncertain. A freeze on USAID funding, followed by the introduction by the Georgian government of a “foreign agents law” restricting the acceptance of foreign funds, has left development projects in limbo.
Margoshvilli received USAID support to open her guesthouse ten years ago. “We were one of the first in the valley to open,” she says. “We thought it would be possible to earn money, even though there were few tourists at that time.”
Other initiatives followed. Young people connected to the Roddy Scott Foundation — the valley’s English-language school and former recipient of USAID and EU grants — now work as tour guides during the summer season. The Pankisi Women’s Council, which also partnered with European and American donors, supported local entrepreneurship and vocational training.
“We have different projects, we have professional ones — sewing, woodworking, pottery, cooking, veterinary medicine and medical ones,” says Guliko Khangoshvilli, a member of the women’s council. “We also had tourism courses, so the locals could learn about tourism and how to open guesthouses.”
But the uncertainty weighs heavily. “We are still working without payment and waiting to see what will happen,” she says.
‘It was perfect’
Kitsuri Draft is a small Pankisi brewery that makes a traditional non-alcoholic drink that is sold throughout Georgia. – Askham poppy
Shenguli Tokhosashvilli is among those who benefited from an earlier investment. In 2017, the Pankisi native received a USAID grant to start Kisturi Draft, a small brewery that produces a traditional non-alcoholic Chechen drink made from rosehip and hawthorn. He left his job as a lawyer in Tbilisi to return home.
The product label features Tebulosmta, a mountain on the border of Georgia and Chechnya. “This beer is a tradition from the Chechen people in the past, our Chechen brothers,” says Tokhosashvilli.
Today, Kisturi Draft is sold locally and in restaurants in the Georgian capital Tbilisi and the Black Sea coastal city of Batumi. Visitors can sample the drink on the patio of the brewery in the village of Omalo, which has become a regular stop for tour groups. But Tokhosashvilli is cautious about expansion amid the freeze on foreign funding.
He said that few Georgians visit the valley. “My friends in Tbilisi asked me if they needed passports, or a special visa to visit Pankisi,” he says.
For foreign visitors, that reputation may come as a surprise. Joanna Horanin, who runs the travel blog The Blond Travels, visited Pankisi while traveling in Georgia.
“I really wanted to go somewhere where there aren’t too many tourists and it’s a bit more remote – somewhere with a simple village life experience,” she said.
“We did horse riding, a trip to a waterfall – and then when we got home, we had a khinkali meal. These were different, because usually they are with meat and mushrooms, but in Pankisi they were with nettles.”
“It was perfect. It was probably one of the best experiences we had in Georgia.”
She laughed about the valley’s reputation
“It seems dangerous,” she says. “And I had no idea about it.”
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