Sno Valley and Tower

The Sno valley is what most people drive past on the way to Juta, and it deserves a stop of its own. A few kilometres south of Stepantsminda the highway crosses the Snostskali, and a paved side road turns up a broad, treeless valley of grey river gravel and hay meadow, with the Kazbegi massif standing behind you.

Sno village, five kilometres in, has two things worth the walk. The first is its tower: a square four-storey watchtower of the late medieval period, standing alone on a rock outcrop in the middle of the village, restored and one of the best preserved in Khevi. It is small, plain and perfectly placed — from the top of the outcrop the whole valley is visible in both directions, which was the entire idea.

The second is easier to miss. In a field below the village lies a scatter of large boulders carved into portrait heads: Georgian writers, poets and public figures, cut into the natural stone by the sculptor Merab Piranishvili over many years. There are no labels, no fence and no explanation. Most drivers pass without noticing them.

Sno is also the ancestral village of Ilia II, the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, which explains the disproportionate amount of church building here for a settlement of this size.

Beyond the village the asphalt runs on a short way and then gives out, and the track towards Juta begins. Sno is also where much of Khevi's hay is cut, and in August the meadows are full of stacked cocks and people working with hand scythes, which is worth ten minutes of anyone's time.

The valley itself changes completely with the light: flat and grey at midday, while in the last hour before sunset the grass turns gold and the ridges opposite go violet.