Living in Ushguli | 200 People Nearly 7,000 Feet Up, Cut Off by Snow Half the Year | 4K

Ushguli is a community of about 200 people high in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia, nearly 7,000 feet up beneath Shkhara, the country's highest peak. Snow covers it for about half the year, avalanches can close the only road down the valley, and the nearest hospital is about 30 miles away. So why do people stay? In this 4K documentary we climb inside a Svan tower built for blood feuds, see how families and cows shared one room through the winter, follow the hay down the mountain on wooden sleds, hear about the winter of 1987 that nearly emptied these valleys, sit down to kubdari and Svan salt, trace the glacier water to one of the tallest dams in the world, measure how far Ushguli really is, and watch the road come back to life in spring. Chapters: 0:00 Two hundred people, half a year of snow 2:16 Nearly 7,000 feet up 5:26 A family in the hamlets 7:14 Inside a Svan tower 10:12 Treasures and an oath 13:11 The Svan language and the hymn to the sun 14:57 Storing up for winter 16:43 A winter day 19:15 The winter of 1987 21:18 The Svan table 23:31 From glacier to power plant 24:39 The Distance 26:15 Summer and the visitors 28:01 If you go 29:35 A road, a phone signal, a choice 30:43 Back to the family 31:59 Why people stay Which would be hardest for you: six months of snow, a hospital two hours away, or a winter spent sharing your home with the cows? Tell us in the comments. Next on The Far Places: a country that is almost entirely mountains, where families still move their homes to the high pastures every summer. Sources include Geostat (2014 census), UNESCO World Heritage Centre (Upper Svaneti, 1996), the Svaneti Museum of History and Ethnography, UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, Georgia's Roads Department and Emergency Management Service reports, and Georgia Today. Figures are rounded and reflect the latest data we could find in 2026. #Ushguli #Georgia #TravelDocumentary