Around 300 years ago, people in the highlands of Khevsureti, a very remote region of the Caucasus mountains dotted with small villages and hamlets, observed a plague sweeping through their region. They called the plague Zhami, meaning time, and they plainly observed the communicability of the disease and understood that it was spreading from person to person. The communities devised a plan, isolation, no one would leave the villages and villagers would guard the entrances to these remote valleys preventing anyone from coming or going.

A view of the Khevsureti landscape from Ardoti

Within the villages, anyone who displayed symptoms of Zhami would leave their homes and shelter in small stone huts a reasonable distance away. These huts, not tall enough to even stand had a shelf inside for people to lay on. More often than not, these huts would become a final resting place as the individuals who were infected would likely die, but die alone, or among others already infected, ideally stopping the spread of the disease.

In some villages, such as Mutso and Anatori, the whole village eventually died, in others there were survivors who rebuilt their communities. The only visible legacy of the plague being the small stone huts visible on nearby hillsides, now filled with the skeletal remains of villagers.

That these villagers took upon themselves this level of self-sacrifice is impressive at face value, but when you compare it to our modern age, feels positively heroic, alien even. 300 years ago these villagers were sacrificing their lives for the greater good of the community when today we actively oppose wearing masks in public and life-saving vaccines.

Khevsur Pandemic Response

Can a rock band create peace in the South Caucasus? No.