GeorgiaOfficial tourism
Mamison Pass

Where empires and merchants once crossed

Mamison Pass

Why go

Mamison Pass (2,900m) is one of the Caucasus's great historical corridors, linking Racha to North Ossetia through a landscape of glaciers and alpine tundra. For centuries, Svan merchants drove cattle and salt through here; Soviet engineers later carved the Transcaucasian Highway, leaving a monument to ambition now crumbling into wilderness. The pass rewards those who value remoteness over comfort: no villages, no amenities, just the raw geometry of the Greater Caucasus and the silence of a closed border. It is worth the journey for the rare chance to stand on a road that once connected worlds, now suspended between function and forgetting.

On the ground See

  • The abandoned Soviet-era border checkpoint and its weathered mosaics
  • The Mamison Glacier, visible from the pass on clear days
  • The stone shepherd shelters (kalibis) still used by Racha herders in summer

Practical Know before you go

Accessible only July–September via 4WD from Oni; the Russian border is closed, so turn back at the Georgian checkpoint.

Last reviewed 25 August 2026 · reviewed quarterly