I was in a tour van — called a “marshrutka” here — on my way to a hiking trip in Northern Georgia’s Truso Valley earlier this year when I first saw the Russia-Georgia Friendship Monument.
It’s an impressive if not gaudy decoration dominating the stunningly beautiful Devil’s Valley among the sprawling misty green Caucasus mountains. It was a joint project of the two countries, built in 1983 along the Georgia Military Road to celebrate “ongoing friendship” between what were then the Soviet states of Russia and Georgia, and the Treaty of Georgievsk‘s bicentennial anniversary.