42°30′15″N 44°27′14″E / 42.5042°N 44.4538°E
The Georgian Military Road or Georgian Military Highway is the historic name for a major route through the Caucasus from Georgia to Russia. Alternative routes across the mountains include the Ossetian Military Road and the Transcaucasian Highway.
The Caucasian War (Russian: Кавказская война, romanized: Kavkazskaya voyna) or the Caucasus War was a 19th-century military conflict between the Russian Empire and various peoples of the North Caucasus who resisted subjugation during the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. It consisted of a series of military actions waged by the Russian Imperial Army and Cossack settlers against the native inhabitants such as the Adyghe, Abazins, Ubykhs, Chechens, and Dagestanis as the Tsars sought to expand.
Russian control of the Georgian Military Road in the center divided the Caucasian War into the Russo-Circassian War in the west and the conquest of Chechnya and Dagestan in the east. Other territories of the Caucasus (comprising contemporary eastern Georgia, southern Dagestan, Armenia and Azerbaijan) were incorporated into the Russian Empire at various times in the 19th century as a result of Russian wars with Persia. The remaining part, western Georgia, was taken by the Russians from the Ottomans during the same period.
The Russian conquest of Chechnya and Dagestan, also called the Murid War, was the eastern theatre of the Caucasian War of 1817–1864. In the Murid War, the Russian Empire conquered the independent peoples of the Eastern Caucasus.
When Russia annexed Georgia in 1801, it needed to control the Georgian Military Road in the central Caucasus – the only practical north–south route across the mountains. Russian control of the road meant the division of the fighting in the Caucasian War into two theatres. West of the road, in the Russo-Circassian War, the tribes did not unite and the war became very complex. In the east the tribes joined in the Caucasian Imamate, a military-theocratic state which held out for thirty years. This state, established by Ghazi Muhammad in 1829–1832, came under the rule of Imam Shamil from 1834 until his surrender in 1859.
The Darial Gorge is a river gorge on the border between Russia and Georgia. It is at the east base of Mount Kazbek, south of present-day Vladikavkaz. The gorge was carved by the river Terek, and is approximately 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) long. The steep granite walls of the gorge can be as much as 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) tall in some places. The Georgian Military Road runs through the gorge.
The Ossetian Military Road (Russian: Военно-Осетинская дорога, Ossetian: Уæлладжыры фæндаг — Wælladžyry fændag, Georgian: ოსეთის სამხედრო გზა) was constructed between 1854 and 1889, by the Russian Empire in the Caucasus. The road runs through the Rioni and Ardon river valleys and links Kutaisi (Georgia) with Alagir (Russia), crossing the Greater Caucasus crest through the Mamison Pass (Kutaisi-Alpana-Mamison road) at 2,911 metres (9,551 ft). The 270 kilometres (170 mi) long route is seldom used today, having been supplanted by the 1971-1981 construction of the Transcaucasian Highway, which crosses the Caucasus range via the Roki Tunnel. Alternative crossings include the Georgian Military Road, which crosses the Jvari Pass at 2,379 metres (7,805 ft).
The road begins by branching off from the Transkam about three kilometers north of Zaramag hydroelectrical power plant. It crosses into breakaway South Ossetia at Mamison pass, before proceeding into Georgia as შ16 (Sh), proceeding to Oni and from there to Ambrolauri, from there proceeds as შ17 to Tkibuli and Kutaisi.