Caucasus and Georgia

The Caucasus

• In Greek mythology, the Caucasus or Kaukasos was one of the pillars supporting the world. Prometheus was chained there by Zeus after Prometheus had presented man with the gift of fire.

• The Roman poet Ovid placed Caucasus in Scythia and depicted it as a cold and stony mountain which was the abode of personified hunger.

• The Greek hero Jason sailed to the west coast of the Caucasus in pursuit of the Golden Fleece, and there met the famed Medea.

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach(1752-1840)

• Caucasian variety — I have taken the name of this variety from Mount Caucasus, both because its neighborhood, and especially its southern slope, produces the most beautiful race of men, I mean the Georgian; and because all physiological reasons converge to this, that in that region, if anywhere, it seems we ought with the greatest probability to place the autochthones (birth place) of mankind

Russian Expansion in Middle East and Asia

Soviet Administrative Map of the Caucasus

Ethnic Groups in the Caucasus

Ethnolinguistic Groups in the Caucasus

Georgia

Georgian Alphabet

Georgia—Administrative Divisions

Ethnic Groups in Georgia

Oil Fields in the Caspian

BEP Pipeline

Proposed Afghanistan Pipeline