Image: View from Mount Anaria, looking south towards the Chorokhi delta; the border with Turkey is on the other side of the mountain range.

The ruins of Anaria fort can be found some 10 miles from Batumi, high above the coastline. It was once known as the Mikhailovskaya Fortress, built in the late 19th century by the Tsar’s army. With substantial defensive structures and military barracks, it functioned as both a perfect observation post and a defence against any inland incursions. To reach the fort requires some effort. A taxi will only take you so far, along a poorly maintained road, which winds around the mountainside, getting narrower and narrower. Then you need to continue to ascend along a pitted track, which turns and loops back back and forth, panoramic views glimpsed through the trees. Eventually you see, overgrown with brambles and thorn bushes, various ruined structures. Abandoned gun emplacements, crumbling walls, concrete and stone. There’s a few local guys sitting here, drinking chacha and enjoying the views.

The British placed their artillery here, the hardy men of the Macedonian Mule Corps making their laborious way up here from the port. There’s a few hikers here today, worn out by heir own ascent. Looking down to the other side of the Chorokhi River, with a decent pair of binoculars perhaps they could just make out the walls of the Gonio fortress, standing there for two millennia. Dating back to the 1st century AD, it was once a well-fortified Roman city with both a theatre and hippodrome, later used by Byzantine and Ottoman troops.