Jvari Pass

The Jvari Pass, the Cross Pass, is the highest point of the Georgian Military Road, at 2,379 metres on the watershed between the Aragvi valley and the Tergi valley. It lies a few kilometres north of Gudauri and the Friendship Monument, and from the top the road drops in long curves towards Kobi and Stepantsminda. The landscape is open and treeless: grassy slopes in summer, deep snow for half the year, and concrete avalanche galleries over the road. A stone cross on a mound beside the pass gives it its name.

Just north of the pass, mineral springs have built up orange and cream travertine terraces beside the road, one of the most photographed stops on the route. In summer the meadows around the pass are good for short walks and are grazed by shepherds' flocks. In winter this is the section of the Military Road most likely to close after heavy snow, so check the road status before driving, and carry chains.

The pass has been the main crossing of the central Caucasus for centuries, on the route through the Dariali Gorge to the north. Tradition says King David the Builder set up a cross here, and in the 1820s the Russian general Aleksey Yermolov had a stone cross erected on the site. The road over the pass was rebuilt by the Russian authorities in the 19th century as the Georgian Military Road, linking Tbilisi with Vladikavkaz.