Pankisi Gorge: Youth project to benefit challenging region

Youth living in Pankisi Gorge, a challenging region in Georgia, will be able to develop their photography skills with help from one of the country’s leading photographers.

Under the President Administration’s initiative, a photo studio will soon open its doors at the Duisi school, which is one of the villages in the Gorge. The studio will be led by prize-winning Georgian photographer Natela Grigalashvili and pupils from nearby villages will also be invited to attend her classes.

The Pankisi Gorge is a valley mainly inhabited by the Kist sub-ethnos in northeastern Georgia that borders the Chechnyan republic of the Russian Federation.

High unemployment and a lack of opportunities were believed to be the reasons why many people left the Gorge - the area that once sheltered rebels from the Russians during the Chechen wars.

The Pankisi Gorge remained to be one of the most challenging areas of Georgia. In 2003 it was a place of major military engagement where a special operation involving police and US-trained special forces were required to repress the threats of Al-Qaeda.

The Gorge is also home to Tarkhan Batirashvili - also known as Abu Omar al-Shishani, a military leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

It has been reported that a growing number of young men from the Pankisi Valley have recently left the region to join ISIS.

The Georgian Government pledged to create better living conditions in the Gorge so that locals will not leave the area.

Today, the President adviser in ethnical minority issues Sophio Shamanidi, who earlier visited the Pankisi Gorge with photographer Grigalashvili, said the photography course would last for six months and would then finish with a photo exhibition.

Earlier, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili visited the Gorge. On his visit he told the locals the Government was working on a special program for the Pankisi Gorge residents which aimed to create better living conditions there.