Floodwater tore out a bridge support near the Tusheti village of Shenako on July 19, cutting the only road link to Diklo, Omalo and Bari after heavy rain and melting snow pushed local rivers over their banks. The Tusheti Protected Landscape administration, the government body that manages the highland protected area in Georgia’s Dusheti Municipality, reported the damage and told residents to stay away while the ground kept shifting.
Crews had the road open again within about two days. Social media users were faster to make a point: they said the same stretch had supposedly been rebuilt only a year earlier.
A Bridge Support Gives Way Near Shenako
The rising water washed away one of the bridge’s supports, severing the road that links Shenako and Diklo with Omalo and Bari, the villages that anchor daily life in this stretch of Tusheti. The Tusheti Protected Landscape administration said the landslide process was still active and warned that approaching the site by vehicle was strictly forbidden.
Due to safety regulations, it is strictly forbidden to approach the damaged road section by transport, as the process of soil collapse is still dynamic.
The administration said in its statement, urging residents and visitors in Shenako and Diklo to remain in their homes or family guesthouses rather than move toward the damaged area. It added that it was unclear at the time when traffic would resume.
Tusheti sits at Georgia’s far northeastern edge, a cluster of medieval stone villages pressed against the Russian border and reachable, in the warmer months only, by a single mountain pass. The region’s own national park authority tells visitors there are no petrol stations, pharmacies or ATMs past a certain point, so a severed bridge is more than an inconvenience for the people living beyond it.
Two Days to Reopen, and a Familiar Complaint
Traffic on the Shenako-Diklo stretch was fully restored within about two days, according to a follow-up statement from the Tusheti Protected Landscape administration. Officials said the bridge had been repaired well enough for residents and visitors to travel safely and without restriction.
Some social media users pushed back anyway. They said the very same section had been rehabilitated only last year, before this month’s rain took it out again. The administration has not addressed that claim directly, and there is no way to confirm from outside exactly what work was done on the site last year.
One thing is verifiable. The fix now carries the same label residents say the fix carried before. Officials called this week’s repair rehabilitation work, the identical term used to describe whatever was supposedly done in 2025.
The Only Road In Has Never Stayed Fixed
Shenako, Diklo, Omalo and Bari all sit beyond the Abano Pass, the only road connecting Tusheti to the rest of Georgia. That is not a comforting detail. The pass tops out around 2,950 meters, according to Georgia’s Ministry of Infrastructure, making it one of the highest drivable crossings in the Caucasus and a road with a well-earned reputation as one of the most dangerous in Europe.
That reputation is not folklore. In the summer of 2022, more than 200 people, including tourists, were stranded in Tusheti for several days after heavy rain damaged the road, and authorities had to run an evacuation to bring them down to Telavi, a town in neighboring Kakheti.
- Built in the 1960s and 1970s, with mostly routine patchwork maintenance since, according to Georgia’s Ministry of Infrastructure.
- Passable four to five months a year, closed the rest of the time once snow buries the Abano Pass summit.
- About 190 kilometers from Tbilisi, a drive of five to six hours in good conditions, with no public transport option.
- Rated among Europe’s most dangerous roads by the BBC, a label locals now wear as both warning and marketing.
Every one of those facts describes the pass itself. Shenako’s bridge sits on a smaller, internal road beyond it, the kind of connector that rarely gets a mention until a river takes a piece of it.
A $34 Million Fix, Still Unfinished
Georgia’s government has known about the pass’s fragility for years. In 2022, the Ministry of Infrastructure announced a $34 million (100 million lari) project to rebuild the Pshaveli-Abano-Omalo road in eight sections, widening the surface, restoring drainage and adding safety barriers along the worst drop-offs.
The Roads Department’s own project notice describes work to restore the road profile and water channels alongside new traffic barriers, aimed at exactly the kind of washout that hit Shenako this month.
The ministry originally said the work would wrap up gradually by 2025. It has not. By early 2026, updated guidance for travelers on the route still described improvement work as ongoing, with full completion now expected sometime in 2026 or 2027.
None of that $34 million reaches the road that actually failed this week. The project’s published scope is the Pshaveli-Abano-Omalo corridor, the entrance route over the pass itself. Shenako, Diklo and Bari sit further on, connected by separate local roads that are not part of that funding line, left to be patched, bridge by bridge, whenever a river decides to test one.
How Short Is Tusheti’s Tourist Season?
Not long. Tusheti opens to visitors for roughly four to five months a year, typically from late May or June until the first heavy snow closes the Abano Pass again in October. Nearly everything the region earns from tourism has to happen inside that window, which is why a multi-day closure lands harder here than almost anywhere else in Georgia.
Georgia’s overall tourism sector is not having an easy year either. Revenues reached $1.9 billion in the first half of 2026, down 2% from the same period in 2025, according to the National Tourism Administration. The decline was sharper in the spring: between April and June, international traveler visits fell 4.9% year on year, with officials pointing to reduced arrivals from countries affected by regional conflicts and related air travel restrictions.
Georgia’s inbound and domestic visitor figures are tracked monthly by the National Statistics Office, and the softening trend predates any single road closing. Earlier this year, Georgia’s First Deputy Finance Minister told a parliamentary committee that the country received close to one million visitors in the first quarter, with tourism revenue near $829 million even as arrivals from some markets fell.
Sakdri Bridge Flooding Cut Racha’s Highway
Tusheti was not the only Georgian mountain region fighting rivers on July 19. In Racha-Lechkhumi, on the other side of the country, the same combination of heavy rain and snowmelt overwhelmed a river crossing near the Sakdri Bridge and forced Georgia’s Roads Department to close a stretch of the Kutaisi-Tskaltubo-Tsageri-Lentekhi highway at its 98th kilometer, AzerNews reported.
It was the same municipality that flooded in August 2020, when rivers destroyed local bridges and left villages isolated, and again in June 2023. An International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies report from 2020 found five villages and 55 families isolated after floodwaters took out the crossings. A regional disaster assessment from 2023 later named the two most repeatedly flooded municipalities in the country, Lentekhi among them, as storms that year reached more than 100,000 people nationwide.
| Date | Location | Trigger | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| August 2020 | Lentekhi, Racha-Lechkhumi | Heavy rain flooding | 5 villages and 55 families isolated after rivers destroyed local bridges |
| July 2022 | Abano Pass, Tusheti | Heavy rain road collapse | More than 200 people, including tourists, evacuated to Telavi after days stranded |
| June 2023 | Lentekhi and Gurjaani municipalities | Flash floods and mudflows | Bridges and roads destroyed; part of storms reaching over 100,000 people nationwide |
| July 19, 2026 | Shenako, Tusheti | Heavy rain and snowmelt | Bridge support washed out; Shenako-Diklo road cut off for about two days |
| July 19, 2026 | Sakdri Bridge, Racha corridor | River overflow | Kutaisi-Tskaltubo-Tsageri-Lentekhi highway closed at kilometer 98 |
Georgia’s government has put tens of millions of dollars into hardening its highland roads this decade, and this week’s fast turnaround in Shenako shows the emergency response has gotten quicker. Whether the fix outlasts the next storm is a question the rivers will answer before the ministry does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Tusheti Safe to Visit Right Now?
Yes, on the roads that are open. The Tusheti Protected Landscape administration says the Shenako-Diklo section has fully reopened, but the region’s single access route over the Abano Pass remains unpaved, seasonal and subject to sudden closures after rain. Travelers should confirm conditions with a guesthouse or driver in Omalo before setting out, since mobile signal disappears for long stretches of the drive.
How Do You Get to Tusheti from Tbilisi?
The only way in is by 4×4 over the Abano Pass. The drive from Tbilisi to Omalo, Tusheti’s main village, covers roughly 190 kilometers and takes five to six hours, including the climb through the Gombori Pass to Kakheti before the mountain road begins. There is no public transport; visitors hire a driver or join an organized trip from Kvemo Alvani.
When Does the Abano Pass Open and Close Each Year?
The pass typically opens in late May or June and closes by mid-October, though exact dates shift with snowfall. Outside that window, Tusheti is reachable only by helicopter, a service the government has run in the past to keep border guards and year-round residents connected.
What Is the Tusheti Protected Landscape Administration?
It is the state body that manages Tusheti’s protected areas, including the national park and surrounding landscape, under Georgia’s Agency of Protected Areas. It monitors road and trail conditions inside the region and issues the safety notices, like the one following the Shenako washout, that residents and visitors rely on.
Does Georgia’s Road Project Cover Shenako and Diklo?
Not directly. The $34 million rehabilitation project targets the 72-kilometer Pshaveli-Abano-Omalo road, the entrance route over the pass, not the local roads connecting Omalo to Shenako, Diklo and Bari. Repairs on that interior network, including this month’s bridge fix, get handled reactively by the Tusheti Protected Landscape administration and Roads Department as damage occurs.
