About the team behind this web project

The international team of this web project is Kadri Runnel from Estonia, Christina Häublein from Germany and Elina Veide from Latvia. We worked in Kazbegi for three months in summer/autumn 2007 as participants of a GLEN (Global Education Network for Young Europeans) project, financed by the MFA of Germany, Estonia and Latvia.

Kazbegi is a region undergoing fast changes. Some few years ago most of the local people’s income came from cross border trade with Russia. Now the border is closed and the community is looking for a new identity. There is a trend for young people to move away from the area in favor of bigger possibilities in the capital. Many people in Kazbegi have large houses and many unused rooms that they happily would share with paying guests: tourists. The region has big hopes for tourism as the new source of income.

We think they are right: if the political situation in the nearest future continues to be stable, more and more people will come to this place of magnificent natural beauty. Tourism is developing in the area, that’s a fact. The question is only who would profit from tourism: weather it’s the local people or the business wolves somewhere in the big city. For our team this web page is a project that hopefully helps the local people in this matter.