La population et ses activités dans une haute vallée caucasienne : l'exemple du district de Kazbégui

Abstract

Résumé. — L'article étudie, après un aperçu du milieu naturel, les problèmes de la population d'un district du Caucase, ses activités et leur évolution. Le district de Kazbégui est situé sur le versant nord du Caucase central mais en République de Géorgie. C'est un milieu montagnard typique dont l'originalité est la situation sur la seule route transversale du Caucase, la route militaire de Géorgie. La population disséminée en nombreux points de peuplement est ancienne, composée de Géorgiens et d'Ossètes. On observe une nette diminution de peuplement dans les hautes vallées, alors que les villages de la vallée principale sont stables ou augmentent, en particulier le bourg de Kazbégui. Il semble que la population s'est stabilisée, l'exode rural se limitant aux excédents naturels. La principale activité est l'élevage, réorganisé par la concentration en 5 kolkhozes. Ceux-ci procèdent à une transhumance inverse entre les alpages et les pâturages d'hiver au Daghestan. Les services se diversifient, mais l'effort actuel va au tourisme qui pourrait devenir important pour le district.

Northern outpost of the Caliphate: maintaining military forces in a hostile environment (the Dariali Gorge in the Central Caucasus in Georgia)

“…Annual rainfall currently, and probably over the past 2000 years, amounts to 800–1000mm (Connor & Kvavadze 2008: figs 8 & 9), and only 124 days per year on average are frost-free. Temperatures during the winter months regularly plummet below 0°C, with deep snowfall restricting movement and agricultural possibilities (Radvanyi & Theroz 1977: 309; Nakhutsrishvili 2003: tab. 3.8).…”

“…3.8). Large, flat, low-lying areas of much greater agricultural potential only appear more than 10km south of Dariali Fort (Radvanyi & Theroz 1977: 311; Connor & Kvavadze 2008: fig. 2).…”

“…The Dariali Pass lies at the extreme limit of possible cultivable elevations, a limit considered to be reached at around 2000m above sea level, with areas above this altitude normally utilised for upland grazing (Wilkinson 2003: 197–98). In the early 1970s some 50% of arable land was used for pastoralism and only 6% for cultivation (Radvanyi & Thorez 1977: 318).…”

Facilitation by unpalatable weeds may conserve plant diversity in overgrazed meadows in the Caucasus Mountains

“…Grazing by domesticated animals is one of the most important human impacts on ecosystems throughout the world, with approximately 47% of the world's land surface currently used by livestock, and 80% of that considered degraded (National Research Council 1994). The central Caucasus Mountains in the Republic of Georgia provides an excellent natural laboratory for studying the long term effects of livestock on plant communities because alpine and subalpine meadows there have been used for pastures for cattle and sheep for over 2000 years (Gulisashvili et al 1975, Radvanyi and Thorez 1977, Kikvidze 1987. During the Soviet era, large portions of the Caucasus Mts.…”

Diversification of Livestock-Keeping Smallholders in Mountainous Rural Regions of Azerbaijan and Georgia

“…This leads to strong outmigration [79], which is also visible in the demographic profile of the surveyed population showing an aging population with lower proportions of children and working-age individuals. Strong rural-urban migration and land abandonment is repeatedly reported for rural regions in Georgia [8,80] and Central Asia [6].…”