And to seek out new experiences now on my radar: Tbilisi’s enormous botanic gardens; the bears, birds and wolves of Tusheti; and the night train from Tbilisi to Batumi on the coast.

Georgians also wear papakhas, primarily in the mountainous Pshavi, Khevi, Mtiuleti, and Tusheti regions. The Papakha was first worn by the Cossacks in the Russian army in 1855, following the ...