Long overshadowed by headlines of extremism, Georgia’s Pankisi Valley is now welcoming travellers with Sufi rituals, mountain trails and home-cooked Kist food.
The chants start quietly. Sitting cross-legged in a circle, the women respond to one another in softly sung words of Arabic and Chechen. Words praising God, words calling for peace in the world. As their voices rise, they stand up. They begin to clap.
“ā ilāha illa ʾllāh…”
Carried by the growing rhythm, they start moving in a tight circle. Beads of sweat form on the forehead of one elderly woman who is a head shorter than the others. She keeps going. The spinning and chanting get faster and faster, louder and louder, building to a meditative, whirring trance. Then the singing breaks, and the women embrace each other.
This is dhikr, a Sufi ritual that means “remembrance” in Arabic and is meant to bring the soul closer to Allah. Duisi, this small village in Georgia’s Pankisi Valley, is the only place in the Caucasus where women perform dhikr in the mosque as men do. In a corner of the room, a small group of visitors – from the US, Europe and the Middle East – watches on.
Two decades ago, few tourists would have dared set foot in Pankisi Valley. This narrow green dale in the Caucasus Mountains, home to ethnic Kists (a Muslim community with Chechen roots), had landed a reputation it struggled to shake. News reports labelled it “notoriously lawless” and travel advisories warned people to stay away. Today, local families are determined to do away with those stereotypes by hosting tourists and showing them the real Pankisi Valley: a place where people ride horses, make dumplings and sing echoing songs of peace and devotion.
Eloise StarkPankisi Valley’s troubled reputation dates to the early 2000s when it became a refuge for Chechens fleeing war in Russia. The Kists speak a Chechen dialect, and the valley is located just across the border from Chechnya, making it a logical destination for many refugee families.
Among the civilian refugees were some militants and former soldiers, prompting unfounded rumours that members of Al Qaeda – and even Osama Bin Laden – were hiding in the valley. Under pressure from Russia and the US, the Georgian government launched anti-terrorist operations in the marginalised region. At the same time, the government’s efforts failed to address the local community’s economic and social struggles, as the arrival of thousands of refugees placed strain on already limited resources. “It was only through anti-terrorist special operations that the state reminded the residents of its existence,” wrote Georgian academics Maia Barkaia and Barbare Janelidze in a 2018 paper.
The so-called “Pankisi Crisis” eventually subsided, and most Chechen refugees left the valley for Central and Western Europe. But years of economic and social pressure, teamed with neglect by the central government, opened the doors for ISIS influence in the 2010s, when its propaganda machine started preying on disenfranchised young people from around the world. Between 2010 and 2016, an estimated 50 to 200 people left Pankisi Valley for Syria, lured by ISIS messaging. The most infamous was Abu Omar al-Shishani, a top ISIS commander, whose origins reignited global media interest in Pankisi – once again casting it as a terrorist hotspot.
Pankisi’s dangerous image persists to this day, despite the fact that crime rates are very low. In 2020, the Danish Ministry of Immigration noted in a report that: “There is not a high criminal rate in Pankisi. The region is very calm.” Locals often joke that the police have nothing to do all day but drink tea.
