Gateway to Vashlovani — Georgia's semi-desert badlands of mud canyons, ancient plane forests, and leopard territory on the Alazani floodplain
Dedoplistskaro is a small district town in easternmost Kakheti, Georgia, on the edge of the Alazani River plain near the Azerbaijani border, and it serves as the main access point for Vashlovani National Park — Georgia's most unusual protected area. Vashlovani covers a landscape utterly unlike the rest of Georgia: semi-arid badlands of eroded mud canyons (the 'strict reserve' zone), ancient plane-tree forests along the Alazani River where trees reach 500–700 years old, pistachio groves on volcanic escarpments, and open steppe hosting black vultures, Imperial eagles, and a small population of…
The Vashlovani area was historically part of the territory of Hereti, a small medieval kingdom on the eastern edge of Kakheti that maintained a distinct identity until absorbed by the Georgian kingdom in the 10th century. The semi-arid landscape of the Iori plateau and Alazani plain was used for seasonal grazing by Kakhetian communities, with the river forests providing timber and the pistachio groves a secondary food source. Soviet-era nature protection in Georgia established the Vashlovani Strict Nature Reserve in 1935 — one of the earliest in the Caucasus. Independent Georgia expanded it t…