Gergeti Trinity Church (bottom left) as the morning sun creeps down the flanks of the 5,033-meter Mount Kazbegi (Mkinvartsveri), the highest peak in eastern Georgia. #

The Katskhi Pillar, where an elderly Georgian monk has lived for the past 24 years in order to be "closer to God." The monk has his food winched up by volunteers from the monastery below. #

Sheep stream into the morning sunlight after being released from their corral near Omalo. Livestock are returned to captivity every evening as protection against wolves. #

A valley in the hardscrabble town of Chiatura, where manganese is mined. This factory processes the rare mineral and makes it ready for transport to steel-working operations in Georgia and abroad. #

A cable car in Chiatura. The town’s dizzying geography inspired Soviet engineers to install a network of "rope roads" to transport workers up to their mines. For more, see Chapple's earlier photo story "Stalin's Rope Roads". #

The Chronicles Of Georgia monument. The little-known (by tourists at least) landmark is the work of Zurab Tsereteli, the same artist behind the divisive Peter the Great statue in central Moscow. #

The ancient cave city of Vardzia in southern Georgia. Despite being a busy tourist destination, some of the cave dwellings are still inhabited by a group of monks, who live in a section of the caves roped off from the tourists. #

The Tserovani refugee camp, near the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Georgians displaced during the 2008 war with Russia now live in the camp, with most surviving off government handouts. #