Inside Europe’s highest and most isolated village where one man lives

• Irakl Khvedaguridze, 84, is the only doctor in the Tusheti region of Georgia 
• While everyone has left his village, Bochorna, Irakl has stayed put 
• His trusty horse Bichola serves as his only round-year companion

The sole inhabitant of Europe’s highest and most isolated village has revealed that it is a powerful sense of duty that keeps him living there. 

Irakl Khvedaguridze, 84, is the only licensed doctor in the remote Tusheti region of Georgia, which covers about 380 square miles.

While everyone has left his village, Bochorna, Irakl has remained put with his trusty horse, Bichola, serving as his only round-year companion. 

In a YouTube documentary by filmmakers Yes Theory, the octogenarian explains how he is dedicated to keeping the last pockets of life in the mountains alive.  

When asked if he has ever considered leaving Bochorna – which sits at 7,694 feet above sea level – he responds: ‘You have to think about the well-being of others as well.

‘I go to help people who are ill. Even when I am ill myself, I still put my hat on and get on that horse.’

Tusheti has been inhabited for thousands of years, with the main industry being sheep farming.

However, with traditions steadily dying out, many people have left the mountainous region.

According to the Georgian Travel Guide, there are 40 deserted villages and 10 villages that are very sparsely populated. 

Of the communities that are left, the majority only have one or two full-time residents like Bochorna. 

Most villagers leave Tusheti in late September, as the conditions during winter at altitude can be brutal with the temperatures plummeting well below freezing and more than six feet of snow lasting for months at a time. 

However, Irakli remains in his simple farmhouse in Bochorna with the wood stove burning so he can respond to any emergency calls. 

The dedicated doctor was born in the lofty village and in a 2022 interview with National Geographic, he explained the hold that the ancient enclave has on him.

He told the publication: ‘My father, my grandfather, all my ancestors were born here. This area belonged to us.’

In another short film about his life called Irakli’s Lantern, Irakli reveals when he was in first grade in 1949, he remembers nine families living in Bochorna but over time they have disappeared and even his own children have left to seek more modern lifestyles. 

Irakli did leave his home to study medicine in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and he went on to take his first job at a hospital in another part of the country. 

However, when the previous doctor serving Bochorna and the Tusheti region left in 1979, he started doing rotations and he relocated there full time in 2009 instead of retiring.

Touching on what the future holds for Georgia’s mountain communities, Irakli says in the new YouTube documentary that ‘it’s going in a bad direction.’

He continues: ‘The lifestyle [has] changed. Nobody wants to work in the villages anymore. 

‘If this keeps up, then there’s no more winter tourism either.’

Irakli says the hardest thing about his line of work and being somewhere so remote is ‘when you have a really ill patient, you want to help but you can’t.’

He reveals: ‘I’ve had a few cases like that. A 14-year-old boy’s palm was cut in the middle – there was blood everywhere, pouring like a fountain from the artery.

‘We were holding his palm very tightly so it would stop bleeding and thank God, Shamila the pilot flew right away and took the kid. 

‘It was really critical for me, when you want to help a dying kid but you can’t.’ 

Irakli, who is partially blind, does not state if there is anyone lined up as his replacement. 

After sharing some wine and food with the Yes Theory camera team, the medic walks them to a church next to his home.

In the stone structure, which dates to the 1800s, he lights some candles and says some prayers ‘for my family’s glory.’

After bidding him goodbye, the Yes Theory team head to a few more villages in the area, navigating treacherous roads as they go. 

In one tumble down village they find a couple who live there alone. 

They explain that their son is a pilot, so occasionally he helps transport supplies to them but mainly they are self sufficient. 

After exploring the dwindling Georgian communities, Yes Theory team member Thomas Brag concludes: ‘A part of me hopes that some of us in the younger generations will see the beauty that is here and reverse what currently seems like the inevitable disappearance of villages like these.

‘But maybe that’s just me holding on to a romanticized view of what life in places like these must be like. Time is inevitable and it may be a hopeless quest to attempt to resist it.’