page_title: Mount Kazbek
section_title: Legend
hierarchical_section_title: Mount Kazbek / Legend
caption_attribution_description: English: 19th-century postcard of Georgian Military Road near the Mount Kazbek. (The road, the kasbeck and the church, Groussie, (i.e., Georgia), Russia)
context_page_description: Mount Kazbegi is a dormant stratovolcano and one of the major mountains of the Caucasus located on the border of Georgia's Kazbegi District and Russian Republic of North Ossetia–Alania.
  It is the third-highest peak in Georgia and the seventh-highest summit in the Caucasus Mountains. Kazbegi is also the second-highest volcanic summit in the Caucasus, after Mount Elbrus. The summit lies directly to the west of the town of Stepantsminda and is the most prominent geographic feature of the area. Mount Kazbek is the highest peak of Eastern Georgia. The name in Georgian, Mqinvartsveri, translates to "Glacier Peak" or "Freezing Cold Peak". The Vainakh name Bashlam translates as "Molten Mount".
context_section_description: Mount Kazbegi is associated in Georgian folklore with Amirani, the Georgian version of Prometheus, who was chained on the mountain in punishment for having stolen fire from the gods and having given it to mortals. The location of his imprisonment later became the site of an Orthodox hermitage located in a cave called "Betlemi" (Bethlehem) at around the 4,000-meter level. According to legends, this cave housed many sacred relics, including Abraham's tent and the manger of the infant Jesus.
  The summit was first climbed in 1868 by D. W. Freshfield, A. W. Moore, and C. Tucker of the Alpine Club, with the guide François Devouassoud. They were followed by the female Russian alpinist Maria Preobrazhenskaya, who made the climb nine times starting in the year 1900.
caption: 19th-century postcard of the Georgian Military Road near Mount Kazbegi
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