so i've been spending a lot of so i'm in the city but off in the mountains there's the caucasus reserve which is literally the size of finland so i've met up with one very experienced. and we all fall out of bed. it's fair to say that if you're driving up here then you're in for a bumpy ride so you might be lucky and find some tama but mostly it's just to try the ropes fortunately alexei's wonderfully named was it is up to the top. model to look like much of this is spin spin on this the seconds and. we're going up and down to crash the blasts. still going. to the last of us full. because it's. just a couple of days in the caucuses reserve had what my appetite for the mountains the biosphere here is filled with unique flora and fauna some of the best hiking trails in the country. but getting to them wasn't going to be easy especially as there are plenty of places that even the wozzeck can't go. james take this one place it'll be my bike. i'm on the blue one. to get into the forest we needed to cross the nearby river but a long rugged palls like these you need to be careful where you put

with another long day ahead in the caucasus reserve aleksei was keen to get going shortly after sunrise and i sleepily wandered down to a nearby street. for a. morning. very misty mountain day. and told me to try and wake up. and that. will certainly do the trick for. plants in a decent cup of tea of course and around here it has to be some of the local brew. one thing that the russians and the british certainly share is a great love of tea and here in the sub tropical south the lucky russians actually have the climate that they can grow themselves this is the tea plantation and it will be hard to believe but it's the biggest in the country it's been here since the late one nine hundred forty s. but the whole operation was restored and modernized back in two thousand and six blocks themselves are extremely robust and able to survive winter temperatures which can drop below freezing but they have to be harvested carefully and one man who knows all about that has worked in the tea business all his life. with this not . just the tips that the work we make green tea from these leaves why do

so i've been spending a lot of so i'm in the city but up in the mountains there's the caucasus reserve which is literally the size of finland so i've met up with mine very experienced guide alexei. and when you are off on an adventure. it's fair to say that if you're driving up here then you're in for a bumpy ride so you might be lucky and find some tonic but mostly it's just dirt tracks and rocks fortunately alexei's one of lean.

so i've been spending a lot of time in the city but up in the mountains there's the caucasus reserve which is literally the size of finland so i've met up with mine very experienced god alexei if and when they are off on a bench. it's fair to say but if you're driving up here then you're in for a bumpy ride it's you might be lucky and find some tama but mostly it's just a tribes of rocks fortunately alexei's wonderfully named wozzeck.

aleksei works as the head of a conservation and knows almost everyone based in the caucasus national reserve he gets to go home most nights but they're all forest rangers that live here with their families three hundred sixty five days a year and their little enclave was on a stop. the rangers are here to police the reserve and keep it as unspoiled as possible and even though it's still late summer they're already preparing for the winter. area comes a total of fifty four felson take this means you've got a lot to do considering the group is very small the season is almost over shall we help out of course you can sure. help is always welcome. it was great to eat some real food after a long ride and lending a hand in the field seemed like the least we could do. take quite a lot of this place and that includes several hungry horses so the more hay we collect now. ship enough to. see them all through the winter. right how much i can balance my fork i could and. i'm sure a couple of hours we've gathered a mini mountain and range alexander took us off to collect all reward we still had a fair way