Verkehrswege in Kaukasien

The conquest and integration of the Caucasus into the Russian Empire lasted an entire century. At the request of the Christian nations of Georgia and Armenia, leaguered hard by their Muslim neighbors to the South, the Ottoman Empire and Persia, Russia began expanding over the ridge of the Central Caucasus. In 1801 Russia incorporated the kingdom of Eastern Georgia, controlling only a single mountain route which led to her new territory. For many years the "Georgian Military Highway" remained the sole link between Russia and Georgia, constantly threatened by the elements and by mountain tribes which had not yet been subdued by Russia. The Empire continued to conquer ever more parts of the Caucasus, while, at the same time, waging wars against the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Civil engineers from Russia, among them numerous Western Europeans, fought for decades against both the nature and bandits on the highway.
Initially, Russia was not able to profit from this expansion, but nevertheless continued her push to the south. She tried to subdue the unruly mountain peoples in the west and east of the Central Caucasus by pushing military lines towards them and resettling or expelling some of those tribes. During that earlier period of conquest and integration, the construction and maintenance of roads was paramount: not only for military campaigns against the mountain tribes, but also during the wars against external neighbors.
Around the middle of the 19th century the situation changed. Russia began efficiently integrating most of her Caucasian possessions into the Empire and to pacify the remaining mountainous area. The first issue required further road construction and the extension of political, economic and social infrastructure. The second she achieved by changing military strategy, which also required military highways. For these ends Russia had to invest a great deal of men, money and time until she eventually could profit from the territory in a colonial sense.