Between Reality and the Memory
of the World
At the foot of Mount Shkhara, Anushka photographs the play of light on the glacier. Rémy, her husband and historian, comments on the geological strata of the landscape. She does not listen. Something else moves through the air — a song only she can hear — leading her to an enigmatic woman. Taisiya tells her of valleys that do not appear on any map, visible only to those who know how to see beyond appearances.
Between the legends of the Narts and the tales of Colchis, Anushka sinks into a realm where History and myth merge.
In the heart of the Greater Caucasus, the glaciers hold more than ice — they preserve the memory of a forgotten world: Gorasnov.
The Four Layers of Reality
Gorasnov is not a single place,
but an unstable overlapping of four levels of reality:
Contemporary Geopolitical Layer
Emerald-K12, Petrov, Alex
Buried Historical Layer
(Colchis, the Romanovs, Caucasian exiles)
Living Mythological Layer
(Medea, Prometheus, the Narts)
Unstable Inner Layer
where Anushka’s perception gradually begins to distort
The World of Gorasnov
Gorasnov is a confederation of twelve autonomous valleys. Each valley functions as a living intelligence within the greater whole, possessing its own memory, knowledge, resources and role in maintaining the global balance: matter, energy, memory and communication. No central hierarchy governs the whole. Decisions emerge from distributed processes, close to natural dynamics — the murmurations of starlings, the movements of fish shoals, the hidden flows beneath the earth — where balance replaces authority. Rather than a territory, Gorasnov is a responsive architecture in which matter, memory and perception constantly interact. The Three Great Families of Valleys A. Valleys of Material Transformation 1) Kheora The Kheora are Gorasnov’s botanists and plant healers. They master phytomedicine, cultivate communal herb gardens and preserve knowledge related to medicinal plants. They contribute to public healthcare, healing rituals and ecological preservation. Symbol: a blown-glass frost flower Name: The Guardians of the Green Breath 2) Sylvandar The Sylvandar are builders specialised in living architecture. They design cities integrated with the living world: structural trees, growing buildings and inhabited forests. They teach the techniques of symbiotic construction. Symbol: a spiral key shaped like a plant Name: The Architects of the Living World 3) Ojaleshi (Climbing Vine) The Ojaleshi are the masters of vines, cuisine and festive rituals. They organise harvests, banquets and the transmission of culinary traditions. Through collective celebrations, they preserve social cohesion. Symbol: a cluster of vermilion grapes Name: The Vintners of Dreams 4) Nartadia The Nartadia form the mythical warrior and forging lineage of Gorasnov. They preserve ritual martial arts and the sacred craft of the forge. Through oral tradition, they pass down the ancient heroic tales. Symbol: a raised sword framed by arms Name: The Children of the Titans 5) Forgeranor The Forgeranor are the masters of mines and metallurgy. They extract minerals, create alloys and craft tools, mechanisms and ritual objects. They also ensure the stability of underground galleries. Symbol: an amber hammer and anvil Name: The Forges of the Wind 6) Jovalin The Jovalin are Gorasnov’s goldsmiths and jewellers. They work with precious stones and fine metals to create jewellery, reliquaries and objects of prestige. They preserve and safeguard the heritage artefacts of the valleys. Symbol: a gemstone shard Name: The Guardians of the Splinters B. Valleys of Energy and Flow 7) Hydrasius The Hydrasius are the engineers of water and underground networks. They design qanats, canals and complex hydraulic systems. They ensure irrigation, drinking water supplies and the ritual uses of water. Symbol: a fountain circle Name: The Masters of the Springs 8) Thermoris The Thermoris master geothermal forces and subterranean energies. They harness the heat of the earth for forges, baths and thermal systems. They strictly regulate the balance between extraction and preservation. Symbol: a triple flame enclosed within a stone ring Name: The Watchers of the Hidden Fire 9) Veralia The Veralia are master glassmakers and artisans of light. They create stained glass, optical objects and symbolic instruments. Their work connects matter, light and perception. Symbol: a glowing shard of glass Name: The Sculptors of Light C. Valleys of Memory and Consciousness 10) Morpheos The Morpheos specialise in sleep and dreams. They accompany dream states, interpret visions and explore altered states of consciousness. They also act as therapists of the nocturnal psyche. Symbol: butterfly wings Name: The Weavers of Night 11) Lethe The Lethe work with forgetting, grief and emotional healing. They accompany processes of releasing memories and psychological transformation. They intervene during moments of rupture, initiation and collective crisis. Symbol: a clear circular pool of water Name: The Bearers of Clear Water 12) Telloria The Telloria are the guardians of stories and collective memory. They transmit histories, laws and traditions through spoken word. They ensure the cultural continuity of Gorasnov. Symbol: a black amphora with golden reflections Name: The Weavers of Remembrance Philosophical Note “The sensitivity of the mineral often remains dormant, for lack of an encounter with a subject capable of perceiving the life that germinates within the stone.” — Gaston Bachelard
Research and Inspiration
A work of fiction rooted in historical and mythological sources:
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Ancient Colchis
Nart legends
Ingush and Ossetian traditions
Svaneti villages
The Romanovs and White Russian exiles
Underground qanat architectures
The Worlds That Shaped Gorasnov
Myths, ancient wisdom and forgotten traditions
that informed the writing of the novel.
Why the Caucasus?
Between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea lies the Caucasus, a vast transitional region of Eurasia, divided between the Northern Caucasus (or Greater Caucasus) in southern Russia and the Lesser Caucasus, the mountainous arc stretching from Georgia to Armenia and eastern Turkey. One of the oldest inhabited and traversed regions of the continent, it has been, since antiquity, a crossroads of peoples, languages and narratives. In ancient traditions, this landscape was not merely a geographical boundary: it became a symbolic frontier of the known world. The Greeks placed the farthest reaches of their heroic narratives there, where the Argonauts journeyed to Colchis, the land of Medea, on the eastern shores of the Black Sea — a mythical foundation that permanently linked the western Caucasus with the epic cycles of archaic Greece. Biblical traditions, for their part, do not explicitly name the Caucasus, yet several passages were interpreted, from late antiquity onwards and later in medieval readings, as referring to the northern margins of this region. Thus, the “mountains of Ararat” mentioned in Genesis (Genesis 8:4) have been associated with the ancient plateau of Urartu, a historical area encompassing Armenia and the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus. Similarly, the prophecies of Ezekiel (Ezekiel 38–39), which speak of Gog and Magog coming “from the far north”, were located by some exegetical traditions in the mountainous regions north of Anatolia and around the Caucasian ranges. Finally, the accounts of the Flood and the post-diluvian genealogies (Genesis 10) contributed, in ancient commentaries, to the idea of peoples spreading from these northern margins. Thus, between a tangible geographical heritage and successive layers of interpretation, the Caucasus gradually became a place of mythological condensation: a region where historical memory, biblical narratives and ancient imaginaries overlap, without ever fully settling into a single fixed meaning.
The Qanats
Qanats are ancient underground irrigation systems designed to capture water from subterranean aquifers — often replenished by the infiltration of mountain waters — and transport it over long distances without evaporation. They can be found in various forms across more than thirty countries, from Central Asia to the Arabian Peninsula, and as far as the fringes of India and western China: karez, khettara, foggara, falaj… Scattered between deserts and mountains, they bear witness to a shared principle: allowing water to flow beneath the earth, where it cannot evaporate. Beneath arid lands, water does not burst forth onto the surface; it travels silently underground. Ancient engineers carved an invisible channel from the mountains towards hidden aquifers. A gently sloping gallery was then excavated, allowing gravity alone to carry the water along its course. At regular intervals, vertical shafts pierced the ground above the tunnel. They provided ventilation and allowed the channels to be maintained and repaired. Within these dark underground passages, the muqannis — traditional water engineers of ancient Persia, skilled in the construction and upkeep of qanats — worked almost blindly, guided more by the sound of flowing water than by the light of day.
Gorasnov is a protected land where buried memories and repressed recollections resurface, distorting the course of reality.
As Anushka crosses the Twelve Valleys, the boundary between history, myth and memory becomes unstable — until it vanishes entirely.
Discover five FREE excerpts from
—GORASNOV, The Atlantid of Colchis—
A journey through the Caucasus and the depths of the human soul