The Khevsurs are an ethnographic group of Georgians who for centuries lived in the harsh highlands of Khevsureti (north of Tbilisi, right by the main Caucasus range).
Even in XIX century, travelers and Russian officers described them as people who went about wearing chain mail and helmets.
On this postcard, the armor does not gleam with ceremonial shine—it is worn, scratched, clearly used many times.
This is not a costume for a photo shoot, but working armor.
Particularly striking are the round shield and the long-barreled flintlock rifle.
By the time the photograph was taken (most likely the second half to the late XIX century), both items had long been considered anachronisms almost everywhere in the world.
But in the mountains of the Caucasus they remained a reality: flintlocks were valued for their exceptional reliability in damp weather, while the small round shield and dagger were ideally suited for ambushes, brief skirmishes, and hand-to-hand combat on narrow mountain paths.
The power of this photograph lies precisely in the rupture between eras.
Before the lens stands a living medieval warrior—chain mail, shield, a straight sword at his belt—and at the same time a flintlock rifle with a powder flask.
A man who seems to have stepped straight out of the XIII-XV centuries into the age of photography.
In Western Europe, such a military culture had disappeared 300–400 years earlier.