The December issue of National Geographic Georgia is out, and it includes my story on the Rioni River and its sturgeon.

This work grew out of field research carried out alongside scientists from Ilia State University and WWF Caucasus. I followed nighttime monitoring surveys at the river mouth, spoke with researchers and fishermen, and spent time tracing the sturgeon not only as a species, but as part of the river’s long cultural memory.

The Rioni is one of the last rivers in the Black Sea basin where sturgeon still spawn in the wild. Their disappearance would not only mark an ecological loss, but the fading of a relationship between people and river that has lasted for centuries.

This story is an attempt to hold science, observation, and lived experience in a single narrative frame — and to listen closely to what the river is still telling us.

The printed magazine arrived today. Holding it felt like a New Year gift: a reminder that some stories move slowly, like rivers, and matter precisely because of that.