Gamarjobat! (Hello!) I must apologize for my blogging belatedness, and offer my one legitimate excuse, that I have been quite busy in and around Tbilisi. With less than three weeks left before my return flight to the States, I face the dual challenges of a giant mass of photos and video to edit, and the growing panic that I still have much more to see of Georgia and dwindling time to do so.
I left off with my first experience of food poisoning at the central market in Tbilisi, and now I rejoin my blogging after recovering from my most recent food inspired sickness. For anyone reading this in Tbilisi, stay the hell away from the Chinese restaurant just off of Rustaveli! Not to say that you would face a similar predicament as my own, but after stumbling around for several days with a sweet and sour dagger in my gut, I would appreciate starving that damnable establishment of as much business as possible.
Ranting aside, allow me to back paddle a month or so. After an extended stay on Dan’s couch (endless thanks Dan for your hospitality) I moved on to a new couch across the river before trading up to my own room and even, dare I say, a bed…well futon, but at least I can stretch out now. I write now from the Tbilisi apartment I share with a couple of proper fine brits, Dion, my surrogate big sis, and Sian, who I’ve seen very little of since my arrival. And of course Tom, the wonderful Welsh wreck whose room I inherited upon his delayed departure from Tbilisi, and for whom I would gladly relinquish the futon for the return of his company. And Jacob, the American journalists, who moved on to Turkey far too soon. And I cannot forget Ian, Dion’s something or other, who is as much a welcome roommate as any other. It’s a happy, two-story diamond in the rough of an apartment, which I am far from prepared to leave. A well used kitchen, a shortage of unbroken chairs, and a near constant stream of NGOs, couch surfers, friends, friends of friends, and friends to be, have made this place my of oasis of English speakers.
For my adventures outside the apartment, I have hired an interpreter, like any good linguistically challenged journalist abroad. It’s a move that, despite my age and inexperience, has managed to create a strange sense of professionalism, and kept me quite busy. Ana, a student at Tbilisi State University fluent in English, Georgian, and Russian, among others, seems to add languages to her repertoire with the same simple, impassioned interest that I add cameras to my collection. Her language abilities and straight forward wit often leave me feeling like a complete dunce. Her studies have shown her a great deal of the world, including a year’s stay in the States, but she retains a fervent love and pride for her country, which has proven to be quite contagious. Without her the multitudes of footage that clog my hard drive would have been impossible.
Which brings me to my work thus far, which I have been too slow in sharing. I have dedicated the bulk of my time to investigating issues facing Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from last years conflict. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes by the August “war” between Georgia and Russia. One year later, some 36,000 people in Georgia have been unable to return to their homelands in South Ossetia. Many IDPs are housed in so-called settlements that dot the countryside between Tbilisi and Gori. Composed of identical, single-family cottages, these settlements present a strange cross between low-income suburbia and a concentration camp, and in my opinion the reality isn’t far off. The Georgian government and countless NGOs made a valiant (I use that word quite intentionally as valiance is often marked with failure) effort to build thousands of these cottages. My understanding is that the government feared a repeat of the IDP situation created by the early 90s conflict in Abkhazia, which left hundreds of thousands of people in so-called collective centers, often vacant school, hotels, or other government buildings, for years on end.
I must admit that the settlements, although sickening in their implications, are, at least from a distance, impressive in their accomplishment. But a closer inspection reveals literal and figurative cracks in the foundations. The whole thing is plagued with problems, bureaucratic ineffectiveness and shortsightedness, such as frequent power and water failures, floor boards lain wet and drying with cracks between them, leaking roofs, poor or missing insulation, so on and so forth. Aid money and material is flooding into Georgia with little insight into Georgia or oversight of the funding. People speak benignly of corrupt politicians with fatter wallets, while tons of macaroni are distributed to people who have no idea what to do with it. Farmers, reminiscing of hectares of land, dozens of animals, homes that went back for generations and now burned to the ground, toil over a few square meters of clay the government calls a garden.
The IDPs are too large an issue to tackle in earnest during my short stay, and so I have decided to split much of my time comparing the conditions between two settlements at Skra and Tserovani. Skra is a small settlement hidden a half hour or so outside of Gori, and was the first I visited, with Dan (thanks again Dan). Tserovani is the largest of the new settlements and is located just outside of Tbilisi, within sight of the highway. The two invite an endless amount of comparisons, and for my purposes function to show the variety of problems facing IDPs. Both are laid out in the same plan, although Tserovani is on a much larger scale. The cottages in Tserovani have indoor plumbing; Skra has outhouses and outdoor taps. Tserovani’s soil is littered with clay and baked by the sun; Skra has it a little better but with high salt content. Tserovani has its own police station and a massive school in construction; Skra’s children are crammed into the school at the nearby village. There is rampant unemployment in both, and throughout Georgia for that matter. Tserovani makes you want to cry for their loss and yawn for their boredom; Skra makes you want to cry for their loss and smile for their resilience, but both settlements are exhausting to visit. Ana and I have conducted many interviews with IDPs at both locations and grown close with a family at each, and it all ways heavily on the soul.
For a more uplifting experience, the other half of my adventures have been dominated by repetitive assents to various mountaintop churches and ruins. I keep a respectable collection of cigarette butts from well earned smoke breaks after exhaustive uphill pilgrimages that have taken up to four hours to complete. Georgia’s countryside is riddled with summit-lain fortresses that have hosted every invader from the Persians to the Russians. The most impressive of these is the Narikala citadel in Tbilisi, as seen in earlier blog posts. The first in my lengthening list of personal summits, Narikala would have been an easy approach had I not, in the ignorance of my first few weeks here, chosen to approach it from the backside. I was forced by my own reluctance to find another route, and literally scale the walls. I have a new found respect for such crumbling battlements, and couldn’t help, straddling the impossible walls of that fortress, to picture myself some victorious invader.
High altitude religious sites, however, have a much more humbling impression. So far I have documented four festivals in Georgia, held in sight of a church belligerently and unfathomably constructed hundreds, if not thousands, of meters above the nearest village. Several hours struggle up the side of a mountain is generously rewarded with copious amounts of food and alcohol, often impossible to refuse despite honest concerns about descending under the full effects of Georgian wine and chacha (a sort of homemade vodka that makes moonshine seem refreshing by comparison).
My first experience with a Georgian festival came entirely by chance. Dan, his roommate Erin, a true anthropologist as Dan would say, and I, had planned on escaping the Tbilisi heat with a short hike north of the capital, just short of Kazbegi. We were slightly perplexed by the number of locals joining our route, until we learned a festival was taking place that day. Upon reaching the church, we barely avoided being incorporated into one of the more raucous supras. We partook in just enough wine to please our hosts without making the journey down too perilous.
My second festival was much more of a somber affair, but no less enjoyable. Crammed back into a marshrutka on the Georgian Military Highway that shoots north from Tbilisi into the mountainous border with Russia, Ana and I arrived several bumpy hours later in the town of Kazbegi, or Stepantsminda, as the Post-Soviet tradition often renders multiple names to the same location. We completed much of the two hour trek in the company of several delightful teachers from Rustavi (just South of Tbilisi). Included in our march was an English teacher who kindly shared her insights on the day’s events through her gasps for breath. “Today we celebrate love,” she explained in my own language, “Not just love for your boyfriends or girlfriends, but love for everyone and everything.” Uncharacteristically, a winding road and overpriced jeep taxis offered a more relaxed ascent to the church, but I joined the teachers in the hike, my microphone trained on the lone English speaker. “Of course it is better when we walk,” she explained, “Not to drive, but to walk.” This sentiment was well understood when I finally broke from the tree line and staggered into view of the Church of Tsminda Sameba (Holy Trinity). It is a sight so awe-inspiring that it’s picture has earned its place on almost every guidebook mentioning Georgia. The church rests on the highest point of a rolling expanse of green, encircled in mountains that seem to form the walls of some colossal cathedral.
After a moments rest and a small lunch Ana had been genius enough to pack, we made for the church among the throng of Georgians. I entered the holy grounds with a slight reluctance, feeling fully out of place with cameras slung on every shoulder. We reunited with the group of teachers. One of them took a surprisingly strong grip on my arm and, parting the crowd with shouts of Amerikelia (American), lead me headlong into the church itself. I felt like quite the spectacle, but the hushed scene that greeted me inside was staggering. The temperature soared among the mass of worshippers and candles. Icon’s flickered gold from every conceivable corner as people squeezed past each other in an effort to visit them all. Ana made a valiant effort to reach the priest and gain me permission to use my camera within the church. However, by the time permission was granted, three of the more unique icons, on loan to the church as part of national tour, were already beginning their journey back down the mountain. I jostled my way back out of the tiny church entrance just in time to watch a large, gilted portrait of Jesus begin its ascent in the weighted hands of some four or five men. It was all too much for my ignorance to grasp, but the power of that place scraping into the clouds actually raised the hair on my neck, or maybe it was just the shock of the cold mountain air.
Back in Tbilisi, the Opposition, already in a sorry state by the time I first arrived, was all but invisible on Rustaveli. A visit by Joe Biden gave the Georgian government the perfect excuse to remove the last remaining cells outside parliament and did so with little resistance. The Opposition had a large rally planned in the capital to coincide with the VPs visit. Fresh of a bus from Gori, I made my way to the site of demonstrations. My head was still spinning from the wine in Skra, that despite all the hardships of the IDPs, is an unavoidable aspect of any prolonged visit. But I quickly found blockades of city buses and multitudes of Georgian police blocking my way to Freedom Square, the planned site of the rally. It become obvious that under the claim of security, the government managed to rip the platform from under the feet of the Opposition. An enormous portion of Tbilisi was unexpectedly off limits. Crowds of idle police, with riot gear stashed not completely out of sight, blocked every possible entrance to Rustaveli, which includes Freedom Square at one end, and Parliament and the Marriot Hotel hosting Biden at the other. Trains in the metro skipped over two stops underneath. As I gathered suspicious glares from police at one barricade a German journalist engaged me in conversation. She explained that she had spent several years working in Russia and found the technique of denying the Opposition their chosen grounds for the rally suspiciously similar to those practiced in Russia. I won’t comment any further on the fiasco other than to call it just that.
I received a tip from Ana that people were gathering outside the Presidential Palace to welcome Biden. Figuring I had nothing better to do, I made for the other side of Tbilisi, my walking time doubled as I skirted the barricades. But there wasn’t much to be found there other than police, who took a special interest my presence. I was not so kindly instructed, in passable English, not to film the motorcades, but after discovering that my camera was in standby mode, bluntly and inexplicably accused of being a terrorist. The US Secret Service was even summoned from inside the palace. The one agent I spoke to was strangely cordial, explaining that the perimeter of the building was under Georgian control and, with vocabulary that seemed chosen to confuse his companions, suggested that I move along. I took his advice, perhaps wisely, as I knew enough Georgian to make some sense of the reports that crackled over the radio of every officer I past for the next six blocks of my retreat.
Enough of Tbilisi, the last week of July found me in Svaneti, a remote mountain region in the Northwest, for yet another festival. I had read in a guidebook that the Kvirikoba festival was one of the largest of the year in Svaneti, and had been planning the trip since my first weeks in Georgia. Ana and I left Tbilisi on the night train West with the last minute company
of Drew, an American couchsurfer who had made it out to Georgia by way of Greece and Turkey. Despite total sleeplessness the night prior, I managed none on the jolting train, which seemed to stop every few miles to let a much faster oil train past. It was a painfully boring journey. Ana and I spoke for an hour or so before the wedding she had attended earlier in the day caught up with her and she fell fast asleep. But as the train neared Zugdidi bathed in a bright pink sunrise, I forgot my fatigue and ran for my camera. The landscape sweeping past was strangely reminiscent of Louisiana, except for the distant mountains marking the horizon.
After an eight hour train ride, we still had another six hours on the infamously horrible Svaneti road. We piled into the back of a minibus that looked like the Scooby-Doo van on steroids. It was the perfect vehicle for the terrain but far from comfortable. I battled with a window that refused to remain open for my camera, until Ana, in her infinite merits, managed to persuade the man in the front passenger seat to surrender his position. The pothole ridden road still presented a major challenge to both still and video camera, but I managed to collect some amazing footage, often dangling halfway out the window to do so. The marshrutka musical chairs proved to be fortuitous. The man with whom I had exchanged seats explained to Ana that another festival, Limkheroba, was taking place the following day near a village just short of our destination in Mestia. As it turned out the marshrutka driver, Karlo, had a three rooms available in his home stay in that very village, Latali. Some of my best experiences in Georgia have followed from such chance encounters, and so I didn’t hesitate to seize the opportunity.
We arrived in Latali late in the afternoon. The festival was the following day, at the top of some mountain no doubt, so we assumed we would have enough time to rest and recover from the journey. Ana and I explored the little village nestled along the banks of the roaring Enguri river, mountains on all sides. It was the perfect rural escape from my extended time in the capital. Cows and pigs wandered the roads and alleyways. The air was cool and fresh and only slightly tainted by the aforementioned animals. Svaneti is well known for its abundance of defensive towers, three to five story fortified, stone structures employed centuries ago during times of frequent family feuding. Our little village had three such towers, and many more could be seen in the distant villages that dotted the mountains around us. We soon found ourselves at a small church, where a dozen or so teenagers were passing their time. I pulled out my video camera and questioned the less camera shy about life in Svaneti.
The Svans speak an ancient dialect of Georgian that is entirely unintelligible to residents of inner Georgia. But of course everyone also speaks Georgian and often Russian, possibly even English, German, or French. The rugged remoteness of Svaneti and its inhabitants often seems to garner the same regard from other Georgians as many Americans view the deep recesses of Appalachia. It wasn’t long ago that the area was riddled with stories of banditry. The few tourists who made it this far were often robbed and occasionally kidnapped. Today, however, Svans are beginning to recognize the advantages of tourism. The remarkable landscape and ancient culture is sure to attract visitors despite of all its challenges. A USAID project has just begun in the area in hopes of improving the infrastructure for tourism. The road is receiving a badly needed makeover, but there is a great amount of skepticism as to when, if ever, the construction will be finished. There is even an internet café in Mestia, funded by USAID, which we visited to speak to the owner on our way through town. In my opinion, Svaneti, and Georgia as a whole, receives far fewer visitors than it deserves, but I also fear that growing tourism may erode the very character that distinguishes such a remote region.
One of the more enthusiastic young Svans shared his interest in music, covering everything from System of a Down to traditional Georgian folk music. This last mention particularly sparked my interest and I was soon invited to hear the local choir in rehearsal nearby. After an impromptu concert that shook the walls with the unique resonance of a three-part, Svan harmony, Ana and I gathered some useful information about the next days festivities. We were warned of the rough, four-mile ascent that awaited us, but I was excited to hear that a bull would be slaughtered at dawn as part of the festival. Such sacrificial rituals are still quite common in Svaneti, which has managed to preserve many Pagan traditions despite their conversion to Georgian Orthodox Christianity. Officially the church denounces such forms of ritualized slaughter, but it is difficult to curb any behavior in a land where life has changed remarkable little over the past thousand years. It certainly offered a unique insight into Svan culture, but the sunrise timing of the slaughter left us with two painful options. We could either depart that early evening, despite our travel fatigue, or ridiculously early the next morning. Figuring that if and when I fell asleep it would be for quite a while, and preferring to make the journey in daylight, we opted to leave that evening.
The younger of Karlo’s two sons, Jrakli, served as our guide, and we left the village with only the vague indication that the church was “somewhere way up there.” To say the trail was muddy would be as massive a failure in literate venture as to say that it was steep. Often the only thing that kept me from tumbling backwards under the weight of my camera gear was the ankle deep muck that was comically reminiscent of something one would find on the bottom of a recently dredged Maryland canal. To aggravate the situation, even the most rugged Georgian man hikes at a pace that can drive an American outdoorsman insane with boredom. I am certainly no alpinist, but I have found my way along many American trails and been permanently spoiled by my visits to Alaska, and I couldn’t help but find the going painfully slow. I traded jokes at the all too frequent rest stops with Drew, another outdoor-minded American, of the staggering sluggish progress. The frequent promises that the peak was just another “half an hour” didn’t garner the most trust. Every corner looked as though we might break from tree cover but constantly disappointed. Well past what must have been a gloriously beautiful sunset, we finally staggered out from under the trees and onto yet another rolling expanse of mountaintop green, although by this point everything in sight appeared as a shadowy grey.
A few hundred yards from the tiny church burned a campfire, to which we were enthusiastically welcomed by a couple dozen young Svans. Khachapuri was thrust into our hands along with the requisite shots of chacha. With the light faded well past my cameras abilities and my body reeling from rail, road and mountain route I decided to partake well beyond my typical tentativeness in regards towards Georgian alcohol. It is here where I must break from my narrative to explain, to the uninitiated, the horror that is chacha.
Every region of the world has its firewater mainstays, the vodkas, moonshines, bathtub gins, and goat milk concoctions, drinks which have no other purpose that to inebriate as quickly and completely as possible. Any visitor to Georgia, particularly male as is the culture, will undoubtedly come face to face with an enormous shot glass of chacha. Like any homemade liquor it varies considerably, in both taste and strength, but one can always be assured that it will be painful. Chacha is dimly reminiscent of vodka but with none of its clarity in flavor. It smells as though it may have a variety of industrial applications, and would probably work equally well as paint solvent or rat poison. It also makes a wonderful fire starter as our host delighted in demonstrating.
For anyone considering a visit to Georgia, or for those here already who have yet to refine their chacha skills, I can offer some advise as gleaned from a night in which I drank enough of that accursed liquid to entirely mask its taste from my mouth. One begins with the approach, the first shot. At all costs, avoid the temptation to linger with your nose over the glass. There is no need to discern its contents by smell, it is clear enough in the devilish smile of the Georgian who has offered it forth. Allowing its vulgar scent to reach your brain will only ignite a fury of flight instincts. Clutch the glass at a distance and meet the smiling gaze of your executioner. You will likely be offered the opportunity to make a toast, which should follow on the theme making its way round your fellow drinkers. The beauty of Georgia, friendship, guests, hosts, mothers and women are all popular topics. Georgians love toasting, it is a central part of the culture and the nation considers itself the inventor of the custom. Eloquence, length, and improvisation are all very well received. Be honest and heartfelt, you will often surprise yourself as the situation seems to draw forth the words, so seize on the opportunity. Throw yourself fully into the toast, both to please your hosts, and to distract yourself from the forthcoming chacha.
At the toasts conclusion, offer a hearty Gaurmajos! (Victory! Often used like Cheers!) and drain the glass in one unhesitant gesture. Sipping is ill-advised as it serves only to prolong the discomfort. The best technique I have found is to avoid as much contact between chacha and tongue as possible. Now brace yourself. Chacha often goes down with a similar burn as any high proof liquor, but a moment later it resurges with a vehemence that makes you think you might belch out fire. The burn starts from your gut and shoots like lightning up your throat and onto your tongue. An exasperated “huuuuuhhhh” is almost unavoidable.
Now is when one must decide whether to continue down this road. A muted reaction will earn you respect and another shot, while a more comical shuttering will garner laughs and earn you a reprieve. Either way, you will quickly be offered water, bread, and khachapori to extinguish the flames, often by the same smiling face that first thrust out the chacha. No matter your approach it is good idea to capitalize such assistance, which will greatly aid in your recovery. If, however, you are truly looking to impress you can wave off these offerings and do your best to stifle any revulsion on your face. Be warned that while such behavior will greatly please your guests, it will likely be your undoing as they test your resolve with further shots.
I earned my fair share of respect that night. When everyone had had enough, and the full extent of our fatigue began to take its toll, we made for one of the mountain cabins. We had been instructed that our particular cabin was “half an hour” away. We staggered through tea fields for over an hour in total darkness of both time and sobriety. Our guides had quite a lot of chacha and wine themselves, and I was frequently supported by the weary hands of a man almost equally intoxicated as myself. With the underbrush stripping at our knees, we traipsed about the mountain in total disregard or comprehension of our whereabouts. Occasional the extended group, a dozen or so I would venture but my memory is hazy, would stop to investigate some distant light. A few minutes of shouting back and forth apparently rendered some insight into our location. We would make some radical turn in our course and continue until the next mysterious light source sent us back the other way. The chacha in my belly found it all endlessly amusing.
At last we arrived at a cabin, not the one we had set out for, but no one cared at this point. To describe the wooden hovel as a cabin, however, appeared to be quite generous. It had a roof and walls and not much else, but I was quite content with that. I had sobered enough to assist in the fire making, which was a considerable challenge given the complete lack of nearby trees and the penetrating dampness. Warmed and dry to a considerable level, I collapsed, all to shortly, onto the sleeping pad Drew had generously provided. 5:30 that same morning it was he who finally managed to rouse me.
We made our way in the clarity of early dawn back to the site of the church and the condemned bull. Not wishing to witness the impending gore, Ana made herself scarce. Candles were lit and melted onto the bull’s horns, key points of hair were singed, and a suitable spot for the bloodshed was exhaustively debated. Somewhere nearby a couple of sheep met an unceremonious end. The bull was hobbled and lain on its side. A man produced a pocket knife, which appeared far more suitable for opening letters, and slit the animal’s throat with the all the indifference of carpenter cutting a 2x4. There was a fair amount of blood, and a lot of gurgling of both the bull and my stomach. It was quite the spectacle but far less revolting than any meat processing plant in the States, and I was looking forward to some much needed protein. When the bull had given its last quiver the task of skinning and butchering was divided among as many knife wielding men as could fit around the carcass.
With the beef on the boil, Ana, Drew, and I laid out on the grass to catch some much needed rest. We awoke in time for fresh beef, good but tough, and various sheep parts which were only identified after I had swallowed. Then there was a series of horse races. Teens and twenty-somethings rode bareback at top speed across the only stretch of flat land on the mountain before an anticlimactic finishing climb to the church that sapped all speed and strength from the horses. The younger boys screamed out their encouragements, which could hardly be discerned from the yelping dogs doing their best to be trampled. A couple more glasses of chacha and we were ready to depart.
The two brothers traded guide duties and the elder, Mamuka, lead us back down the mountain. Ana went through a sort of bipolar altitude sickness, alternately cursing the mud strewn path and praising the mountain beauty. My thoughts remained on sleep and the empty pack of cigarettes in my pocket. We returned to the guesthouse in under two hours, slammed down the standard Georgian meal of starch and dairy, showered, and I collapsed on the only bed I have yet known in Georgia.
The following morning greeted us again at 5:30, now with promises of rain. With a two hour marshrutka ride ahead of us, and no rain covers in my camera bag, I feared that I wouldn’t have much opportunity to photograph the days events. Halfway into the journey the clouds were thick, but we were still dry. Karlo, now accustomed to my camera habits, pulled off to the side of the road so that I could photograph a nearby town. A few minutes later a truck and its drunk driver scrapped against the side of the parked marshrutka, luckily causing only minor damage but requiring a good deal of manpower to extract the vehicles from each other. Karlo made sure to put a good distance between us and the truck before he made his next roadside stop.
The clouds broke before we reached Kala, the site of the Kvirikoba festival. It was easy enough to discern our arrival among the trucks, jeeps, marshrutkas, and even the unlikely car jammed into every conceivable flat patch of ground. The dangerously wet trail up to the church was teeming with visitors struggling past each other in both directions. The hour or so it took to reach the top only intensified the rain. Having sacrificed my rain jacket on Ana’s ill-prepared behalf, the only dry part of me was that protected by my backpack. It was clear that operating a camera in the downpour was an invitation to disaster. Drew had his pack cover, which he and Ana generously held over my head as I captured some video footage. However, I had to watch helplessly as many amazing images passed before me, lost to the weather. I could have risked it, thrown a cheap plastic bag over my camera and shot away, but I was far too concerned with a malfunction that could have permanently spoiled my trip.
The church grounds were far more restricted than I had become accustomed to, as this mountain offered very little flat area. People crammed together under the little bit of shelter they could find. Visitors lit candles, which melted into the walls of the church, hissing and crackling in the rain. One woman stood patiently waiting for her turn, wax dripping down the folds of her hands. In another corner, young men gathered to prove their strength. Two ancient tasks were laid out, a giant church bell which the men had to lift with their shoulders and ring, and a small boulder, which they had to lift up and over their shoulder. I filmed attempts at both, failed and successful, and even tried at the bell myself, managing only to lift it a fraction from the ground.
I had almost given up all hope of finding a dry place from which to unpack my cameras when I noticed a small tower near the church with a second-story window overlooking the grounds. We entered in hopes of finding a suitable location to shoot from and found a supra (feast, literally “tablecloth,” involving copious amounts of wine and chacha) crammed into the compact walls of the building. We were welcomed into several rounds of chacha, and I entirely forgot about the rain outside. Drew and I were in very high spirits when we finally extracted ourselves from the table and ventured back down the muddy slopes to the marshrutka, where there were more drinks to be had. On the drive back to our home stay we delighted (and perhaps perplexed) our hosts with raucous renditions of everything from American folk, and Christmas songs to the Beatles and Ray Charles. Anything that came to mind was sung until our lyrical memory was quickly exhausted and we moved on to the next song. One of the brothers asked Ana where she had managed to find such cheerful Americans. At the bottom of a chacha bottle, of course.
The following day was spent in Mestia. We visited the Svaneti Historic and Ethnographic Museum, which was far less unimpressive than I had expected. I was granted a rare chance to film inside the museum thanks to Ana’s negotiation skills, and they even waived the entrance fee. We were guided through a vast collection of Svan artifacts dating as far back as two millennia. Understandably, much of the museum centered around religious material, ancient bibles and hymn books, icons, and frescoes. Our guide spoke passable English, but preferred to remain off camera and every question I raised sent her off in search of someone who knew the details. So, I kept my mouth shut and my camera aimed at the display cases. Hard to say if I got much photographically useful out of the tour, but it was insightful and interesting as any museum can hope to be.
We received a far more interesting glimpse into Svan life and culture back in Latali, when Jrakli lead us up into one the village’s towers. One by one we climbed the four rickety ladders that lead up to the battlements and roof, which offered an enviable view of the town and surrounding countryside. We were also treated to a view of the family’s old house, preserved in the traditional Svan style. With no interior walls, the central living, cooking, and sleeping area is divided from livestock quarters by thick, carved, wooden paneling. Jrakli spoke of plans to turn the home into a private museum and expand the number of rooms at the guest house. It would seem that a few in Svaneti are beginning to capitalize on the slowly rising tide of tourism.
Drew departed the following day as Ana and I headed for Ushguli, the highest permanently inhabited village in Europe, or so we were told at least a dozen times. Drew managed to miss the last, southbound marshrutka and contented himself with attempting to hitchhike. It was only when I arrived in Tbilisi a few days later that I learned he had made it back safely. Ushguli was impressive in spite of the cloud cover that obscured much of the surrounding mountains. The small, remote village seemed frozen in time some hundreds of years before our own arrival. There were a great number of towers in varying stages of collapse. On a treeless mountain overlooking the villages sat the remains of Queen Tamar’s palace. The much beloved, twelfth century, Georgian monarch held a special affection for Svaneti and is fervently rumored to be buried in the region. In a continuation of the “way up there” theme we decided to visit the ruins of the medieval palace and tower. Ana took her time picking wildflowers while I delighted in the views, too bad for the clouds though.
We spent our final day in Svaneti in relative leisure. A short drive brought us to the village of Becho and the base of Mount Ushba, the highest of the South Caucasus. The weather had improved greatly, but a stubborn cloud formation prevented me from capturing the mountain’s twin peaks. Whenever one peak began to emerge from the clouds, the other would slip from view. A nearby spring of Georgia’s famous mineral water gathered a small crowd of idle locals and family visitors. I spoke to them briefly through Ana, asking about life in the region, and its apparent depopulation, as families begin to winter in Tbilisi or leave the region permanently. Despite their beauty, many villages in Svaneti seemed wreathed in boredom. Summers are occupied by a few rural chores and a lot of outdoor idleness, while the harsh eight-month winter keeps everyone locked inside. It is a tough life, the Svans like to say, and they are tough people.
A combined nine hours of marshrutka travel returned me Tbilisi. I met up with Dan, who had just returned from a short visit in the states, and Liz, another college acquaintance of mine and an even better acquaintance of Dan’s. We splurged a little at that now infamous Chinese restaurant and I spent the next several days barely able to leave my apartment. I shaped up in time for the recent one year anniversary of the Russian-Georgian conflict (I will avoid the less diplomatic word “war”). The Georgian government put on a bit of a show, blocking off Rustaveli once again, but this time for an outdoor museum of “Russian Aggression.”
I have been in Georgia long enough to frame my own opinions concerning the ridiculous “who started the war” debate, which I would gladly share over a drink but am far more reluctant to put into writing. I will say only that such conversation, particularly within the media, is entirely absurd and drastically oversimplifies a complex history of Russian-Georgian relations. It also plays well into the hands of the politicians who wish to perpetuate such a debate in order to draw attention away from more important and incriminating issues. Needless to say, however, the display on Rustaveli, with its mannequin Russian soldiers, APVs, and fake border checkpoint, was nothing more than a propaganda farce.
While half-heartedly photographing the Rustaveli display, I ran into Uwe, a German photojournalist I had met a month earlier. He was headed to Gori, where Saakashvilli was scheduled to make an appearance, and offered me a ride. On the road to Gori we passed several dozen city buses headed the same way, Georgian flags waving from their windows. Outside the Stalin Museum (where a visitor wouldn’t hear the first thing about any of the shortcomings of such a wonderful Georgian) and under the watchful gaze of a towering statue of the man himself, a mock Berlin wall had been constructed for the anniversary, bearing images that put Russia into a more demonic light than even Fox News could have ever imagined. The juxtaposition was too perfect for imagery.
Fortunately for my stomach, someone had been wise enough not to hold the rally in the town center, where someone like myself would have had no choice but to place the Man of Steal in the background of every image. Instead, events were being held at the base of the nearby castle. The growing rain and gathering crowds transformed the area into a mud pit. Too dark and wet for my cameras, and with no high ground to view much of anything, the staging seemed oddly uninviting to photographers. When the motorcade finally arrived and Saakashvilli took the stage, the PA system was so quiet that many of the spectators had no idea what was happening. Frustrated and wet, Uwe and I threw in the proverbial towel I would have loved to have had at the moment.
For the past week I have been left to my own devices. Ana is in Batumi for the European Youth Parliament. I would like to say that I have used the time wisely, caught up on editing and such, which to a certain degree I have, but there is a limit to the hours in a day one can spend in front of a computer screen, or at least there should be. Seeing as this has been quite a long blog entry, I feel I should end on some jovial or clever not, but I don’t know if I can manage either. Rather, allow me to play travel agent and suggest my own Top Five Reasons to Visit Georgia…(the country)!
5. It’s cheap. Okay, airfare can get a little pricey, but that’s true for anywhere, and it’s likely to be your biggest expense when traveling to Georgia. Food is cheap: a good restaurant meal shouldn’t set you back more than ten Lari (about $6) and is often less, transportation in cheap: a metro ride is 30 Tetri ($0.18) and marshrutkas are everywhere, accommodation is cheap: I am paying less in rent for a two-story apartment in Tbilisi than I did for utilities at my last place in Athens, OH. A budget traveler can go a long way in Georgia.
4. It’s gigantically small. In a country roughly the size and shape of Tennessee there are mountains, forests, beach resorts, and deserts all within a days travel of each other. The Georgian landscape differs remarkably and beautifully. On the same theme, Georgia manages to fuse both Asian and European influences into a unique culture that is already full to the brim. Georgia is a lot in a small package.
3. It’s delicious. It is true that any extended stay in Georgia will undoubtedly lead to “khachapuri fatigue,” but there is a great variety of amazing food. Cheese and bread are the clear specialty, but there’s also a good array of meat dishes, and vegetarians will have no trouble in Georgia. If you buy in season, which is often the only time you can, the produce here is unbelievable. Personally, I can’t bear the thought of eating a tomato or watermelon in America after my stay in Georgia. On top of the food there’s the drink. Georgia is the original wine country. The Georgian word for wine is “ghvino” and guess which came first. Now, Georgian wine does take some getting used to, as it is often much sweater than western varieties, but there are some great wines here. Nearly every family makes their own wine, and grape vines can be found growing on almost any vertical surface in the country.
2. It’s friendly. “Guests are a gift from God,” as the Georgian proverb says, and Georgians will happily go out of their way to demonstrate this mentality. Georgian hospitality is world renowned, and for good reason. It can almost be aggressive in its delivery, but in my experiences always quite genuine. There is a term among expats that can shed some insight, “supra-knapping.” A supra, in its proper form, is a gut-busting, nightlong venture in ritualized feasting, where enormous amounts of food and alcohol are distributed in between long, heartfelt toasts. The typically supra-knapping goes something like this: a foreign visitor asks someone on the street for directions and before they know it they are absurdly drunk in the company of twenty or so of their new best friends making plans to visit somebody’s uncle on the coast, because, “well you can’t come to Georgia and not visit the Black Sea,” and “what was that hotel you’re staying at? No, no, no, you’ll stay with us, you can have that room, and in the morning we’ll show you the city.”
1. It’s Georgia. The top reason for visiting Georgia cannot be quite understood until one actually visits. There’s an indefinable quality to the nation and its people that often delays departures and ensures return. The only people who know if and/or when they are leaving are the ones with roundtrip tickets, and they are often the ones, such as myself, looking for a cheap one-way flight for the next time they visit.
