Spring Sun, Tbilisi, and Keda Fun

After my last lengthy blogpost about Svaneti, certain keys on my keyboard stopped working. Which keys you might ask? Why t, y, u, i, o! It was rather unfortunate that most of my vowels were out of commission - it certainly made matters difficult. Anyway, this is probably boring for you, but it set up my recent trip to Tbilisi quite nicely because I had to order a new external keyboard which was to be picked up in the capital city.

Last weekend, I made the seven hour journey from Keda to Tbilisi, all by marshrutka. There is a train that goes between Batumi and Tbilisi, but it leaves a little too early in the morning for my taste.

In Tbilisi, I stayed at this nice hostel off of Rustaveli Avenue because I know the owner real well and because it had a private room for me to stay in at more than half the cost of a budget hotel room. The weather was quite nice, warm, but cloudy with some passing showers. I met with friends Nathan who is on a Fulbright research grant in Tbilisi, Cameron who is a Fulbright ETA in Armenia, and Tengo who was an intern at the US Embassy when we all arrived back in September, all of whom I had not seen in quite some time and ended up having a great time with them over dinner two nights in a row.  While going out to dinner, Nathan introduced me to a part of Tbilisi that I had never seen before and so on Sunday I went there by myself to wonder around and take pictures. I cannot say that a whole lot of interesting things happened this weekend, it was just a nice, good, fun weekend. I felt happy.

Rustaveli Avenue

Freedom Square

Marjanishvili Street

Marjanishvili neighborhood

A park along Marjanishvili Street

Yours truly in said park,

This weekend was spent locally. I stayed in Keda, explored a local church by the name of Zvare just 5 kilometers down the road, and visited with my Georgian neighbors. Friday night was warm and I went with Giorgi and neighbor Tamuna to a local park where we played on a seesaw for roughly half an hour by light of the moon and fireflies. It has been fifteen years since I was on a seesaw and must admit that it was quite fun.

Zvare is a beautiful church located on a cliff jutting out into the river Acharistkhali, which is the main river that courses through the lush mountains of Adjara. Saturday was a gorgeous and perfect day to visit this church and explore the area before getting a ride back to Keda with a counterpart. I had planned on walking back, but having forgotten to put on sunscreen, I did not want to get burned in the hot afternoon sun, so I took him up on his offer. Back in Keda, I bought local bottled mineral water and some ice cream before hanging out with my schoolgirl neighbor, Tamuna, and her mother, Maka, in the local pharmacy. I just love Tamuna, she is such a sweet girl and our friendship transcends both age and language. She is ten and speaks little English, I am 24 and speak little Georgian, but somehow we make it work. We went off to a park to take pictures. I also hung out at another neighbor's for a good while, chatting over Turkish coffee and sliced apples.

Zvare Church and the Acharistskhali River 

The lush subtropical mountains of Adjara. These mountains make up part of the (lesser)
Caucasus Mountain Range that runs along the border of Georgia, Turkey, and Armenia

Tamuna and I in the local aptiaki (pharmacy)
run by her mother, Maka (not pictured). I often stop by to visit.

Tamuna in 9 Aprili Park.

The sign as you enter Keda, my Fulbright host site over the past year.

My dear Tamuna.

And to part ways…kittens!

Sunday was a lazy day spent inside due to the rain and cool air that had descended upon the mountains. I lay here on my bed, writing this blog post, with the host cat Jackson sitting on my butt. It has been a nice day hanging out with my host family and neighbors - I really do not have too many of these days left before I return to the States.

Next weekend, I am going on a trip to Armenia! It will be quite fun and interesting to see another country of the Caucasus. To do this, though, I really need to invest in some sunscreen because I got sunburned this weekend and next weekend in Yerevan looks like it is going to be scorching.

So, that's it on my end! Stay tuned for a post about Armenia. Oh! It is less than a month now until my parents arrive in Georgia and you will definitely want to stay tuned for that!

Easter Break in Svaneti

The true skyscrapers on this Earth are mountains for they can reach so high as to grace heaven. The Greater Caucasus Range forms the border between Russia and Georgia, and Russia and Azerbaijan. These mountains are the tallest in Europe, the ragged, snowcapped peaks souring over 18,000 feet in places. This range is formidable, mythological, wild. It is here that Prometheus was chained to a mountain, where mountain men and women lived in the clouds, where the hearts of some of Russia's greatest literary heroes were drawn. Mikhail Lermontov wrote this in his work Hero of Our Time: "All around the valley tower formidable mountains, reddish crags draped with hanging ivy and crowned with clusters of pine trees, yellow cliffs grooved by torrents, with a gilded fringe of snow high above." The region of Svaneti in particular was for a long time, so remote and inaccessible that no foreign enemy ever was fully successful in conquering and taming it. Because of this, the unique culture, language (unintelligible to most Georgians outside this region despite it being in the same Kartvelian language family), and heritage of its inhabitants, the Svans, have survived largely intact.

Up until about ten years ago, blood feuds among neighbors still occurred in Svaneti. In addition, due to severe economic problems, a harsh climate, and natural disasters, it became a safe haven for criminals making it very dangerous for tourists and trekkers to travel throughout Svaneti. Around 2003, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili sent in Georgian Special Forces to carry out large scale anti-criminilization and anti-corruption operations which resulted in significant improvement of the situation.  Today, the region is considered very safe…so for all of you are reading this worrying about me traveling alone, fear not. I am back in one piece with a singing heart and stirred imagination.

You see, these towering mountains were truly where it all began for me. Ten years ago, I watched in horror as Chechen terrorists seized an elementary school in the semi-autonous Russian Caucasus Republic of North Ossetia-Alania. Something about this event stuck out in my memory beyond the atrocity - I wanted to know more. This was a time when I was truly starting to develop interests that reached beyond my immediate world and surroundings. I was fascinated, although it was not as defined at the time, by military history and despotic leaders. World War II and Joseph Stalin fit both of those and I found him by discovering the Caucasus and I discovered Russia (and Georgia) through Stalin and the War. Another simple fact about my intrigue over the Caucasus was the very connection I felt with mountains. Mountains have a way of opening me up, easing me, stirring my soul. Ten years of dedication and determination, of passion and devotion, of research, of papers, of books, of classes, of travel, of discussions and I finally was able to actually be in the place that had spawned all of it.

Aside from all the personal significance for which I wanted to travel to Svaneti, it also was a matter of practicality. For all the reasons I outlined above, I wanted to spend more than just a weekend there, I really wanted to get a feel for the place, not to mention the sheer logistics of just getting there.

I stayed in Mestia, the administrative center of this region, nestled deep within the mountains and mere kilometers from the Russian border. Mestia is a launching point for trekking, horse riding, and skiing. I would only engage in the first, and even then nothing too serious, I just casually blazed along rural roads that weaved through little mountain hamlets and fields of farm animals. Easter weekend that happened to fall right during the shoulder season of mid-April caused the town of Mestia to be pretty dead - hardly anything was open. Even if things had been open, it would not have changed the scheme of things all that much because there were no independent restaurants or cafes or significant shops of any kind. There were a couple of small, open markets that sold the same general hodgepodge of cheap imported items, food, drinks, and cigarettes that I have found to be so pervasive and indicative here in Georgia. These types of shops are everywhere. The only restaurants in town were ones attached to hotels and home stays and after an especially awkward, lonesome Sovietesque meal in one of these places, I opted to have dinner at my hotel for the rest of my stay.

Six days I was in Svaneti, including two days of travel back and forth. I left Keda mid-morning on Thursday and two marshrutka rides later, I ended up in the small city of Zugdidi, the gateway of the Caucasus. The plan had initially been to take a marshrutka up there, but by the time I arrived to Zugdidi in mid-afternoon, the marshrutka was not going to depart because there were not enough passengers. I finally convinced the two other intended passengers, an old Georgian lady and the all too common, all too sketchy middle-aged Georgian man, to take a taxi (well not so much the man, but he decided to come along anyway). Taking a taxi definitely cost a great deal more than taking a marshrutka would have, but honestly, I did not mind. I was just excited and eager to be heading into the mountains. The ride to Mestia was absolutely spectacular.

The front range of the Caucasus right outside Zugdidi is already lush
and in full spring glory.

The Zugdidi-Mestia Highway

The wild and rugged peaks of the Caucasus Mountains as seen
from the Zugdidi-Mestia Highway.

By the time we arrived in Mestia, it was evening and just growing dark, and the middle-aged Georgian man insisted I stay with him. I tried to explain to him an innumerable amount of times that I had already booked a hotel, but because he spoke poor Russian and I poor Georgian, it was all lost on him. He followed me through town until I approached the entryway of my hotel and then he understood. I appreciated his offer, but I did not feel entirely comfortable for many reasons, and I said thank you and goodbye.

Friday I spent all day wandering around Mestia, checking out churches, rivers, and side streets. I also met a Georgian man later in the hotel named after John Wayne - he proceeded to engage me in a long conversation about American Westerns.  In pictures, you will see what I saw and did (especially since everything was closed):

The town of Mestia.

One of at least half a dozen churches in Mestia. 

Seti Square in the center of Mestia. What is interesting about it is that
these buildings that you see are just merely facades. They are gutted inside
and it does not look as if they were ever developed.

An alley that branches off a side street. 

Yours truly standing in front of the iconic Svan watchtowers that were
used in days of old as defense to watch for both invading foreign enemies and feuding neighbors.

Cows are everywhere in Georgia.

Saturday was a gloriously beautiful, sunny, warm day. I decided to take a walk to the center of town to see if the information center and ethnography museum were open (they were not) and ended up walking over a bridge that teetered above a deep gorge. I would have taken pictures but it was littered with trash. An elderly Georgian man passed me by in a marshrutka brimming with hay, stopped, and asked me if I wanted a ride to Ushguli, Europe's supposed highest inhabited settlement. Now, I consider myself a fairly good judge of character and have fairly good intuition and sensed no harm from this man. Since I wanted to see Ushguli, I hopped in. Fifteen minutes into the ride and six or so kilometers out of town, I realized that this man was not a local and thus severely underestimated the supposed travel time to Ushguli (he had said only half an hour, which I found suspect). I was not prepared to spend the night anywhere but Mestia and told him to leave me on the side of the road so that I could walk back. At first, he was hesitant, but I convinced him in short order when I spotted some American tourists and before I knew it, I was in the cleanest vehicle that I had seen in months and was wearing a seatbelt! For the next couple of hours, I hung out with these American tourists, who happen to be currently living and working in Tbilisi, crisscrossing the valley from village to village.

Mount Ushba clocks in at over 16,000 feet.

Old churches housed in the iconic watchtowers.

Just beyond these mountains sits Russia. 

The view from one of the villages.

At midnight on Easter, all the churches in Mestia began to ring, and I listened as the beauty and jubilation of the tolling echoed throughout the valley for five minutes. Easter Sunday turned out to be another beautiful day and I went for a walk along the Zugdidi-Mestia Highway and counted the cows and towers that passed me by.

The village of Lenjeri. 

An ornamented door of an old church.

Yours truly standing along the Zugdidi-Mestia Highway.

Mr. Cow and Lenjeri.

The village of Lenjeri.

Monday was quieter, cooler, and rainy and thus I spent most of it at the hotel doing work, alternating between the balcony and my room. That night, I was treated with a brilliant sunset, a perfect farewell to my time spent in these mountains and with which I will leave you before I left at 6:30 am the next morning.

Sunset in Svaneti 

Alpenglow

Poti Anecdotes

Here is a series of anecdotes from my visit to Poti, Georgia at the beginning of March. First of all, Poti is a port city along the Black Sea not far from the border of the semi-autonomous Republic of Abkhazia. This may account for one anecdote:

1.  Fulbrighters, Destinee, Shawn, and I, plus an English Language Fellow from Ukraine were walking through the forest. We came across a random door in the middle of the path, nested between two brambly bushes. We found this odd. Just a few short yards later, we stumbled upon some sort of military outpost.

The not very well secured door.

A military watchtower?

What I thought at first was a tractor, turned out to be
some sort of artillery equipment.

2. We had come to Poti with the express purpose of visiting Kolkheti National Park, a place noted for its variety of birds who supposedly winter there during this time of year. We were dropped off by the entrance of the park, but immediately I found the location dubious. The lettering on the park sign was falling off and there was construction equipment laying around. We never did quite find this national park and instead chose to randomly walk through the forest.

Dilapidated park sign

3. We explored an abandoned building.

4. We were walking along a forest path for awhile when Destinee mused: "I'm surprised we haven't seen any dogs." Seconds later, we heard barking and a dog stumbled onto the path. Shawn waved a stick at it and it ran away. Then another dog started barking. We decided to turn around.

5. Upon arrival in Poti, we asked a taxi driver to take us to a good hotel by the beach. He told us he knew a hotel that was in a "perfect" location "by everything". The hotel ended up resting outside the city a ways in the forest by nothing except a lonesome restaurant. The good news was that it was not far from a desolate Black Sea beach.

The Black Sea

We finally saw our birds: seagulls.

Fulbright Sakartvelo "Georgia"

6. In the restaurant on one particular evening as we were having dinner, at a table nearby were a group of boisterous Georgian men. They were trying to sing and harmonize but were doing both rather poorly. After noticing our arrival, they started saying "no problem" several times in English, I think, to gauge our reaction. After enough alcohol was consumed, one man sauntered over to us to propose a toast to our mothers. He then told us he was single and asked for Destinee's hand in marriage. We Fulbrighters hightailed out of there pretty quickly.

7. And lastly, we explored a little bit of Poti itself.

A residential street in Poti

A typical Georgian house.

This church, in the center of town, was modeled after the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

Georgian New Year, Georgian Birthday

This post has been a long time coming, but here it goes.

I made a 30+ hour journey back to Georgia from the USA so that I could spend New Year's Eve in Georgia. By the time I had gone to bed on New Year's at around 1 am on January 1st, I had been up for a solid fifty hours or more. Dedication. Well, by the time I did show up on the doorstep of my host family's house on New Year's Eve, I was met by my a smiling Giorgi, my host brother, who always has a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. He had been waiting for my return so we could assemble and decorate the Christmas tree. For those of you who do not know, Georgia and many other post-Soviet states, do not celebrate Christmas on December 25th, but on New Year's Eve instead. That is when Santa/Grandfather Frost and the Snow Maiden visit the homes of children and give them gifts while they all ring in the New Year. I gave Giorgi a Chicago Bulls winter cap and he was instantly smitten. He is a big fan and constantly tells me that he is Michael Jordan (Giorgi is tiny, by the way).

My lovable, mischievous host brother, Giorgi.

New Year's Eve in Keda was all that I could have hoped for it to be - a gigantic feast ensued after midnight that I just had to stay up for. I also watched from my bedroom window families shooting off fireworks all across town. On television, which is always blazing in my host family's house, a group of Georgians danced to a cover version of "Gangnam Style" - that song is incredibly popular here, for whatever reason. But that was the first song of choice to bring in 2014.

My neighbors at a New Year's Day feast (my host mom is in the red and white shirt)

A fifteen day feast ensued where the Georgians ate and drank wine all day. I escaped by going to Turkey for a week, only for everything to be amped up when I returned.

I celebrated my birthday (January 10th) Georgian-style by engaging in an all-day marathon of feasting and, yes, drinking. Those who know me know that I am not the biggest fan of drinking, but I have had more alcohol here in Georgia than I have had since turning 21. I kid you not. By the end of the night, I had vertigo and went to bed early. It was quite the adventure and quite the party.

Birthday feast

Tsitso with my homemade birthday cake.