Best Driving Lesson Yet

So, today, I had possibly my best driving lesson ever, although its only been the 5^th lesson or so. I get the place where we meet, and Makho, my instructor tells me we’re going to go to do some driving on steep slopes. So I pull out (used reverse for the first time), and we head along Tbilisi’s busy, potholed streets.

We headed up to Sololaki, a neighbourhood built on the slope of one of sides of the valley that Tbilisi is in. Then we kept going up, towards something Makho called funicular (cable cars), up switchbacks and passes to the top of the mountain overlooking the city. We stopped at one point – Makho told me to get out and look at this house, visible from a lot of the city. I had always thought it was some kind of business center, but apparently it is also the residence of Georgia’s first billionaire – Boris Ivanishvili. It is this huge mansion with a helipad and a huge pool that has a 60 foot waterfall (unfortunately not running) going into it.

Driving up the mountain was pretty fun with ridiculous hairpin turns and other crazy drivers. This is reinforcing my idea that this is good all-purpose driving training, that I’ll be pretty prepared to drive anywhere. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll be good at driving video games, which I’ve always been pretty bad at.

I’ve started carrying an icon around with me. Most cars have some kind of rosary or icon by the driver to prevent accidents, and I think I could use the insurance. I got a Georgian St. George icon (this one – http://www.chaganava.com/eBooks/enamels/screenshot_scr_icons.jpg). To me it really looks like St. George is slaying an alien sent to earth by the spaceship in the upper right hand corner. So, hopefully I’ll be protected against alien abductions as well. I think it is good to have a sense of humour about the scary driving here.

Well, the cool part of the lesson was when we were pretty far along in the mountains past Tbilisi, and Makho tells me to stop the car on a (relatively steep) slope – I was figuring he was going to teach me how to park on a hill or something, but he just told me to turn the car off and release the brake. I did this, expecting the car to move forward, but no, the opposite! It started moving backwards up the hill, accelerating even. Makho laughed at my surprise, and explained there was some kind of magnetic pole in the mountain. It was pretty amazing, apparently one of the few places in the world where this happens. Anyone else have experience with this?

Then we headed back and I had to navigate through a series of poles, one group set up as slalom with incredibly small amount of room between them, and the other set up as figure 8. First one was tricky, second was a piece of cake.

I’m at work now, the office is pretty empty – most people are at a round table in Kutaisi. I’m going to head out soon, pack for my trip, and then go to the weekly banya for a steam and maybe a relaxing scrub before the long train ride across the country.

Quick Update

Hey, so sorry I haven’t been updating as much lately – I’ve been incredibly busy, and I really should get it all out just so that I can keep track of it, and you can see what I’ve been up to. Here is a quick (and probably incomplete) update of my life from the past bit.

I have a new job – I am working at Transparency International. Essentially I am doing the same research, but for them focusing on pensioners who are Internally Displaced persons. They aren’t paying me, but I get to use their resources, which so far have been contacts for interviews, the internet, and lots of tea from the kitchen. Hopefully they will publish the report I’m going to write and my research will feed into larger projects. I am doing interviews with local and international NGOs, as well as with elderly IDPs themselves, and researching aid projects. Eventually I’ll start talking to ministries and aid donors. The plan is to better target aid to needy, vulnerable people, and hopefully I’ll have good relationships with the people I interview so they can read and implement the report I’ll produce.  It feels really great to be so busy, and possibly have an impact on something that I’m really interested in.

As part of my job I will be heading out to Zugdidi in western Georgia where most of the IDPs from the first conflict live. I’ll be going to a round table of local and international NGOs and then heading out to IDP collective centers to interview the elderly. I really should be preparing myself to be incredibly mentally traumatized (by their living conditions), but I haven’t really that much.

The first part of this trip will be going to Batumi on the Black Sea and then popping across into Turkey to renew my Georgian visa. After Zugdidi, there was a chance that I could be going to Gali, across the border in Abkhazia, although that looks unlikely. I’ve heard a lot of crazy stories about going there, involving gangster border guards, kidnapping, torture, and ransom. I don’t scare easily for traveling, but those stories among others made me not want to go there, although it would be an incredibly interesting trip – many IDPs have returned to Gali, but their situation is tenuous, with the Abkhaz government (perhaps forcibly) distributing passports.

Next up for new stuff is that I am taking driving lessons. I didn’t learn to drive in either Canada or America, but while here, I decided why not? Lessons are quite cheap, and if I can drive here (with potholed roads and crazy drivers), I’ll be able to drive anywhere, although I might get tickets. My first lesson was 45 minutes driving around a big parking lot to get a hang of how to use the clutch etc. (I’m learning on a stick shift), and then we just headed out into crazy traffic. Each lesson since has just been driving around the city. My Georgian isn’t good enough yet, so the lessons are in Russian. Getting a license is quite cheap, so I’ll do that eventually, maybe a car if I’m here for a while.

My plans for Christmas and New Years are to stay in and around Tbilisi. A friend is heading out to pick a few hundred kilos of ripe persimmons which he is going to turn into fruit vodka, so I’ll try to get a bottle of that. I also have thousands of pages of interesting reading to catch up on, and I’ll try to get out and learn to ski in the mountains near here.

Some more on Tbilisi, part 2

So, back to regularly scheduled programming. I’ve been up to a lot of studying lately – lectures/conferences, research, as well as recently started Georgian lessons. However, I still have a backlog of stuff that might be interesting, starting where I left off a bit ago.

Anyways, as I mentioned before I was walking with Stefano around the old castle on the mountain top and we met some locals. They managed to get my number from Stefano and so I invited them to my upcoming party. They said they were busy in the evening, so I set up a date with Ana, the Georgian girl, earlier in the day.

I don’t remember if I talked about my dating experiences for my month in Russia, but they were pretty surreal. During one, the girl’s boyfriend showed up outside the café – he was unhappy to see me, and she was unhappy to see him. The other story also ended up with the girl probably having a boyfriend as well as some interesting details too complicated for here.

This date was not an exception. The girl interested in me, and well vice versa, showed up with her friend Shoko as a chaperone of sorts. This was awkward mostly because Shoko only knows Georgian, while Ana and I were talking in Russian. We walked along Rustaveli, the main street here, Shoko and Ana arm in arm, while I chatted with Ana. We sat on a bench eventually, and I figured out why they couldn’t come to my party – they are not allowed out after dark. I also think that Ana doesn’t have a cellphone, and had to communicate with me with Shoko’s (using some of the most incomprehensible quasi-Russian sms language I have ever encountered). Also, they are 19, not young ‘tweens, for whom I could see a curfew being applicable.

We talked about society and gender roles in Georgia, something which I had already heard about. Society, while opening up, is still very traditional with sex before marriage strictly forbidden for girls, but permissible for most men, most of whom have some kind of encounter with a prostitute while still in their teens. Also brought up was the paradigm that Russian girls are sluts, with the idea that a Russian would be ashamed if they were still a virgin at 30, whereas a Georgian girl would be proud of that fact.

In all, it was quite pleasant, but I didn’t see much of a future with girls who couldn’t hang out after dark, whether or not they planned to be virgins until marriage. I’ve been getting more text messages from Ana, she told me that if I ever have a party during the day, she would be able to come (with Shoko of course).

I left them to go prepare for my party (which Stefano beat to writing a blog post on – http://ourmanintbilisi.wordpress.com/2008/10/15/ben-ians-housewarming/ ). Knowing Georgians, I decided to pick up some food beforehand, so I got a few bags of chips, some bread and dip, as well as some candy. My friends and friends of my roommates started arriving – the first 4 or so people here were all Georgians, and we hung out in the kitchen and had some beer and nibbled on the snacks. When they heard more people were coming, they conversed in Georgian and went and got their coats. They came back with bags of food – mostly sausages, and more bread.

More Georgians showed up, about half of them had more food contributions – candies, cakes, a huge jug of wine, beer. I already had chacha in my freezer, so I brought that out too. We moved the kitchen table and all the chairs we could find into the dining/living room until we could barely squish everyone in. Then we started feasting and toasting. I was simply amazed how my plan for a simple party with music and dancing and chatting had turned into a full blown supra.

Ian, my roommate eventually showed up after a long day working his two jobs and joined in, and other people kept trickling in. Shaman showed up (I’ll explain about him in the next post I think), and so did the guy we started calling Warmongler, as well as one of Georgia’s top rock stars actually. Warmongler is this defense contractor working in Georgia, and in our crowd of NGO workers and people who value peace, he became disparagingly known as someone who would profit off the blood of the innocent. So, first, Warmonger, then with the “l” added – a touch of Swedish linguistics apparently. Anyways, it was a bit of a shock to see Warmongler – after running into him I had thought we wouldn’t run into him again, and I don’t know how he heard about our party. He did have some interesting talks with Shaman though, who told him about this 700 year old woman his mother knows. Warmongler listened to all of this with a straight face and asked Shaman how old he thought he was. Shaman said that, oh, you must be much younger, perhaps only 300 years old.

The party went very nicely, the Georgians mixed with the expats well, there were Georgian dancing lessons, and one of my friends got an accidental call from me with me teaching someone how to sing along to a Clash song, the phone accidentally dialing from my pocket.

People stayed quite late, most left by 5, but a few stuck around, including Shaman who fell asleep on my couch, and Tano, a DJ who I talked to until he left at 7 in the morning. At this point I went to bed, exhausted and glad that everyone had finally left, but still pleased with how well the party had gone.

At 10 in the morning, my house phone starts to ring, and I pick it up. Its my landlord, and I groggily say “Hello Rezo.”

Rezo says “Good morning Ben, I heard you had a great party,” which is a strange thing to hear from a landlord.

“Yeah, it was ok, thanks, we weren’t too loud, were we?”

“Oh, no, but the neighbours still told me about it. Someone vomited off your balcony onto their stoop. Go clean it up.”

So I throw on some clothes and get my mop and bucket and go clean up the sick in the courtyard. The lady, whose stoop it was vomited on was quite pissed – she has kids (who she does not want to expose to debauchery) and no time to clean up other people’s vomit. Another neighbor was there, and helped too actually, so we got it cleaned up pretty quickly. I went home and had a beer, then took a bit of a nap before going and meeting Stefano for a coffee. We then decided to go to the Dry Bridge Market, to see if Stefano could pick up an expresso maker. Long story short, we met a (probably alcoholic) Georgian who glued on to us (as Georgians are wont to do), followed us around talking to us about Italian Neo-Realist films, and eventually found us a tiny antique espresso maker that some guy was trying to charge 50 dollars for. Too much, and we finally managed to escape from the Georgian guy.

I went home and then went for khinkali with Ian. I think this was the week in which I had khinkali 5 or 6 times – they really are incredible. Following this we went and met some expats at a beer garden, and then picked up some more beer and snacks and headed to Stefano’s place. At this point, I don’t know how we had the energy, I think it was meant to be a quite evening, but when you make plans like that in Georgia, they are almost always sure to go wrong as a Georgian will come along and do a cannonball in your pool of tranquility. In this case, there was a pounding at the door about halfway through our glasses of beer.

In comes Stefano’s neighbor, a smallish guy, bursting with energy. He sat at the head of the table and led us in toasts and told us about him. He reached the peak of his career at 24 or so as the vice minister of Sanitation and health for Georgia, and now at 28, he is trying to form a political party, but didn’t really have any political goals. While he was incredibly charming at first, it seems like he really just wants power, but it is unclear what he is going to do with it which sounds like a very dangerous situation.

Anyways, he goes around the table and does toasts to each of us, giving us Georgian nicknames. Stefano becomes Stefo, and we drank to Stefo. I finished my whole glass of beer, and the neighbor, called Meskho, gave me an indication of approval – that was the right thing to do, it means that I really respect my friend Stefo. Then came my nickname. I’ve been called Beni a lot here, the –i just puts the name in the normative case, but Meskho decided on Beno. At this point, Stefo weighs in, a little grumpy with his nickname, and puts forward Bepo. So we toast to Bepo, and again I think I manage to drink all or most of my glass. Meanwhile Stefo sipped his beer, although Meskho urged him to show me the same respect I showed him. He wasn’t going to, so I stepped in. I took Stefo’s glass and downed it. Meskho almost flipped out.

“What!?! How can you do that? Only I do that. I am here, you can’t be me too! Wow.” He was incredibly pleased at my honor, well, at my restoring Stefo’s honor by finishing his glass. Apparently it was amazingly Georgian.

We continued drinking until Meskho would leave at 4, and then headed home. I had to get up early to let in Mats, the Swedish journalist who was moving in to live with us for a bit and then went to bed.

I got up later, and headed out with Mats for more khinkali, but decided to stop at Ian’s office first. We walk in mid-Supra – they have a table full of grapes and khinkali and chacha. Apparently one of Ian’s co-workers had come back from her cottage with bunches of grapes and a little chacha, and the guys in the office took it upon themselves to turn this into a whole banquet. We joined in the feast. What a country this is.

Protest, Etc.

Well, I’ll write about the protest first, then get back to the posts I’ve been working on, hopefully in a few days, although I’ve only been going on the internet every 4 days or so (which makes me feel out of touch with a lot of things, but has been weirdly liberating).

So, to address my last post, I did go to the protest, and while it was bigger than I imagined, it was pretty disappointing. The rain stopped by the time the protest really got going, so there was a sizable turnout, with a few thousand people showing up (maybe 6-7 thousand). They stood in front of the Parliament building on the main street in Tbilisi, blocking traffic and listening to speeches given by opposition leaders from a truck parked on the sidewalk. It seemed like the crowd was about half pensioners, although people here often look older than they actually are. This was a good sign for me, studying pensioners and all, but I was feeling pretty bad, getting over a cold, and didn’t really feel like interacting with people, even though of course I did eventually. I met up with Stefano (taking pictures) and Ian (on his way to work) in the crowd and we mingled.

I talked with a guy about what the protests were about, and the clear theme was ousting the president, Saakashvili, which I already knew. While most of the people I talked to didn’t propose a clear alternative to Misha (Saakashvili’s nickname), this guy said that they were going to try to change Georgia into a parliamentary state with a prime minister, more responsible to the people. Then he showed me some brass knuckles he had in his coat in case any there was any provocation from the police. I told him that getting rid of Misha is exactly what the Russians wanted from the conflict, and asked what he felt about that. He said that everybody at the protest were Georgians, pointed out banners of groups with their names, such as ‘Patriots,’ etc., but he didn’t completely convince me of his point.

I listened to a lot of the speeches, and it was quite nice to understand a bunch of parts of them, mostly American/Russian words with Georgian grammatical endings that change the meaning, as well as a few commonly used Georgian words. One of the speakers was quite excited that Obama had been elected, and gave the traditional cheer “Garamajos Obama,” literally “Victory to Obama.” Meanwhile, the crowd seemed mixed on Obama. A bunch of people were carrying posters with Obama’s face on them – friend Dan wrote more about this if you are interested, but I don’t think everybody there supported Obama. Most Georgians were in favor of McCain, and it is felt that Misha was tight with him. A lot of this is because McCain is more hawkish, in line with Georgian national feelings, and the fact that he would support Georgia in taking a hard line against Russia. Perhaps because this was an Anti-Misha rally, there was so much support for Obama.

I talked to some other people, and they really presented a picture of an atomized civil society. The people in the crowd didn’t really interact much with each other. People came in groups of 2-6 or so and just stood or talked with the people the came with. This group of people tried to explain what is wrong with Misha, that Georgia does not have a free press, that one of their friends standing there had been fired from his job at the University because of his political views. These people did not come with an organized group, even though there were a few groups there with their banners.

After a few hours in front of the parliament, the protestors organized in the street and marched to the presidential palace (still under construction). There, there were more speeches, and I got a good view of the oration. Standing on the podium of the truck was a speaker in the middle, flanked by two people with flags wearing gas masks, as well as various other opposition members. Last year there were protests, but of a much larger scale, and perhaps less anticipated/ planned. The government used tear gas on the crowd and even declared martial law for a short time. This year it really seemed to me that there was little to no chance of tear gas. Last time, Misha’s international image really suffered. He likes to present himself as a pro-democracy leader and the martial law really worked against that. To me, the crowd seemed pretty subdued, and I did not feel very much energy from them. I was texting with my roommate about all this from the protest and this is what he sent me:

Message 6:
Not quite the
weather for it.                      [‘it’ being rioting and tear gas]
Keep an eye out
for riot cops..
Remember piss
works well
against jellyfish
and teargas ; )
seriously if misha
does do something
stupid and let off
gas or something.
Wet your tshirt
and use it to cover
your face.. And
run..
From:+995 98 XX XX XX
04:45pm 11/07/08

I think tear gas could have been a real risk if the crowd had been a serious threat to Misha as president, but it really wasn’t. I did get an e-mail from the US Embassy when I checked my inbox a few days later. It warned not to go to the protest I think, I really did not have much time to read it, especially since it was no longer pertinent.

I did end up finding a gasmask myself. I was feeling weird in the big crowd funneled into the tiny alley by Misha’s palace, so I headed for home. The nearby streets were mostly deserted, except for police officers every 30 feet, and a gasmask just lying on the ground. I picked it up and went home, then to the banya and a large dinner with spur-of-the-moment lessons in Canadian and US civics. Then back home again, where I got involved in one of the more crazy things that have happened yet to me, basically involving a Georgian girlfriend, a missing (presumed dead) boyfriend, later the police, and then it turns out, another woman. This was a chain of events that caused me to get many frantic phone calls and SMSs from the Georgian girl, and has not finished yet, but I believe that this is all I can write about it, unless like I write a book, and in that case it will be a whole chapter called “If I Wrote a Story About it, I Would Call it ‘The Scarf.’” Look for it on shelves in 2010.

Anyways, I did talk to a bunch of pensioners at the protest, and got an interesting impression. They were there protesting, but not necessarily for their rights, and instead just to get rid of Misha. I told a few of them that I understood that they were against the president, and asked if they were for anything, to which they responded, “Oh, yes, we are for being against the president.” I kind of sighed, hoping to hear some kind of proposed change or dream for the future, and moved on. As I said, I really feel that civil society is pretty weak and atomized here, meaning that it is not very unified or organized. It is less of a society where people can interact with each other, and more a society of individuals. They all came together as individuals, less as organized groups, to show their discontent with the government, but I really feel like sustained parties with grassroots support would be more effective. One of the problems is that there are so many political parties here, each taking only a small segment of the population. A parliamentary government, while perhaps more accountable and democratic in principle, would be unstable and easily dissolved, and I could see a lot of the action taking place behind closed doors (which seems to be the situation now).

The fact that there were so many pensioners at the protest is an indication that they have some kind of political consciousness, even if their goals are negative goals (I mean being anti-something without a clear or unified alternative of what they are for). The real thing I came to study were the protests held by pensioners demonstrating for increased pensions and rights. The lack of civil society is a little disheartening, although I am finding the country quite interesting and will wholeheartedly study this lack of civil society.

To address the other points of my previous post: the bombing in Vladikavkaz is pretty clearly not Georgian and I don’t think the Russians are trying to construe it as such, the Lari has gotten a little stronger, although it is still down (with high margins between the buying and selling price), and we have electricity again (but yeah, no internets).

See you later, more posts soon!

Latest News

So, there are protests scheduled today for in front of the parliament. I’m really hoping this will allow me to get in contact with groups of pensioners, something I’ve found hard to do. However, almost everyone I’ve talked to thinks the protests will be minor. The reason for the protests is it is the one year anniversary of major anti-Saakashvili protests from last year. Saakashvili has remained relatively unpopular, but he was re-elected, and although the conflict was unpopular to say the least, there is a feeling that getting rid of him would be a victory for the Russians. Also, it is raining, so I expect a smaller turnout.

The other thing I wanted to update about is fears that another conflict will break out. My roommate is a major proponent of this theory and he keeps me up to date on factors that could lead to this. Firstly, there are plenty of reports of open violence in South Ossetia, with sniper fire across the border. However, I have heard that much of the fighting is between Ossetians and Russians. Apparently the Ossetians are refusing to return the guns that the Russians gave them. Also, just recently, there was a bombing in Vladikavkaz with many dead and wounded. This is a follow up to Russian claims that there would be a Georgian terrorist act in Russia, and the Russians will probably try to blame Georgia for this, but I don’t think much will come of it. The point is though, that this region is not completely stable.

One other thing which has just come to my attention is that the Georgian Lari is taking a nose dive. Bad times, and I’m glad I have my money in dollars.

Also, my electricity has gone out, and having internet at home is as unlikely as ever.

I have many posts to catch up on, many half written, so expect more in the next few days, as well as an update on the protest.

Visit to the Collective Center

Well, I’ll catch up on older stuff in a bit – today was a bit of a day, and I was recommended to write about it while everything is fresh on my mind.  However I tried hard to relax a bit afterwards and watched a bizarre (and great, and really good to relax my mind) Japanese movie – Survive Style 5+.  Anyways, after that, my emotional fragility subsided a little, but here goes anyways.

I got up latish – wanted to sleep in and possibly I wanted to avoid Shaman.  Shaman deserves a whole ‘nother post, but he is this stray we adopted, not a particularly unsavory character, just someone I don’t want to have to deal with in the morning.  So, I get up, and Shaman is gone, and I prepare to go out and do some research, study some Georgian.  Then I get a text off Ian, my roommate who works at an NGO dealing with IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) from Abkhazia and South Ossetia, inviting me along to a collective center.  These collective centers are essentially refugee camps, but in an urban environment – most of the camp-like refugee camps have been closed, and IDPs resettled, which is good, because the camps were summer tents, and winter is fast approaching.

So, I got my stuff together, and went to one of my research haunts where I worked for a bit, grabbed a snack and then went to register for classes at another institute.  Met up with Ian and Mats (the other other guy living with us now – I’ll put this up later) as well as a German girl who works with a friend (the community here is really quite close).  We took a subway ride out to one of the edges of the center of the city to an old hospital, converted into the collective center.  Ian was going out to see how the programs for kids were going – one of his projects is working on child-safe spaces.  The German girl, Valerie, was interested in distribution of food aid, and Mats was working in capacity as a Swedish journalist and interested person.  Of course, my focus was pensioners and how they are getting along.

We brought some stickers to give to the kids (the flower ones from the artist we met that are all over the city), and were shown the children’s room, this small shabby room in the rundown old building.  There were big pieces of paper on the walls with writing in Georgian and pictures of mines and grenades and bombs.  Ian’s coworker came in and brought some kids.  We gave them some stickers and they introduced themselves, saying their names, ages and what they liked.  They were about 4-8 if I remember correctly and a lot of them seemed to like cake.  They were some of the cutest kids I’ve seen, and I really wanted to tell them that I was also a big fan of cake and juice.  They started playing with the stickers, putting them on themselves and on the walls and stuff.  Valerie asked what the kids were going to be taught in the center, and I told her, well, we are teaching them how to vandalize.

Then Ian’s coworker started a quick lesson, going over the various pictures of unexploded ordnance, explaining where they come from, how they work, and how to avoid them.  He handed out markers and paper to the excited kids, and they started scribbling their own depictions of it all.  This is training in the case they ever go back to their villages, which as I see it is a very slim chance.

Ian’s coworker, who had been speaking in English to us, left and we were then led around by a psychologist who works at the center.  She didn’t speak any English, so I had to translate for everyone.  We were shown a typical room, pretty small, about the size of a generous single dorm room.  4 people lived in this one.  Most of what they had came from the government – 2 beds, a table and two chairs.  They also had a few pots, probably donated from charities.  They each get a loaf of bread every two days from the government and a kilogram of beans and a 1.5 kilograms of pasta every 20 days from some charity organization.  They hardly see fresh vegetables, apparently they can sell their pasta at the market to buy fresh produce, but many are afraid of the unstable situation and are saving a lot of their pasta for the winter.  A few days ago a truck came with some parsley to mixed reactions, mostly “what are we going to eat this with,” “well, thanks…” and “well, if we had some cattle, this would be classy.”

There was no toilet on the first floor, but they were repairing it as well as the thin aluminum wires which could be a fire hazard in winter when people will turn on the heaters they probably won’t get.  The second floor had a few toilets, and they were working on a bathroom to wash in.  People mostly wash in the sinks in their rooms or the toilets – “Where ever they can” as one lady told me.

We were shown another room where 7 people lived, ages ranging from 13 to 75.  The 75 year old had been a prisoner of the South Ossetians, captured cause he did not have it together enough to leave, and so he sat, waiting, almost expecting to die or be killed.  Eventually the Red Cross got its stuff together and got him released.

The mother in another room, again with 4 people, invited us in to talk.  She told us about her village and the surrounding ones, up past Tskinvali, near the Roki Tunnel close to Russia.  There is nothing left as she said, and everyone else said.  Their homes are gone, burned down, looted.  They still want to go back.  City life is not going that well for all these people.  They don’t know how to adjust, and they have nothing to do.  Employment prospects are minimal, and she told us about her two young kids who used to run around and climb trees, now crammed into a tiny room.  The land there apparently is amazing, they love it, and said they would go back if they could.  They are too afraid though.  If they go back, if they are allowed back, they might have to renounce Georgian citizenship or even become Russians, as well as facing life with Ossetians, who had raided their villages.  At the same time, almost every family has connections with Ossetians – inlaws and relatives.  Most of the families are mixed and I heard about people who stayed behind with their Ossetian spouses and children.

The lady made us coffee, which I tried to refuse, embarrassed.  The psychologist and the lady said there was no way to refuse, that this is an integral part of Georgian hospitality, which is really is.  So we sat down to coffee, they cut up what I think might have been a persimmon, and we kept talking.  The topic changed to all kinds of horrific stories about brutal murders – killing the elderly and mass burials of unknown body parts.  I stopped translating everything, and even stopped Mats from asking questions.  I had enough (as had Ian), the lady was getting emotional, and the psychologist was getting uncomfortable.

We talked about plans for the future.  No one knows them at all.  The government is building a lot of cottages, but no one knows when they will be done, which refugees they will be for, or if they will be habitable.  And then when they move there, what will the do?  Their food aid might stop, and they don’t think they will be given any land, let alone enough land to live off of.  The government has given them aid, but not regularly or enough.  Families don’t have enough beds, and their gas stoves are useless once the tank empties, and promised refills are not coming.

We managed to leave, after many thank yous, and continuations of the conversation, and stood dazed outside.  After a minute, I went over to the group of pensioners sitting where they sit all day, on some benches by the street.  That is all they do, just sit there and talk.  I asked them what they want, if they get their pensions all right.  They do get their pensions, 70 lari a month, about 40-50 dollars.  For many this is not enough to pay for their medicines.  With the remainder, they buy some vegetables or take care of themselves and relatives.  The guy I talked to had a 300 lari medical bill for his grandson, for which he had borrowed money he has no idea how he will repay.  They want warm clothing for when winter comes, maybe shoes for the children.  I was thinking it would be nice to buy them some backgammon boards or dominoes and arrange some kind of organization, formalizing their relation with kids, like getting some kind of thing together were they can mutually benefit and have something to.  What they really want is more money, maybe 10 lari a month, but I doubt that will be enough to cover their needs.  They gather in front of parliament sometimes, he said, but they are told to go away, that the government can’t talk to them all.  They were told to send a representative back with their demands.  The guy might have implied that the government slips some money into the representative’s pocket to get him to calm the others down.  In any case, they make promises that won’t come true.

We left, emotionally drained, caught the wrong bus and then split up.

Right now I am sitting in the café that I went to yesterday after the center.  The waitress is talking to me in Georgian, joking that I always order the same thing, and I haltingly respond that no, I would like the bread filled with beans.  I came in yesterday evening and ordered a big greasy cheesy bread and didn’t even scrape the huge pat of butter off of it.  There is wifi here, so I chatted with a few friends and then what I had heard and seen came to a boil in my head.  I almost started to cry.  Their living situations were relatively ok – they weren’t on the streets or in tent camps, but their lives have no prospects and they have lived through such horrific times.

P.S. new post from Stefano – http://ourmanintbilisi.wordpress.com/ – involving myself.

Some more on Tbilisi, part 1

Well, I feel like I say this every time, but a lot has happened since my last post, both in my life and adventures here, but also in politics and local events.

Being here I really am getting a better sense of what is going on, by talking to locals, listening to friends and reading multiple news sources.  The positions here seem mostly unbiased, closer the facts and closer to the truth, which is not to say that there aren’t personal feelings or a lot of bias at times.

For example, this past Wednesday, I helped my friend Mats translate some interviews he did for a Swedish radio program.  So we sat in his hostel, I was translating crackling Russian into English and then him into Swedish.  He had just gone up to near Akhalgori, in South Ossetia, where Russian had only just pulled back to.  He had interviewed various IDPs about what was going on.  The stuff I translated was connected with schools mostly, that there had been 50 or 60 Georgian villages in the Akhalgori region, but not in one of them was a school open, although there was a Russian-language school open for South Ossetians, which teaches Ossetian as a subject.  The biggest problem according to the interviews was the fact that almost every family in South Ossetia is mixed to some extent with Georgian and South Ossetian members.  As a result of the conflict, people have been separated from their families, afraid to travel, even with the relative stability.

Thursday morning, after doing some research stuff (I am looking into the Soviet pension system, and what has happened since the collapse, especially recent pensioner protests in Russia), I met up with Stefano and Ian for coffee.  Stefano seemed a little phased, apparently he had been walking around Tbilisi, taking photos, when he was waylaid by a group of Georgian men.  They had sat him down at a table and poured him copious amounts of wine, vodka, and chacha.  Eventually he had managed to escape and after coffee, Ian went back to work, while Stefano and I set out to find the Fire Temple.  The Ashtega, as it is called is a remnant from when pre-Islamic Persia controlled parts of the Caucasus and built a Zoroastrian Fire Temple up on the hillside of Tbilisi.  Right now, it is run down, hard to find and there really is not much there.  This was enhanced by the fact that it was locked, but the trip looking for it was worth it.  We got to walk through some of the hoveliest hovels I have ever seen, with an incredible view of Tbilisi.  There were also other ancient churches, now just in people’s backyards, which was the case with the Fire Temple.  When I was there last year, I stumbled in after wandering around looking for it, and found myself in someone’s back yard.  I confirmed that it was indeed the Fire Temple, and chatted with a guy who lives there in the adjoining house.  He talked a little about the history, that it was one of the only Ashtegas left so far away from Iran, and certainly the one in the best condition, although, there were concerted efforts to conserve and then restore it.  The problem was the bricks, which were from a certain time and of a certain size.  We talked a bit and then he left me to poke around in the Fire Temple, which was just a small room with piles of the antique unique bricks found at ruins of different Persian buildings from around Georgia, as well as a small garden and a fig tree.  I ate an unripe fig and kept going, having beaten the Fire Temple Level of Tbilisi.  Actually, after this, I’ve been noticing these symbol of swirls all around the city – on coins and tokens, on sewer covers, and carved into old sites of the city.  They are some kind of Zoastrian symbolism which had an important effect in the city.

Anyways, this year, there was a new door to this guy’s yard, and correspondingly to the Fire Temple.  I knocked, but no one answered, so we had a look from the outside and decided to keep going.  Also a bit further up on the hillside is Narikala, this 4th-ish century fortress, so we went up there.  On the way, we passed one of Tbilisi’s most noticeable landmarks, this giant brushed aluminum statue of a lady, Mother Georgia.  As she looks out over the city, she holds a huge sword in one hand, and a cup of wine in the other.  I was always told this symbolized Georgian national character – warm friends, and ferocious enemies.  I’m just glad that they don’t play with swords while drunk – this hasn’t happened yet, but I can imagine the end of many scenarios beginning this way.

The fortress is kindof crumbling, but still pretty large, perched on the ridge of mountains looking over the city.  We entered behind a few girls, and pretty soon, Stefano elbowed me, saying they were hitting on us – I was too busy looking around to notice this.  Eventually we scrambled up to the very pinnacle of the fortress, and saw the girls there.  They started trying to talk to us in English, but sounded like parrots, repeating simple phrases like “Hello!” and “What is your name!”  Eventually I started talking to them in Russian, which one of them knew, but it was too windy to hear much, and some more interesting people came, this Israeli aid volunteer and a Georgian guy showing her around.  We chatted with them and got invited to Gori to see aid work and meet some more Israelis.

On the way down from the fortress, I talked with the Georgian girls some more, but mostly with the aid workers.  When we waved goodbye to the Georgian girls, one made the ‘I’ll call you’ hand gesture, which threw me cause we had not exchanged numbers.  The Israeli girl made her way to the Synagogue, because as I found out too late, it was Yom Kippur.  After a little shame, I made peace with my inner spirituality and went to a lecture on the origins of the conflict.

This lecture was incredibly informative, but a little biased, clearly from the Georgian perspective.  The first two speakers, important ministers in the Georgian government went over timelines of events and facts about the conflict.  They pointed out the minor contradictions and ways that Russia behaved illegally.  The third guy then got up and said something to the effect of, well, we can argue about details all we want, what happened at this time, and why that was bad, but in fact the real issue is that Russia sent troops into a sovereign country.  The lecture gave me a lot of insight into the Georgian decision making process, of why they engaged with Russia.  People asked interesting questions which were mostly answered, although sometimes in jargon.  I found out that the Georgian government had taken away arms from Georgians living in South Ossetia, and one of the questioners started yelling at one of the ministers.  The questioner felt that if they were armed, at least they would be able to protect their homes.  The speaker responded that, well, yeah, they’d be safe for a day or two until the Russians sent in heavier artillery to quash resistance.  This then could lead to the ‘Chechen-ization’ of the country, which was considered apparently.  There was a famous recent Saakashvili quote, that Georgia could have won the war, they’d just have to grow beards and go to the mountains.  But instead of turning the population into guerrillas, the government decided to appeal to the international community and go about things in a straightforward manner.

I’ve also been hearing a rumor that Georgian forces managed to capture the Roki Tunnel, the main passage way from Russia into South Ossetia, but that the Georgian troops were ordered to withdraw.  This issue was brought up a little, and I don’t think they said that it had been captured, but they talked about what could happen if it were captured.  While very strategic, the Russians had many other ways of sending troops in.  If any of you want to know more about the politics of this, just drop me a line, and it would be great to chat.  I’m not sure how much of the lecture was on the record (its not like they gave away state secrets though), but it would feel better to just have informal chats about it.

After the lecture, I saw some familiar faces in the crowd (and made new friends as well), and we went out to a huge dinner, complete with toasts and a little wine.  There is a guy here my age or so, half Georgian, half English, and his dad knew a professor here, but the kid was too young to have met him, having been born in Georgia.  It is quite rare to be brought up in these circumstances – the kid’s father was apparently one of the two foreigners living in Georgia during the 80’s, and it was quite a coincidence that the professor managed to recognize the kid and come along with us.

Friday morning I got up early, and was pretty busy, but it really is not worth mentioning here – I might write about it later though.  If you’re interested, I can keep you posted.  Anyways then, we went to this great restaurant, same from the previous night.  I’ve been eating a lot of these meat dumpling lately – khinkali.  I kinda got ‘khachapuri fatigue’ as I’ve heard it called, after eating so much of it, but I don’t know if I’ll get tired of these dumplings.  They are about the size of a small fist – meat wrapped in plain dough, bunched up at the top.  You pour pepper on them and take a small bite, and then suck out the delicious broth from them steaming.  Them you eat the rest, using the top bit as a handle, eating up to where it gets all bunched together.  I normally eat about 5 or so, but I can manage 10 at times.  This day was a 7 khinkali meal I reckon, washed down with a lot of coke.

Then I went did some more research until it was time for the weekly banya, which was as relaxing and entertaining as usual.  We talked about current events as well – people there are quite informed, but from all different kinds of perspectives.  I learned that Alkhagori, where my friend had been, had never been controlled by the Russians before, that it was an ethnically Georgian area.  The peace deal, brokered by Sarkozy was apparently quite vague, with liberal translations between French, Georgian, and Russian.  It called for a retreat of Russian forces to South Ossetia, to pre-conflict lines, which the Russian’s interpreted as to the borders of South Ossetia, so in many cases they extended their forces to places they had never held.  Akhalgori is interesting because it has one of the largest breweries of Georgia, people said that could be one reason the Russians have an interest in it.

After the banya, we went to a South Ossetian restaurant, and feasted again.  The amounts of food here are ridiculous (as well as ridiculously delicious).  I’m doing a lot of walking and other activity, but I’m going to have to start some kind of real exercise at some point.  I had more Khinkali, but passed on the plate of gullets that looked like soggy mushrooms, which some people found quite delicious.

I met up with my roommate and some friends at a bar, which was incredibly busy, so the service was sub-par, and despite such a long day, I decided to accompany them to a party held by a Georgian friend.  The guy who hosted the party was one of the most interesting people I’ve met here so far.  He is an artist, but is really well known for these stickers he makes of flowers with six petals.  As soon as I saw them, I began to see them all around the city, and he gave me a few packs of them to have fun with.  He was kind-of a nervous twitchy guy, very creative seeming, and has just headed off to London for a year to study.  The rest of the people at the party were Georgian, and all seemed to speak very good English, but in a way that was really annoying.  They used lots of slang and rude words, which in proper context can really spice up a language, but they way they used it just seemed out of place and gratuitous.  Also, there was a guy who learned English through pop songs, so he could speak, but mostly he would just listen into your conversation and when he heard a word he liked, he would sing a song with that word in it, very loudly in your face.

After a few hours, we decided to get a move on home, so we went out to the near empty streets – it was a quiet neighbourhood and later in the evening.  Finally a car came by and we hopped in.  There was already another passenger in the back, a young woman, so I thought we’d be able to get a cheaper fare, but the driver looked at us and said $100.  I thought he was joking so we just got in and kept going.  I started talking to the driver, just explaining what I was up to, what I was studying, and we commiserated about the plight of the pensioners here.  Then the lady in the back started pinching my roommate’s nipples, and things started to make sense.  The $100, was of course for something else.  We got out a few blocks away from our house so the lady of the night could not follow us, and rejected their attempts to overcharge us.  We started walking home, but they drove back up, holding out a cellphone, saying we had lost it.  We all showed them our phones and told them to just leave us alone, but wondered what was up with that.  Perhaps another customer had gotten distracted and left his cellphone.

Anyways, I’ll stop for here, and keep writing in another post.  Much more has happened – my party, a nice trip distributing humanitarian aid, a date or two perhaps, as well as more research, another trip to the banya, Georgian lessons coming soon, among other things.

New Apartment, Chacha, etc.

So, I have an apartment now. It is in a nice neighbourhood near the center, near a metro stop. There is a nice common courtyard (called an ‘Italian courtyard’) and it is always filled with kids playing and laundry hanging to dry. I’m living with a British guy, and we each have nice bedrooms as well as the kitchen and a large living room. Our street is filled with people selling all kinds of things from vegetables to socks and shoes.

It is great to finally move in and be able to call a place home, but it will be nicer when I am all unpacked and have all of my stuff. Housewarming party on Saturday.

Well, since I’ve written I’ve had plenty happen. Right after last post, I went out, walked around a bit, and made plans to meet up with friends. I had some time, so I sat on a bench with my Georgian flashcards and started boning up on the alphabet. I got a few strange looks, and finally some people came up to me, and we started talking.

They invited me over to have some beers at their place, which they are hoping to turn into a bar. There was no electricity, so we had to use candles that they sell at the church, and when those ran out, we borrowed on from a neighbour. So, in this candlelit room, these guys started telling me about themselves. I really only talked to one – his Russian was poor, but the other guy didn’t know any at all. Gio, the one who spoke Russian, works in the President’s guard, but then they told me how they had just served in the conflict.

Gio pulled his shirt up and showed me where he had been shot. He had been wearing a bulletproof vest, so all he had were a series of circular bruises, but I was shocked. The other guy had no visible marks, but Gio told me about how they were running out of guns to fight the Russians (and Ossetians and Kazakhs too apparently), so he had to take a gun from a dead soldier. They had a friend who lost a leg. He was holding it, dripping in blood, not understanding what it was, and not understanding why they wouldn’t let him go back out and fight. They said they didn’t know if they had killed any soldiers themselves, but I think they were afraid that they had – they had seen plenty of deaths on both sides.

They only fought for a few days, but it was enough. Gio said that the war was stupid, that it shouldn’t have happened, but he repeated something that I’ve been hearing a lot, that the Georgians could only take provocation so much before they had to go protect the Georgians there from the Ossetians and impending Russian threat.

My friends eventually called, and we all headed over to the apartment where my Danish friends were moving into. Here, the common language was German, even among the Georgians and various Europeans. Gio spoke a little German and bonded with the foreigners almost as much as he had with me. Even before the beers, he had his arm around me, something quite common here – my friends have various theories, but I think they just like the contact.

I met some Georgian girls at the party and they promised to help me find and apartment, and that they’d call. Amazingly, the next day, they did and I went out to go check an apartment. It was quite nice (evro-remont as they say here – European refurbished), but too small for two people and too far away. So, after that we headed to one of their houses and they cooked me a meal.

The rest of the week I spent looking for apartments and brushing up on Georgian, in between lunches and coffees with expats. I met another Georgian – Levan, the son of family acquaintances, and we bonded over good music.

Friday meant another trip to the banya with expats, interesting again. We traded business cards until one guy came who just wanted to relax and forget work. After that some of us headed to Stefano’s for his housewarming. Before the banya we went to the market and picked up some of the local moonshine, called chacha. It is very strong, usually 50 or 60 percent, but quite tasty. My Georgian friends looked at my bottle, shook it, and told me that I had the baby stuff, only about 48% which is what the seller said. It was only 5 lari for a liter, a bit more that 3 bucks. It was delicious – the flavour reminded me of cachaça, the Brazilian rum which I tried earlier this year. I’ve heard all kinds of horror stories about chacha, that after 4 glasses (if you can count that high), there is a good chance you could die, but that hasn’t happened to me yet.

At the party, Levan invited me out of the city for the weekend, so the next morning, I packed my bags and we drove down south to near Armenia to his uncle’s house. We had dinner starting at 4 with more chacha and toasts and delicious Georgian food. Halfway through dinner, Vano (Levan’s uncle) got a call. A friend of his had caught a badger and had invited us over to have some of it. After dinner, Levan and I stayed up later, polishing off another bottle of chacha, which Vano had made. Actually, we had a few shots, and then while I was getting ready for bed, Levan just drank the remainder, about a third of a bottle.

The next morning we got up early, headed deeper into the country. I saw the badger, skinned hanging, and while we went to collect mushrooms, Vano and a friend prepared a feast. By 10 in the morning we were back, and the badger was roasted. We sat down with 3 bottles of vodka and homemade bread, pies, juice, mushrooms, and of course the badger. Badger fat is apparently quite healthful, especially for the lungs. The son of one of the men had TB, but then ate a badger, curing his TB much to the surprise of his doctor. The badger was delicious, and the vodka meant more toasts. By this time, I had gotten into the hang of toasting and was able to add to the toasts. I started recognizing a pattern. The first toast is normally to the host, the second was to guests, the third was for a friend at the table, or perhaps to women. The fourth toast is to those who are not with us, with people getting emotional after a few drinks. The next drink is for the young at the table, and their future, and then a drink for the middle aged and older people at the table.

We got home a few hours later, after stopping on the way to go to the bathroom, and finding and collecting loads of mushrooms. I went to take a nap, and was woken up for another feast. We had more badger and cheesy bread and lots of wine. The guy who caught the badger and bakes his own bread also has a kiln and gave me some ceramic drinking horns, so we drank out of those.

Monday morning, we got up early and headed back to Tbilisi. I went to another repeating expat event – a researcher’s lunch where I got to meet more similarly minded expats and find out about resources in the city for people like me. Then I moved into my apartment.

I met my neighbours, all sorts really, very generous. I already have jam and spicy sauce from them, and was invited to a birthday party feast in a few days. I did some laundry and cooked up some soup and potatoes (to have with the sauce), and had a great meal when my roommate came back.

I’m going to be starting my research more soon, and learning about pensioners. While at Vano’s, Levan and his cousin proposed an idea for me. Give me only 70 lari, which is the pension here, and let me live on that for a month. I decided instead that I will count how much money I spend in a month, noting how long it takes me to spend that much. I can’t imagine how they live here, but hey, that’s why I came, to figure that out.

P.S. I have added more links to the side of my blog. Of course, Sol and Matt are friends from university, their blogs are worth checking out. Ian is my new roommate, and Stefano also lives here, and they are writing about life in Georgia. The next three are people I met in St. Petersburg writing about their lives and studies there.

First few days in Georgia

So, I got in and have been relatively busy since I’ve landed. I haven’t started any real research yet, my main goal now is to find housing, and I’ve been making plenty of new friends. I’m floating around a bit at the moment, rented a top floor of a Georgian family’s house for my first two nights, slept at a new acquaintance’s house for a night or two, and tomorrow I’m going to be moving to a guest house for a week while I continue to search for a permanent place. I’m going to try to find a multiple bedroom place with some roommates, so I’ve been checking through connections and calling interesting leads and real estate agents. In all, I’m not too worried about finding something – a place will come along, I just hope it is cheap and in a good neighbourhood.

There is quite an interesting expat scene here – everyone speaks English, but there are few Americans. Most seem to work for NGOs, like humanitarian organizations or the UN, and have great stories about the wild places they’ve been, and the relative futility of their aid work. The community seems quite close but open and easy to join. I’ve been out for beers a few times, and went to a sauna with a bunch of them at one point too.

Last time I was here, I ate one of the big national dishes – this delicious cheesy bread, every single day. This time around, I decided that I should pace myself so I don’t get sick of it or balloon in weight. So far, I’ve been failing, and it turns up everywhere, so I’ve had it about twice a day. It is still incredible, so I’m not complaining.

Besides the cheesy bread, the food is delicious and the beer cheap. The typical meal I’ve been eating is a salad of cucumbers, tomato, onions, a few spicy peppers, coriander (and a ton of salt), kebabs (pork mostly, but I prefer lamb a lot more), bread, and cheesy bread. The guy I’m staying with now has a great yoghurt connection and shows up with three jars of this wonderful home made yoghurt every day.

In all, it is wonderful to be here. Tbilisi is an excellent city, full of character. It is built along a river in a valley, so there are steep winding cobbled streets with beautiful buildings. Many are shabby with an air of grandeur. I’m starting to learn the neighbourhoods and their different nuances, and I’ve been working on learning the Georgian alphabet which is useful because the street signs, if there are any, are undecipherable.

Yesterday I went out to the American Embassy, which is in the sticks – they needed a place with a lot of room to build a huge fortress with layers of security to prevent a terrorist attack. I was shown around and given a dossier on Georgia, including the biography of every minister. I’ll be back there on Monday for a security briefing, where I’m expecting that they’ll tell me about all the dangers and tell me not to go to Abkhazia or South Ossetia.

On the way back from the Embassy, I ran into a group of elderly people gathered in front of the Parliament – just what I came to study. Unfortunately, I had somewhere to be, and the person I talked to wasn’t the right guy to choose. His Russian was broken and heavily accented, and I figured out that the elderly there were either sick and wanted help, or had relatives in jail and wanted them to be released early.

Who knows what tomorrow holds. While looking for an apartment, I’m going to be doing background research (bought a good book on the history of Georgia), learning Georgian, and making more friends.

In Georgia (with update from Ukraine)

Hello everyone,

I’m in Georgia right now. So far, it’s pretty great. I mean, I haven’t really done much – just flew in and got to walk around a little.

It is crazy – I just got off a train this morning from Crimea, went to my friend’s apartment in Kyiv, repacked and had some breakfast, and only just made my plane (lots of traffic…).

Ukraine was amazing. Kyiv is a great city, it seemed a lot like Russia, but all the signs were in Ukrainian, although everyone knew Russian. It has some of the best cathedrals I have seen around the former Soviet Union, and the best monastery I have ever seen with long deep caves filled with the mummies of saints and monks. These caves are only lit by the candles carried by people praying, so it is filled with a wonderful smell of beeswax.

Crimea was if anything, even better than Kyiv. I got on the train and read a bit and had a beer, and then went to brush my teeth. On the way there, some kids started talking to me, gave me another beer. We all struck up a friendship, and over the course of a few more beers which they provided, they told me about the Jazz Festival they were going to, and invited me along. I didn’t have concrete plans, and the Jazz sounded great, so I signed up for that. Finally I was able to brush my teeth and went to bed. Had some crazy dreams, I saw a wrought iron tree slowly being illuminated, probably the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

The conductor woke me up the next day half an hour before we arrived – I had slept through the morning, having stayed up much later than I planned, which is probably better for train travel.

I met up with my new friends and we found a bus to go to the coast where the Jazz festival was. One of the girls bought beers for all of us (it was afternoon), except for the guy who insisted on just drinking water and eating charcoal tablets (he had gone to a birthday party before the train). When we got to the town of Koktebel’, we set about finding a place to stay, and finally found a house that fit all 7 of us for 40 grivens (about 8 bucks) each. Then Jazz. The music was great (the headlining band was Red Snapper from England, although they weren’t the best band). The people were great too, and I wish I could describe all the characters I met. The place was packed with hippies and people of all types. We bought a large unlabeled bottle of wine from some guy in a car who said it was “Black Prince.” It was pretty bad, although I tried other Crimean wines, and they were quite delicious. I grabbed some lamb kebabs, and we sat on the beach, listening to the music with the fresh smell of the sea.

There was this grimy guy running around, clearly drunk, holding a big metal mug, yelling “Watch Out! I’m drinking biker drink!” Apparently he was running around earlier yelling “Warning, I’m sober!” It turned out that his “biker drink” was whatever people would pour into his mug – he came up to us once and we poured in some wine and he took a big swig and then swayed a bit.

After the concert, we went to a bar where the band played near perfect covers of classic songs, and when they stopped my friends picked up where they carried off, singing Beatles, Queen and other groups, enough to attract the attention of other patrons. One guy bought us a bottle of champagne and started to sing a song from when he served in Afghanistan. As we left (that guy came with us), another old lady led us in singing Hava Nagilah.

We went to the beach and kept singing. That guy fell asleep on the beach, and when I was almost ready to fall asleep too, we headed home.

The next day was similar, and I made more friends, met more characters, notably this artist who drew on my friend’s chest (he was going to draw on me, but the pens were running out, so he drew the same thing, the mountain visible from the beach, in my notebook). He looked like he was 60 or 70, but was only 50. He kept trying to invite us home, but we kept saying no.

By Monday, all my acquaintances had left and I headed to Sudak, the place I originally wanted to go to. It is similar to Koktebel’ – a small resort town on the south coast of Crimea. One of the main attractions is a 13^th century Italian castle, which is huge and takes up most of the top of a mountain there. I am still confused why they built a castle there, and how it is still in such good shape. I walked all around it and climbed to the very top of the mountain, and then made my way to the beach and swam in the wonderful Black Sea.

I headed home early, not having slept much the past few days, and talked with the guy who owned the house where I rented a room. He had some interesting experiences relating to the Georgia-Ossetia conflict, having served with an Ossetian guy in the early 50s. The Ossetian’s father apparently wrote often, complaining about the Georgians, how they stole his goats and property, and how the Ossetian border was moved, putting his land in Georgia. My host also knew Georgians – some had come and stayed at his house earlier in the season, and he was amazed at how they could live on their pensions – one of his guests had the highest level of pensions, which was something like $70 a month, still not nearly enough to survive on. My host, by the way, looked like he was 50, but was 60 or 70.

I got a good nights sleep, and have been busy traveling almost ever since.

I was met at the airport by a taxi driver holding up my name and a lady who helped me find some lodging. We had a good talk about politics – they were a little annoyed at America for not supporting them against Russia, and said they wished they could have better relations with Russia. Then they switched, saying how they would never forget what the Russians had done, that they had been woken by Russia bombs in Tbilisi – “They weren’t joking around,” said my driver. They repeated the sentiment that I have been feeling, that the whole conflict is Russia and the US playing chess, they said they felt like pawns, that Russia and America had divided up the country, each taking half.

I got dropped of at a house, where I am renting the top floor for a few days while I find an apartment. I dropped off my bags, and went for a walk. I got a sim card (new number: +995 58 75 85 68), and walked around downtown Tbilisi. Not much has changed since I’ve last been here, and I saw the Synagogue and Saunas (where Pushkin bathed), two places I know I’ll return to at some point.

Well, my laundry is done, going to go hang it up, and go to bed. I’ll get up tomorrow, find an apartment, make some friends and talk about politics.