I wonder, How many Georgians are drinking beers and clinking to Russia, Putin, and Medvedev right now?

Find out what happens when Vladimir Putin’s nickname sounds like the English word for a part of the female anatomy…

On some lighter notes about Georgia: excellent cuisine, singing kids from Tbilisi, funny guys in the wine region, mountain men and terrifying drivers.

And for the visually inclined: Georgian Food and Markets, Tbilisi, Kakheti: Wine Region, Svaneti (Caucasus Mountains), and other sights around Georgia.

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We’ll likely never know.

Zugdidi was not much of a tourist destination, but it was home to one of our tastiest and most touching experiences.

Now it’s at the front of a growing conflict in and around Georgia and the disputed regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The latest reports from Zugdidi indicate that it has just been occupied by Russian military troops.

We previously wrote of the lingering effects of civil conflict throughout Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in the 1990s in a piece we entitled This Land is Not Your Land. The latest conflict is yet another chapter of personal stories, refugees and displacement in the Caucasus — a region that may yet prove to be the Powder Keg of Asia.

The News Becomes Personal
Yesterday, as we consumed the news wires for stories on South Ossetia, Georgia and Russia, we exchanged emails and SMS text messages with friends in Georgia to find out if they were safe.

A friend in Tbilisi sent us the following SMS:

We are wondering where this is all headed. Something tells us that neither the pundits nor the geopolitical experts know for certain.

In the meantime, the faces of people we met last year in Georgia play in an endless loop in our minds.

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Something bad had happened, people had died, but we never truly appreciated or understood the details.

Laundry lists of personal concerns and modern media’s facile compartmentalization of just about everything made it easy for us to become desensitized and stow it all away. These were simply areas of conflict someplace far away.

Although we didn’t venture into Abkhazia, South Ossetia, or Nagorno-Karabakh, we did meet some people displaced and affected by the disputes. For us, their personal tales conveyed a human face to areas that previously only amounted to just another set of flashpoints halfway around the globe.

Abkhazia

The only thing everyone seems to agree about Abkhazia is that it is a beautiful place – the Caucasus Mountains on its one side and the Black Sea on the other. After that, agreement yields to chaos; nothing is black and white about the war, who started it and how it might someday be resolved. The reality is that an estimated 200,000-300,000 refugees from Abkhazia are now spread throughout Georgia. We met just a few.

Holed Up at Hotel Telavi
Our first encounter with Abkhazia occurred in the opposite corner of Georgia, in the Eastern region of Kakheti. In search of great views of Telavi and the surrounding countryside, we found ourselves climbing the crumbling steps of the Hotel Telavi, a once-desired address now inhabited by Abkhazian refugees driven from their homes more than ten years ago.

Common rooms on the ground floor are gutted and scattered with trash and rusted Brezhnev-era remains. Extended families are squeezed into old, decaying Soviet hotel rooms. Children have turned the grand ballroom into a velodrome and cycle the long hours of uncertain days away while their parents hang out of the windows, drawing smoke from cheap cigarettes as they watch time drift by. Uncertainty seems certain here; no one knows when or if he’ll ever be able to return home.

So Close, Yet So Far
We met Lena after enjoying an impromptu feast at the Zugdidi market. She was forced to flee her home in Sukhumi (regional capital of Abkhazia) 15 years ago and subsequently settled in nearby Zugdidi. Tears welled up in Lena’s eyes as she drifted into the past and described her beautiful home and her former life. She eventually grew silent and her eyes dropped as she returned to the reality of the present. Her hope to one day return home was also waning. All we could do was nod empathetically.

Unexpected Caretaker
A friend in Tbilisi told us about how she used to spend summers as a child at her grandfather’s house in Sukhumi. After the war, borders were closed and her family could obviously no longer take advantage of the summer home.

When phone lines were reconnected a few years ago, our friend dialed the phone number of her old summer home out of curiosity. A man answered the phone and explained that he was a Chechen and now living in the house. He wanted to know whether there was a car that went with the house. He’d found some car parts in the garage and wanted to take full advantage of all the house had to offer.

To reassure our friend, he said, “Don’t worry. I’m taking good care of the house. If politics change, it will be in good condition for when you return. It’s a nice house.”

Nagorno-Karabakh

In Azerbaijan, it would be an understatement to say that feelings run strong regarding Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The continual pain and anger from this conflict finds expression in so many – often bizarre – ways, from the moment you enter the country until the moment you leave.

Offending Guidebooks – Rip Out the Maps!
One of the teams from the Mongol Rally that we met in Uzbekistan shared an apt tale of the Azerbaijani attitude towards this disputed territory. The drivers carried a Lonely Planet Caucasus guidebook with them. The Lonely Planet’s characterization of Nagorno-Karabakh as distinctly separate from Azerbaijan apparently did not fit with the Azerbaijani government’s view. As they entered Azerbaijan from the border with Georgia, the Azerbaijani guards confiscated the book, citing the offending map and characterization of Nagorno-Karabakh as an entity separate from Azerbaijan. After considerable discussion, the guards showed their generosity by allowing the Mongol Rally team to continue their journey into Azerbaijan.

We also had our guidebook and map examined by several Azerbaijanis in Baku, Shaki and Lahic. Each paid special attention to how Nagorno-Karabakh was depicted. Fortunately for us, our Trailblazer guidebook and its especially pro-Azerbaijani view (it was, after all, primarily a guidebook for Azerbaijan) and the Avis map (given to us by the Azerbaijani embassy in Tbilisi) both passed the test. We were kindly allowed to keep our materials and were not forced to travel blindly.

Offending Photos – Hide Them!
Just when we thought we were in the clear as we departed Azerbaijan, one of the border guards pulled us aside. The Armenian visas in our passports drew his ire. Our exit from Azerbaijan included 45 minutes of questioning regarding our activities in Armenia. We assured him that we hadn’t visited Nagorno-Karabakh. He insisted that we show our photos on our laptops to prove we were never there. Impeccable logic, eh? Given his tone, we worried that he would force us to delete all photos from Armenia as punishment for visiting the offending country. Luckily, we received a brief lecture instead about Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and were allowed to board the ferry to Turkmenistan.

Although our engagement with these disputed regions was relatively superficial, our encounters with refugees and others affected lend gravity to the conflict and humanity to those involved. This also demonstrates another reason why we choose to travel the way we do. When a place has a face, desensitization begins to wear off. Human connections make these places more difficult to dismiss as “some war, some place, and some people halfway around the world.”

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When you get there, you’ll meet the Afghan at the telephone pole.

These instructions given to us in Mestia by the Svaneti Mountaineering Tourism Center left us baffled. Is our mountain guide a member of the Mujahideen who’d lost his way and made his home in the mountains of Georgia? After all, in Svaneti just about anything seems possible.

The Afghan at the telephone pole happened to be a compact, blue-eyed, gold-toothed Svan named Avgan. His crooked nose hinted that he’d seen his share of conflict, but his gentle smile suggested something more thoughtful than a mountain brawler. Equipped with a walking stick and a leather military rucksack, he would guide us over mountain passes the next four days as we hiked 40 miles from his village of Mulahi to Ushguli.

Our journey here would be as much mental as physical. Avgan’s path took us surprisingly deep into the psyche of the region, whose nostalgic desire to re-capture its past is underscored by its current economic uncertainties. The beautiful mountain landscape that draws most visitors here became almost secondary for us, providing a dramatic backdrop and linking together our most memorable moments of Svaneti and its people.

Hills and a Struggle with Death
As we followed Avgan into the hills that first day, Audrey attempted to absorb, in Russian, Avgan’s continual shower of Svaneti mountain trivia. He was once a full-time mountain guide in Soviet times leading tourists from the bordering Russian republic of Kabardino-Bulkaria to Svaneti. Audrey, in her ignorance of Soviet geography, thought he was saying “Bulgaria” until she realized how difficult it might be to walk from Bulgaria to Georgia in one day.

Avgan spoke nostalgically of Soviet times when 40+ tourists used to cross the pass near his house and stay in his village each day during the summer high season. In Mestia, nearly 200 tourists would arrive daily. Hotels were packed, subsidies were flowing, petrol was cheap, roads were paved and life was good. The old days stand in stark contrast to today’s tourist trickle and deteriorating infrastructure.

As we made it over our last pass in the early evening, we glimpsed our reward: a magical view at the base of a mountain where the village of Adishi and its iconic Svan towers marked our first stop and home stay. Although our hosts, husband and wife farmers, didn’t know we were arriving, they quickly assembled a feast in minutes – sulguni (cheese), puri (flat bread), meat, potatoes, and matsoni (Georgian yogurt). Everything was homemade and farm-fresh. Once the rachi (low-octane local vodka) came out though, the tempo changed and Avgan quickly assumed the role of tamada (toastmaster).

We had noticed a look of chronic sadness and exhaustion – a sort of depression – on the husband’s face. During an early toast we learned the cause, the death of his daughter several years prior in a car accident. A memorial hung on the wall behind us as we each poured a few drops of our drinks on the table in a nod to her and the deceased.

The mood eventually lightened as Avgan became more poetic. He led toasts to Svaneti being remembered for its mountains and not its guns, to future tourists, to his sons winning more mountaineering competitions, and so on. Audrey struggled to keep pace with the 10-minute long toasts, roughly translating Russian into English for Dan’s benefit.

At one point, Dan tried to explain how he couldn’t possibly squeeze in any more food or drink because he had eaten enough for 2-3 days. Audrey’s charades and attempted translation gave Avgan the impression that Dan was constipated. For the next laughter-filled fifteen minutes, Dr. Avgan listed a host of natural remedies such as warm milk and enemas in order to cure Dan’s “problems” and get things moving again.

Approximately ten shots later, we tried to excuse ourselves to our room. As we prepared to go to sleep, we were called next door into the daughter’s bedroom. Shrine-like and eerie, it remained as it was just before her death. Her clothes were laid out across the bed in the shape of her body, as if she were still there sleeping. In one final toast of sadness where a drop of liquor is poured on the floor to those that have passed, the father shared his continued grief with us.

When Avgan awoke the next morning, he kindly allowed an extra 15 minutes and gave a knock on our door at 6:30 AM. Considering how much rachi we’d consumed the night before, we were certain he was joking. After the third knock, we reluctantly extracted ourselves from bed and dragged ourselves to the breakfast table.

Heaping plates of Svaneti cheese mashed potatoes awaited our arrival. Stringy and paper-weight worthy, the potatoes loomed, almost mocking the rachi-carved pits of our stomachs. Our hearts began to palpitate at the thought. We could only manage a few spoonfuls of potatoes and yogurt and we were on our way to the clearest of the available mountain passes accessible from the valley.

Amazing Vistas and Abandoned Villages
The most difficult climb lay just ahead. A steep snow chute was followed by thick wild mountain rhododendron. We could feel new muscle groups coming into use as we pulled ourselves up with their roots. Once we reached the top, we were exhausted. Our reward: spectacular 360 degree views and a chance to nap in the passing sunshine. Avgan even gave us a lesson on how to make natural Svaneti Viagra from the roots of purple flowers. Even while resting it seemed that we were always learning something.

We descended next into Khalde, the village known for holding off Russian forces in 1876. Mention of Khalde evokes a spirit of pride and tough independence, but highlights one of Svaneti’s contradictions. Everyone is proud of Khalde’s resistance, but they seem to secretly hope for the return of the Soviet Union one day so that life may be good again.

Most of Khalde’s homes were in surprisingly good condition, particularly for having been abandoned ten years ago. After dislodging the front door to one, we entered what was once Avgan’s mother’s home. Photos remained on the wall, furniture was still in place, but no one lived there. The whole thing was eerily and morbidly fascinating. Finding some dusty plates in the cupboard, Avgan suggested we take our remaining food for lunch, but no one was hungry. It was clear that Avgan was intent on leaving all that remained of our aging food stash to the spirits of the house and to his mother.

We followed the cows home to the village of Iprari and encountered a young woman on horseback – in command and on the search for a few of the herd that lost their way.

Later that evening, we find out that the woman on horseback was one of our host family’s six daughters. Peaceful and sophisticated, the father seemed to reflect a lifetime of experience surrounded by women. Three daughters were still on the farm while the others had moved away because of marriage, studies or work. This story seemed to encapsulate the nature of life in this village, where young people move away when they have the opportunity. The village population was 150 people about a decade ago; only a mere 20 remain today.

The girls seemed wary of us at first, serving us food efficiently without much engagement. Later in the meal, Dan thanked one of the girls in Svan, “ivas suhari.” A foreigner attempting to speak even the most meager bits of the local dialect opened things up. The daughters couldn’t contain their surprise…or their laughter. All barriers seemed to fall at once.

After lunch the next day, which included some of the best khajapuri(cheese-stuffed bread), matsoni (yogurt) and honey in all of Georgia, one of the girls brought out a small stringed instrument and sang traditional Svan folk songs for us. Her voice seemed to carry all of Svaneti’s emotions at once – strength, sadness, pride, and a glimmer of hope. We were mesmerized. Click play below to hear for yourself.

We decked ourselves out in rain gear for the remaining ten kilometers to Ushguli. Audrey protected her camera bag under her windbreaker, giving the impression of a large belly. Everyone started pointing and cheering when they saw her – the hint that maybe one day that bulge would be a baby instead of a camera proved exciting for our host family. It was hard to pull ourselves away from their warmth, but Ushguli was calling.

Ushguli: The Highest Village in Europe
Because of the wet weather, the only path open to us was the main road to Ushguli, famed as the highest inhabited village in Europe. This label is confirmed by every second person you meet here. “Do you know…?” “Yes, I know…Ushguli is the highest village…”

About halfway there, a Russian jeep pulled up and greeted Avgan. We piled into the back seat where we’re introduced to representatives of Svaneti’s remarkably friendly police force. Their jackets, most likely a gift from a foreign donor, were embroidered “Criminal Police.” With a rifle poking out from the front seat, our jeep gave us an odd feeling of safety.

Once in Ushguli, we were stopped three times by different groups inviting us for a snack in the 200-meter walk from our home stay to the Ushguli Museum. Not wanting to offend Ushguli’s local police force, we accepted their invitation and shared beer and khachaapuri in the day’s drizzle while taking in the rich, rain-soaked mountain landscape around us – Svan towers, patches of glacier, green hills and plenty of cows.

Because of the rain and all the cows, Ushguli’s paths were a mixture of mud and cow puddles. With little success, we tried to hop around from one rock to another. Audrey’s reaction upon being engulfed in cow poop soup captured the moment, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much cow shit in my life!” Our hiking boots will never be the same.

Later as we huddled in our hosts’ kitchen to share dinner with Avgan, an older woman shuffled in. Dressed entirely in black and lugging buckets of fresh milk, she seemed to carry the sadness of the world in her dark eyes. Avgan greeted her warmly. She was his cousin from Khalde, the abandoned village we’d visited the day before. They hadn’t seen each other in over a year, so it was an emotional greeting. As Avgan described the condition Khalde was in, they both began to cry. As if to justify his actions to us, he explained that Svan men are allowed to cry. Not a surprise, given that sadness and nostalgia feature so prominently in Svan life.

Eventually, Avgan snapped out of his dark mood and resumed the role of tamada at our makeshift supra. The effects of the bad white wine hit us the next morning as our livers pickled around the edges. Avgan’s knock at 8 AM – with a bottle of beer to cure our hangover ills – didn’t help. We wondered how this 63-year old – appropriately nicknamed “the wolf” – could feel so good after so many successive evenings of drinking.

Dan made a promise to himself. Next trip to Svaneti, he’s a Mormon on antibiotics.

Home to Mestia
There is no public transport between Ushguli and Mestia, so we hired a jeep. As a result, we were the public transport that day and four additional opportunistic local guys jumped in with us. Invoking God’s protection, they crossed themselves; we began to wonder what we’d gotten ourselves into. Fortunately, our driver knew the area well and we stuck to the “no looking down” rule as our jeep veered toward the cliffside. To describe the paths that jeeps take through Svaneti as “roads” is generous. Comic relief came in the form of large inebriated men singing (shouting?) Svan songs. Ringing ears aside, the ride to Mestia was relatively uneventful and included only one curious stop to tighten the wheels on the jeep.

Strangely enough, we ran into the same policemen on the street in Mestia. Again, all smiles as they asked us how our journey went. As we told others in Mestia about our trek and rattled off the names of the villages we’d visited, we received approving nods and invitations to go drink some more. We would graciously decline, but appreciated the warm invitation all the same. Apparently, we were beginning to be truly accepted in this unique place.

Photo Essay – Hiking Across Svaneti

Practical Details – Arranging Trekking in Svaneti

How to get there: See the post Svaneti: How and Why To Go
Where to stay: The Svaneti Mountaineering Tourism Center (SMTC) can arrange home stays in Mestia and the surrounding villages. Their website also has a listing (click on the village names on the left). We stayed with Jora Kaldani in Adishi and Ucha Margvelani in Iprari. Home stays are clean. Toilet facilities tend to be simple, usually meaning an outhouse in the garden. Ucha’s house in Iprari (Kala) has a hot water shower, a welcome luxury after an exhausting hike. The agreed cost for accommodation and three meals is 35 Lari/person. You pay the families directly.
Where to eat: You will never go hungry, but if you are lactose intolerant or a vegetarian, eating to your needs may be a challenge. The food at the village home stays is all fresh from their farms, meaning cows and pigs. There is lots of cheese, khachapuri, matsoni, chunks of meat, kubdari (meat stuffed bread) and potatoes. Vegetables are in short supply, except at meals in Mestia.
Arranging a mountain guide: Unless you are an experienced mountaineer and can read old Soviet maps, we would recommend taking a mountain guide until SMTC is able to clearly mark all of the trails. Contact SMTC and they will find a guide for you. English speaking guides are also available. Cost: 50 Lari/day.

If you have a high-speed connection, stick around for the slide show below.

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At the conclusion of the ceremony, several men huddled close and sang a cathedral worthy chant-like melody in Georgian that marked the beginning of the real festivities. The ensemble included three men from London, making this a truly international event. The quality of their vocals were so authentic, however, that locals were as surprised as they were impressed.

No event could be classified as Georgian (or Svan) without astronomical amounts of food, however. As guests found their seats, picnic tables were set for a serious Georgian Supra (meal). Sprawling plates of mint and cheese rolls, eggplant salad, meat, herbs, cheese corn bread, and cheese mashed potatoes were piled atop one another and vied for scarce table space.

The only thing in shorter supply: dead air. Georgia’s tamada (toastmaster) tradition was in full swing before the first forkful as toastmasters and deputy toastmasters sprang up at each table. More difficult than understanding the point of each toast (in Svan or Georgian, of course) was figuring which of the four glasses of various liquors and wines we should consume with each toast.

As alcohol flowed indiscriminately, it was abundantly clear that it didn’t matter. Toasts to women, family, Svaneti, community, and toasts to those who lost their lives in the mountains bounced off one another as toastmasters, deputies, officials, and local drunks spun long yarns.

Halfway through the eighteenth toast, one of the British singers turned around to us and said, “Uh, this one’s for the two of you, by the way.” We looked around; glasses were lifted to us, the first tourists of the new center and the symbol of a generation of independent travelers that the region hopes to embrace.

More on the Svaneti Mountaineering Tourism Center

After the euphoria of the opening party subsided, we asked a Tbilisi-based representative of one of the founding partners, the German organization Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), to answer some questions about the goals and work of the new center.

How SMTC Came About
SMTC came together through the collaboration of three organizations – FES, Swiss Development and Cooperation Office in the South Caucasus (SDC) and the Georgian Union of Mountain Activists (GUMA). SDC paid for the physical renovation of the center while FES supports the center’s staff, internal furnishings and a tourism development program. The head of the center, Zaur Chartolani, is well-known and well-respected in Svaneti. Every time we mentioned his name, people would nod in approval.

In an effort to develop a tourist infrastructure throughout the region, the tourism development program plans to train host families and guides, teach basic English skills, mark existing and new hiking routes, and print maps and publications. For example, when we met our guide in the village of Mulahi, Zaur passed on a stack of Georgian-English mountain-guide phrase books for distribution to young guides for improvement of their language skills.

Direct Contact with Svaneti
SMTC helps tourists make direct contact with local Svan service providers rather than forcing them to go through a tour operator or other intermediary. This benefits all direct participants: the local provider gets paid directly and the tourist gets direct contact and can customize their path through the region.

This last point really appealed to us. We were happier putting money directly into the hands of the village home-stay families than to a tour operator in Tbilisi. We also preferred how the center is encouraging tourists to get out of the main tourist village of Mestia in order to see other villages in Svaneti (Mulahi, Adishi, Kala, Iprari). The benefit here is two-pronged: tourism income is more widely distributed to villagers and the tourist is afforded a closer look and deeper understanding of the region and its people. Most organized tours nowadays only include Mestia and Ushguli. For us, the villages, scenery and life between those bookends tell the real story and provided the highlights of our week there.

Goals and Markers of Success
The long-term goal of SMTC is to raise income levels of the local population through tourism development. Host families, guides, interpreters, rescue teams, drivers and vendors are all needed when there is a healthy tourism sector. Tourism is not a panacea though. Svaneti’s tourism season lasts only a few months of the year (May – September) when the roads are passable.

When we asked what the indicators of success might be, the response was “a large number of satisfied tourists and local population.” There are enough reasons to bring people to Svaneti – natural beauty, hiking, people, culture – but the region needs to make it easier for tourists to come and to stay. This region once had a flourishing tourism infrastructure during the Soviet era, but it quickly collapsed after the break-up. Sustainable tourism development needs the buy-in of the local population. In order to get their buy-in, locals will need to believe that they will benefit now and more importantly in the long-term.

Sustainability of SMTC
FES plans to support the development of the center for two more years. We have seen many tourism development programs die when the foreign funding tap shuts off, so we asked what SMTC’s long-term funding strategy is. At the moment, this is uncertain. FES is currently working through some scenarios in order to make SMTC independent of external subsidies and funding. It is likely that the center would need to introduce service fees for making arrangements and bookings. Even with service fees, additional funding will still likely be needed for some time until tourist numbers increase dramatically.

Contacts for Svaneti Trekking and Mountaineering:

If you are planning a trip to Svaneti, we recommend the services of SMTC. To get started, check out their website – www.svanetitrekking.ge

For direct contact with SMTC, call the Head of the center, Zaur Chartolani, at +995 99 419353 (speaks Russian) or Shorena Gvarliani at +995 95 358049 (speaks English). Email: svaneti_trekking_ge [at] yahoo.com

If you are in Mestia, SMTC is located on a hill up from the road leading to Zugdidi (before getting to the main square). Look for the new brown roof with a crumbling Svan tower next to it. Ask around if you have trouble finding it.

Once you find the office, Zaur and Shorena will be happy to show you trekking maps, tell you about home stays, and help make arrangements. Zaur even managed to sort out our guide and village home-stays during the center’s inaugural party!

Costs:
Home-stays outside Mestia: 35 Lari/person (including all meals)
Home-stays in Mestia: 35-45 Lari/person (including all meals)
Trekking guide: 50 Lari/day (English speaking guides also available upon request)
Transport from Ushguli to Mestia: 50-100 Lari
Transport from Tbilisi to Mestia: 25 Lari from Tbilisi (marshrutka), 15-20 Lari from Zugdidi (jeep).

We thank Ia Tikanadze and Guenther Fichtner from FES for putting us in touch with SMTC, inviting us to the SMTC inaugural party, answering our many questions, and helping to make our time in Svaneti a highlight of our travels in Georgia.

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Although travelers could be well-served by checking out some of Tbilisi’s more traditional sights (e.g., cathedrals, castles, and museums), we’d like to suggest a scavenger hunt to discover the real Tbilisi.

1. World’s Friendliest Immigration Official
After arrival at an ungodly 3:30AM (for some reason, all flights from Europe arrive at this time), Dan staggered up to the immigration window in a post-flight haze and was asked the purpose of his visit.

“Travel,” his early morning brilliance reveals itself.

Unfazed, the immigration officer asks, “Your first time in Georgia?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Welcome to Georgia!” The immigration officer could barely contain his excitement (and his smile). Or, at least he faked it ‘til it felt good. Either way, the guys at Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs seem to be writing the book on how to make a foreign tourist feel welcome. It’s working. All smiles, even at 3:30AM.

We knew we were going to like this place.

2. Georgia’s Fastest Growing Government Expenditure
We’re not 100% sure, but we think it may be military spending. As our hosts drove us from the Tbilisi airport to town, we encountered an enormous military caravan of armored personal carriers and other military hardware. Heads in helmets popped out from the top of tanks and peered out into the night in curiosity. As you might imagine, we were a little off-put, particularly at 4 AM. “Figures we’d happen to visit Georgia when it’s being invaded,” we thought.

“Eto normalne?” (Is it normal?) we queried our hosts. Their laughter and matter of fact reply in the negative didn’t do much to restore a feeling of security. A few minutes later, they remembered that Georgia was about to celebrate its Independence Day with a military parade.

The Independence Day procession that morning seemed to feature every last chunk of Georgia’s heavily foreign-financed military hardware, including helicopters skirting rooftops and fighter jets spewing jet streams in red and white, the colors of the Georgian flag. Georgians were out in droves and in patriotic mode – children had their faces painted and waved little Georgian flags while they cheered on the troops.

3. George W. Bush Highway
A big smiling portrait of George W. Bush welcomes you to Georgia. Surreal, especially at 4 AM.

Relations between Georgia and the U.S. are very close, particularly between George W. Bush and Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili. Saakashvili decided to reward America’s financial and symbolic support by renaming the highway from the airport to the town center after his new friend.

4. BARF
What works better to clean your clothes than Barf?

You’ll find this ill-named Iranian laundry detergent gracing the shelves throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia. Barf actually means “snow” in Persian. Some of the newer boxes actually offer this explanation in English micro-font for silly tourists like us.

5. The Alien on the Metro
(Hint: It’s you, the tourist.)

If you visit Tbilisi and wear a backpack, you’ll endure plenty of stares and curious whispers. No need to worry, though, nothing malicious here. Georgia just doesn’t have many independent tourists at the moment.

Budget travelers that we are, we piled onto Tbilisi’s metro with our large backpacks instead of taking a taxi. As a trainload of people stared out at us like we had just been beamed down from outer space, we began to wonder about them as much as they wondered about us. Who are these people? What are their roots? Where did they come from? Who do they look like?

Deep, refined, and mildly mysterious…that’s the Georgian culture, whether you take it in on the street or you find it staring out at you from the seats of an under-lit metro train.

6. Singing Kids of Sololaki
Every city needs young ambassadors like these. We were intent on seeing sites, including the Kartlis Deda statue on the hill, but spent most of our first evening with the good-natured and gregarious kids of Sololaki after peeking into one of the courtyards there.

If we could bottle their spirit, humor and good nature and release it into the world’s water supply, we would.

Tbilisi’s Sololaki (or “Sololucky” if you are a cheeky graffiti artist) has an unassailable spirit and is loaded with rickety old buildings, admirable architecture and courtyard charm. Hopefully, Tbilisi’s property developers will find a way to take advantage of the beauty that is already here, rather than tear it down and build anew.

Provided Georgia finds some political stability, this will become one of Tbilisi’s premier places to be for atmosphere. We were contemplating buying a place there with a help of a Georgian friend. If we had extra cash (and weren’t traveling around the world), it would make a great investment.

7. A Beggar
Tbilisi’s streets bear a surprising load of begging…even more than Cambodia’s. We were taken aback by this when we first arrived.

Elderly beggars line the steps of churches, underpasses and busy street corners. Georgia’s transition from the Soviet era and its recovery from civil war have both left many worse off, especially amongst its elderly population. The pension from the state is only around $30 per month, not nearly enough to cover winter heating bills.

Beggars seem only outnumbered by pensioner women selling nuts, sour plums and sunflower seeds. How much supply of nuts, seeds, and little green plums can one city absorb?

8. Italskaya dvur (Italian courtyard)
Tbilisi is a city intended for wandering. Get lost and go places where you’re not sure you’re supposed to be. Explore. Peek into courtyards and have conversations with the people living there. Tbilisians are friendly and if you show a little curiosity, they will be more than happy to show-and -tell about their homes, neighborhoods, and their lives.

The “Italian” courtyard we wandered into off of David Agmashenebeli Avenue contains 22 families and offers some of the best preserved wooden balconies in town, but there are others. Go and find them!

9. The “Women Against Saakashvili”
The current Saakashvili government is somewhat controversial. Many people that we spoke to who support it, seem to follow with “it’s the best option we have right now.” Georgians are definitely not afraid to voice their opinion, be it positive or negative. We came across a group of older, pension-age women who feel left behind after the collapse of the Soviet system. They’ll frown, point their thumbs downward, hoot and holler “Saakashvili plocha” (bad, in Russian).

Find them in a doorway full of vegetable vendors in the general area of the Italian courtyard.

10. Gotcha
For obvious reasons, he shouldn’t be difficult to find. Once you find him at the main market (near the train station), consider running the other way unless you are interested in a drinking contest. Dan barely escaped. Audrey and a group of cheese vendors finally pried him from Gotcha’s friendly but vise-like grip.

11. Sulfur Baths
In all guide books, these are easy to find and well worth a visit. You may smell like eggs (sulfur) afterwards, but you’ll be so relaxed you won’t care.

12. A City Map
At the moment, a majority of tourist information in Georgia comes in two varieties – non-existent or totally inaccurate.

The good thing is that people on the street are very friendly. You will find no shortage of help to find your way. Sometimes people don’t actually know what you are looking for, but they’ll find a way to help you whether you need it or not.

Note to Tbilisi’s Tourism Bureau: Open an office in central Tbilisi and distribute simple maps of the city for free!!

13. Your Favorite Sign in Georgian Script
Artistic and old-worldly, Georgian script is some of the most beautiful in the world, resembling a blend of Thai and Tamil with a few bent Greek symbols thrown in for good measure. Even the most mundane signs take on a certain elegance in Georgian. Find your favorite sign and take plenty of photos.

14. Best Sunset View
It’s not from a castle, cathedral or tourist spot. It’s from a peacefully empty soft piece of ground on a hill above the sulfur baths. We’re afraid to say too much for fear of ruining the place for our friend who took us there. If you do find it you will not be disappointed; it’s an ideal place to take in and appreciate Tbilisi. Finish the evening with a drink at Rasta Café on the river next to Sioni Cathedral.

15. A Free Meal
As we waited to catch an evening train to Baku from Tbilisi, we ordered a light lunch in a restaurant near the train station. In an unexpected but fittingly Georgian goodbye, we learned that some men at a corner table paid for our lunch and a bottle of lemonade for the road when we tried to pay our bill. Our departure from Georgia was as welcoming as our arrival.

A hearty note of thanks to our friend Aleko Elisashvili for his contagious gigari (passion) for old Tiflis, his impromptu walking tours, and his seemingly endless knowledge of even the smallest of Tbilisi’s details. Our visit to Tbilisi would not have been the same without him.

Photo Essay – Discovering Tbilisi, Georgia

Practical Details – Transport to and Accommodation in Tbilisi

How to Get There: We flew Air Baltic (Berlin-Riga-Tbilisi) as it was the cheapest, although not most direct, option. Other major European airlines like Austrian Airways and Lufthansa service Tbilisi. It’s also possible to fly to Istanbul and connect by bus.
Where to Stay: Home stay: Rusiko Mchedlishvili (+995 (8) 93 328 911, rusiko_mched [at] yahoo.com). Centrally located near Rustaveli metro, this comfortable home-stay is like having your own apartment. $25/person, including breakfast. Rusiko is a very good cook and sometimes shares her efforts in the kitchen with guests. Warning: you may become addicted to her khachapuri in the mornings.
Hotel: Hotel Charm is in the heart of old town at 11 Chakhrukhadze Street (+995 32 985333, 986348). The owner, Nino, is an energetic and friendly host. Most rooms are in the $40-$60 range, but we were lucky to get a basement room for $30. Comfortable, and the free internet is a nice bonus.
Where to Eat: See our post on Georgian Food.

If you have a high-speed connection, stick around for the slideshow below.

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An Armenian driver with an old hulking Volga made requisite stops for water and enthusiastically endorsed Brezhnev with two thumbs up for building the now abandoned tourist hotel at Vardzia. The drive to Vardzia stretches from green hills and valleys to desert spotted with rock outcroppings. It also looks like an opportunity to kayak or water raft.

Vardzia is a monastery complex cut into the rocks and cliffs that dates from the 12th to 13th century. Only a fraction of the caves and tunnels are open to the public, but it’s enough to give the sense of how deep and vast the network originally was. The main church, also carved into the rock offers a look at some beautiful, dark, mysterious frescoes. Ask the priest to turn on the lights and open the gate to the cave next door, a fresh water spring, and tunnels to another section of the cave complex.

The small road leading up to Sapara is hazardous in a big Volga. If you happen to be in similar wheels, consider keeping your eyes fixed on the road rather than the cliffside. After the road parts wildflower dotted meadows, the forest thickens and Sapara monastery simply appears tucked into the mountainside.

George, Sapara’s resident English-speaking monk, gave us a tour of the complex. The earliest structures date back to the 10th century while the main church was built in the 15th century. Sadly, the monastery was used for a summer piano camp during the Soviet era. Though many of the interiors and frescoes are worse for wear, a few remain and others are being uncovered or restored to their original beauty. Today, about ten monks (or novices) live at the complex in Sapara. Although difficult to get to, Sapara monastery is beautiful, peaceful, and worth the effort.

Of the monasteries we visited, Sapara was our favorite.

Practical Details – Transport to Akhaltsikhe, Vardzia and Sapara

How to get there – Akhaltsikhe: Marshrutka from Borjomi – leaves hourly, 3 Lari/person
How to get there – Vardzia and Sapara: Taxi – Most taxis at the bus station offer 60 Lari for a return trip (including waiting time) to Vardzia (about 2 hours each way), but it’s possible to get the trip for 50 Lari. Sapara is an additional 15 Lari, but very much worth the extra cost and time (take a sedative if you are afraid of heights and adventure driving).
Bus - The cost is much less – 4 Lari/person – but you have to stay flexible. A friendly guy searched out the Vardzia-based bus driver to get all the times for us. The only return trip in one day is the following. Otherwise, you have to spend the night there.
From Akhaltsikhe: 10:40
From Vardzia: 15:00
Where to stay: Hotel White House on Tetri Sakhli street (perpendicular to Rustevi street). Just ask around, as everyone seems to know it. 50 lari/double room, including breakfast. There is also another hotel on Rustevi street with similar rooms for 40 lari without breakfast and 50 lari with breakfast. Hotels are a bit of a walk from the bus station (walk across the bridge with the castle/old town at your back).
Where to eat: Limited choices here. The restaurant on Rustevi street has a nice balcony overlooking the valley. The people working there are very nice, although the menu is rather limited (note: the fish contains hundreds of thousands of tiny bones).
What to do: Walk up to the church on hill, walled old town, and admire all the signs about tolerance (paid for by USAID and other foreign aid organizations).

Other places we visited in Georgia:
For details on other worthwhile sights in Georgia, check out our articles on Kakheti, Zugdidi, Svaneti, and Tbilisi.

What we didn’t see this time…but would like to next time:
Tusheti, Shatili, Kazbegi, David Gareji, Nekresi, Bagrati Cathedral and Gelati Monastery (outside Kutaisi), Ushba and Shkhara (Upper Svaneti), Lower Svaneti, Khevsureti mountains, Batumi, and Uplistsikhe.

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Our stay in Borjomi was short, just long enough to wait in line with the locals and drink the famous mineral water directly from the source. Difficult to gulp down, the water tastes faintly of iron filings, but is supposedly the equivalent of “drinking a pharmacy,” (not something we’re certain we want to do) according to Marina, our homestay host in Borjomi.

Georgians hold water dear to their hearts and believe that if you drink enough, you might just wash away the effects of all your vices. We’re not so sure.

Practical Details – Transport to and Accommodation in Borjomi

How to get there: Marshrutka from Didube station in Tbilisi – 7 Lari/person.
Where to stay: Marina Abugadze, Kovtava 17 (267 2 09 30). A simple homestay in a courtyard walking distance from the park, train station and bus station. Marina doesn’t speak English, but others in the courtyard do. She is a very sweet host. 10 Lari/person.
Where to eat: The train station has two restaurants in its vicinity. The bakery right next to the bus station serves up heavenly bread (perhaps the best tonis puri we’d tasted in Georgia).
What to do: Drink the waters directly from the source (don’t forget your own water bottle). Hike in Borjomi National Park. Check yourself into a sanitorium to cleanse all your ills.

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As a result, we finally have some photos to show from Armenia and Azerbaijan, thereby completing our visual tour of the Caucasus.

Now it’s time to catch up on our observations of this fascinating region, including some parting thoughts about Georgia and some fresh thoughts about Armenia and Azerbijan.

Armenia

Armenia, Up and Down

What Goes on in Yerevan

Armenia: Food and Markets

Azerbaijan

Air of Azerbaijan: Shaki to Lahic

Baku, Old and New

Azerbaijan: Food and Markets

Georgia

Fabled Svaneti

Kakheti Adventures

Georgian Food and Markets

Impressions of Tiflis (Tbilisi)

Georgia: From Bakuriani to Zugdidi

Fans of Turkmenistan, don’t dispair. Photo sets this weekend and brushes with Turkmenbashi to follow.

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I tell you, the Svanetians are crazy. Their brains are deficient in oxygen.

- A Tbilisi resident describing how the high altitudes of Svaneti have affected its people.

Svaneti, the high Caucasus mountain region in the northwestern corner of Georgia, has a long reputation of fierce independence characterized by the 12th century defensive towers that still dot many of its villages. More recently, Svaneti has been feared as outlaw territory where bandits and escaping terrorists from nearby Abkhazia, Chechnya and Ingushetia took refuge as locals holed up in their homes with guns at the ready.

To many Georgians, Svaneti still echoes mysterious, beautiful, wild, and dangerous. Our Georgian friends, both anxious and supportive of our desire to explore this mountainous region, suggested taking a tour or finding a local guide to ensure our safety.

Unfortunately, the Georgian tourist infrastructure for the region is minimal and printed material is glossy, lightweight, and tends to point all travelers in the direction of tour operators. For independent budget travelers like us, the $150+/person/day price tag of a typical Svaneti tour was far too steep and didn’t include much in the way of hiking or exposure to the people and culture of inner Svaneti, the “real” Svaneti tucked between the bookend touristed villages of Mestia and Ushguli.

Thankfully, a friend in Tbilisi turned us onto the Svaneti Mountaineering Tourism Center, a newly opened non-profit organization whose charter is to assist and expand independent travel to and through Svaneti. The Tourism Center maintains a homestay network, can recommend local trekking guides and is currently in the process of marking hiking trails throughout the region.

Because of this and government efforts to improve safety in the region, travel in Svaneti is now accessible and relatively secure. The few difficulties – from bad roads to numerous drinking opportunities – that you may encounter these days will simply provide humorous color to your Svaneti experience.

Our Jeep, Zugdidi to Mestia
After slowly making our way across Georgia by marshrutka, we picked up a Russian jeep at the Zugdidi bus station on a Sunday morning. Bags of sugar, toys and other goods pile into the jeep while Audrey conducted a photo session with the driver. Ten passengers climbed in for a snug fit and we were on our way.

A male passenger took to us quickly, finding amusement in asking us a battery of questions in Russian. The women passengers, on the other hand, were a bit frosty. One passenger noticed her relatives in the jeep as she boarded and was visibly overjoyed.. When she saw us, however, the delight in her eyes narrowed to a squint of curiosity, skepticism and fear. Georgians had warned us that Svans don’t like outsiders; we were beginning to feel the social frost taking grip of our jeep.

Fortunately, a few Russians at a UN checkpoint (near the Abkhazian border) provided a new target for the Svan ire. When questioned, the women in the car openly mocked the soldiers and gave everyone a laugh.

Not long after the checkpoint, a roadside stop appeared. Women decked out in blue eyeliner, short skirts and disco pumps dished out fresh khajapuri and kubdari for the occasional travelers and workers at a nearby dam.

After we downed a few slices of kubdari (meat and onion stuffed bread), the driver invited us to join his table for shots of rachi (a low octane, often homemade, version of vodka). We were relieved to see that he wasn’t drinking. Excusing ourselves from a third (or maybe a fourth?) shot, we retreated to another table where the rest of the passengers were eating. The women and their daughters eyed our approach suspiciously, but eventually warmed up to us. Realizing that they weren’t about to get rid of us, they offered us their food, agreed to have their photos taken, and even cracked a few smiles. The social frost was starting to melt. When we tried to pay for our food, we learned that one of the fellow passengers had already done so.

How Do We Get Rid of the Husband?
Back in the car, the driver asked Audrey repeatedly about Dan’s status. “Your brother, yes? We can find you a good husband in Svaneti.”

Audrey responded, “Husband.”

“Brother?” they asked, just to make sure.

“Husband,” Audrey confirmed. A flurry of conversation in Svan erupted as the group sent glances our way, gesticulated wildly and laughed deliberately in a way that meant the joke would only be private to us.

We could only imagine the conversation went something like this:

“We could get a lot of money for marrying off the girl in Svaneti.”

Laughter.

“Yes, but we need to get rid of the husband first.”

Laughter.

“If we drop him off that cliff over there, his body would float along and wouldn’t show up at the UN/Russian checkpoint for four days, meaning it should be unrecognizable by that point.”

More laughter.

Imagined conversations regarding Dan’s demise aside, our drive followed the syncopated rhythm of the Turkish music pumping out of the jeep’s stereo. Deep gorges, emerging mountain passes and the thick grey rapids of the Enguri River defined an increasingly severe alpine landscape. Our rocky climb into the mountains included stops for water, vomiting, alcohol, cigarettes, oil checks, oil refills, and a hammer exchange with a broken-down Soviet bus.

An Introductory Drink
As if our journey up the mountain from Zugdidi to Mestia wasn’t long enough, our driver seizes one last opportunity to draw it out even further. We turn off the road for the last remaining passenger. Mountain-framed pastures dotted with dairy cows give way to ever ascending peaks.

We’re invited inside a covered stable area where the driver and the men of the house take a break. The table is covered in large, fresh leek-stuff khajapuri (cheese-stuffed bread) pies. Jugs of curiously pink alcohol are passed around and the tamada (toastmaster) tradition starts. A plethora of toasts to family, friends, the dead, Georgia, and Svaneti take us through a series of refills of fresh, sparkling berry wine. Although we don’t know what to make of the whole thing, it’s a friendly affair where nothing other than smiles and perhaps a few photo opportunities are expected in return.

Svan Hospitality
As we’ll come to find out, this is only the first of many toasts and opportunities for Svans to display their hospitality and open their homes and hearts to us. We quickly learned that the only physical danger we would face would come from Svan hospitality (outrageous amounts of food and drink), rather than from any violence in the region.

Photo Essay – Trekking Across Svaneti

How to Organize Your Own Svaneti Trekking Adventure

How to get there: From Tbilisi there is a marshrutka from Didube station leaving at around 6 AM (get there early though). Cost is 25 lari per person and takes around 12 hours. From Zugdidi, jeeps depart from the bus station near the Svan tower. Arrive at around 7 AM and then wait until the jeep is full to depart. Cost varies between 15-20 lari per person, depending upon the size of the jeep. Normally the trip takes 5 hours, but ours took close to 8 hours with all the khajapuri and wine/vodka stops.
Where to stay in Mestia: There is a network of homestays in Mestia and it’s not as difficult as it sounds to find a place to stay. We stayed with Msevinan (+995 99 14 97 93). Tsiouri is also well known and down the street (+995 99 56 93 58). Kakha (+995 55 49 51 18) and Koba (+995 98 43 27 31), the guys who run the guesthouse at the Svan Tower (next to the bus station) in Zugdidi, have a network of relatives throughout Svaneti. The Svaneti Mountaineering Tourism Centre also has a network of families (35 Lari/person, including all meals). Even if you don’t have a contact in advance, the driver in Zugdidi (or from Tbilisi) could probably find you a place to stay easily – everyone knows everyone.
Where to eat: Homestays normally provide breakfast, lunch and dinner. You will never be hungry and depending upon the family, there may be large amounts of wine and vodka thrown in as well.
Where to stay in Zugdidi: Kakha and Koba have three rooms for tourists near the bus station (look for the Swan Tower) – 15 Lari/person. Hotel Zugdidi has comfortable rooms with hot water for 40 Lari/double room.
What to do in Svaneti: Trekking is the big attraction here. The Svaneti Mountaineering Tourism Centre can provide information on where to go and arrange guides (40-50 Lari/day), if necessary. The Mestia museum (10 Lari) is interesting with 1000 year old books and religious icons. The Ushguli museum (10 Lari) is disappointing and well worth skipping.

Originally posted on the Uncornered Market travel blog. Find beautiful travel photos from around the world. | 4 comments