Mountains, Mountains, Mountains...From a Girl who Loves the Sight of a Cornfield

 Another blog I had to write for my grant, which is why I've done 2 in 1 week

I never tire of looking at Georgian mountains.  It probably has a lot to do with the fact that, although I’ve lived in several states in different parts of the US, I always live in flat country.  As a child, I would go sledding down “hills” on the golf course, because the only elevation we had was man-made.  Then I came to Georgia, where almost any view has hills or mountains in the background.  Tbilisi is ringed by hills, with apartments even stretching onto some of the hills.  

 

Climbing a mountain in Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park

 The real beauty of Georgia, however, opens up when you leave Tbilisi, when you head to the real mountains.  In summer, they are verdant green, covered with trees and shrubs and various plants, even primeval forests.  Sometimes there are even colorful wildflowers sprinkled in amongst the greenery for variety.  Villages are scattered among the mountains, and if you look closely, you’ll undoubtedly find a Georgian Orthodox church perched on some hill or mountain.  There might even be no discernible road or even path to this church, but nonetheless, the church remains as a symbol to the faithful and a sanctuary for the intrepid who dare to climb up to it.  I look at these mountains in Georgia and I see beauty everywhere. 

In Borjomi

 Certainly, there are taller mountains elsewhere.  I’ve been to the Rockies, which are certainly impressive, but they don’t speak to me like the Caucasus do.  Perhaps because here in Georgia, I see how difficult life can be in the mountains, and it is easier to imagine how long ago people forged a life in such beautiful and stark surroundings.  When I stare at the mountains, I can see invading foreign armies pouring over them, mountaineers fighting valiantly to protect their rugged homeland, and millennia of shepherds grazing their flocks on the graceful slopes.  Learning about the history and being here, breathing in the mountain air, gazing upon vistas that my camera can never really capture, and knowing how difficult it is even in 2013 to get to the mountains, I think I understand a little more about Georgia than I did before.  The clannishness, the wars, the intense patriotism, the capacity to withstand discomfort…these all make more sense now.  

On the top of a mountain in Borjomi

A few weeks ago, I took a trip to Shatili, a remote village in Khevsureti, one of the more remote, mountainous parts of Georgia. It had been on my bucket list for a long time, but the road is only passable in summer, so I had never been before.  I wanted to go because I knew that there was an ancient fortress/town high in the mountains, close to the border with Chechnya, and it was beautiful. 

I had not really appreciated how unique Shatili and Khevsureti really were.  The Soviets would not allow the Khevsurs (natives of Khevsureti) to remain in their isolated mountain villages and forced them to come down to more “civilized” parts of the country.  The Khevsurs suffered as a result.  Even though Tbilisi has hills, the Khevsurs longed to see their mountains every day.  In the 1980s, they started to rebuild Shatili and families returned.  Now, in the summer, twenty families live in Shatili but only seven remain all year long.  It is the biggest community around.  Only native Khevsurs are allowed to own property in Khevsureti.  While Georgia is becoming modernized in so many ways, these mountainous areas still keep their traditions, and in Shatili, only natives to the area own property.  When you’re a six-hour ride on a difficult road away from Tbilisi, it’s a lot easier to keep local laws enforced than anything that might be handed down from the federal authorities. 

Before we left, the tour guide told us that in other places in Georgia, the mountains are “here” and stuck his hand out.  In Shatili, however, the mountains are “here”, and he brought his hand right up to his face.  I did not really understand what he meant until we arrived.  Shatili is set in a small valley of sorts, which mountains ringing it in every direction.  There is the town of about two streets, a river, and just enough flat ground for people to camp.  The mountains really are upon you.  

 

Beautiful scenery on the way to Shatili at the Dartvsi Jvari Pass, high in the mountains

The tour guide also said that he has had some tourists look at the fort and be unimpressed.  It’s a long and painful drive to Shatili just to see some old stone towers.  However, there’s a certain amount of magic to Shatili.  It does not necessarily hit you at first, but as you breathe in the mountain air, stare at the fort stark against the mountainside, make a toast with a drinking horn, and listen to someone strum a chongoli (a traditional Georgian stringed instrument), it starts to make sense.  

 

One of our guides playing the chongoli and singing

The more time I spent in Shatili, the more in awe I was.  The scenery is breathtaking, but the fact that people have carved out a life here, in this tucked away part of the mountains, with the ever present fear of Chechen raiders coming down from Russia, is awe-inspiring.  Even in summer, the air is crisp and cool.  Shatili did not have electricity until one of Saakashvili’s projects created a hydroelectric power station.  There are no stores in Shatili.  Yet people have clung to this place they call home in spite of significant obstacles.  Perhaps they’ve done it because it is beautiful, perhaps because it is simply their home.  Regardless, it’s impressive.

Shatili

Khevsureti is one of the extreme regions of Georgia, but the mountain fierceness resonates throughout much of Georgia.  The mountains have helped shape Georgia’s history, culture, and according to a recent article by the BBC, maybe even the language.  As I study the language and see more of the country, I start to understand this ancient land through experience.  As I gaze upon the mountains, I appreciate why Georgians have fought so hard and suffered so much for their little patch of earth.  I also understand why they claim in the favorite origin myth that God gave them the part of Earth he had reserved for himself.  I probably would have done the same.

Bye America (A day in rainy DC)

Another airport, another blog post.  This time I’m in DC, waiting to fly out to Tbilisi by way of Munich.  It’s Friday night.  I’ll arrive in Tbilisi on Sunday morning.  I know you’re already jealous.

I flew into DC yesterday and had a short orientation with American Councils and the four other brave souls going on the Eurasian Intensive Language Program.  It was really interesting getting to know these people who will be experiencing similar and yet very different things over the course of the summer. We’re all going to our own chosen post-Soviet country: Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Georgia (clearly the best!), and we all come with vast but varied experience.  Our pursuit of graduate degrees and interest in these countries that fly below most people’s radar made it easy to connect for the brief period we were together.  It was a taste of what I hope is to come; in Georgia, befriending other expats was far easier than making friends ever is.  Seriously.  Where else does the line “Hey there, fellow native English speaker,” actually serve as a great introduction?

I had the afternoon off.  Everyone else had earlier flights so we were given lunch to go and they shipped off.  As DC has been enjoying a nice spate of rainstorms care of Andrea, I decided to forgo another venture up Old Abe’s steps and hit the Smithsonian.  Since I definitely did not pack an umbrella and shunned the multiple offers, I looked like a bedraggled rat by the time I got there.  It was not a problem, since I had left Foggy Bottom, where the hotel and GWU are, and far too many well-dressed young people milled around, all of them carrying umbrellas like sensible people.  Umbrellas and ponchos abounded on the National Mall, but here they were carried by tourists in flip flops, hats signifying their tour group, and t-shirts from high schools and colleges across the nation.  There were plenty of teenagers clearly trying to be cool but failing in a way they will only see when they look back on these photos in several years.  This made me appreciate that I have no idea where pictures of my 6^th grade trip to DC (basically just the Smithsonian) are hiding.

DC, and especially the National Mall, with tour buses waiting on all available streets and people milling around even in the rain, provided some excellent people watching.  As I’m gearing up my traveler’s skills of observation and analysis, it was fun to turn a critical eye on my fellow countrymen, to try to view Americans a little like I view Georgians.

I was actually left with a pleasant picture.  After seeing hundreds of benches to eat lunch, which promised a soaked dress for sure, I was very relieved to find an empty event tent with a few chairs where I could sit down after strolling the American History Museum and finally eat my lunch.  About halfway through, I thought my little piece of heaven was about to be destroyed when an event truck rolled up.  The man smiled and quickly brought out a table!  His friend teased him that he had never seen him work so fast before, to which he replied that I was cute and his friend was not.  A compliment and a dry table!  Between that and watching cute kids try to take pictures in front of the Capitol, I was quite pleased with my countrymen.

Obviously not the Capitol.  It makes me sad the Washington Monument is STILL encased in scaffolding.

I hurried through parts of the National Gallery, finding Van Dycks, Rembrandts, and Titans lurking just around the corner.  Wishing I could stay, I headed back to my fancy hotel in the swanky part of the city.  I’m not sure if it was cocktail hour, their normal MO, or what, but in the lobby they were giving away free mojitos, so I grabbed my bags and a drink and waited for my shuttle.

Since my program arranged for me to arrive 4 hours early, I had plenty of time to do everything I needed at Dulles, including eating Mexican as my last American meal in 2 months.  DC gets definite props for having free wifi in both airports, even if they do charge an extra dollar each way (each way!!) for paper tickets on the metro.

Goodbye America!  I’ll see you in August.  If you could improve the weather by then, I’d really appreciate it. 

Reasons I Should Be Reconsidering This MA

1.       I actually asked to write a paper.  I don't have to write any other papers this semester and I'm hoping the topic will springboard into my master's thesis...but, still, in April, I"ll be writing 20 pages that I know I don't really have to write.

2.       My friends and I go to bars to do things like play board games and discuss Stalin.

3.       My Cold War history class is making me think this degree is good preparation for becoming dictator of a dystopia.

4.       My Soviet-type Economies in Transition class has inspired me to create a game where you try to create an effective centrally planned economy.  Think “Socialist Monopoly”.

5.       My friends and I hit upon a goldmine of an idea to open up a clothing shop of period English clothing, so we can dress like the characters in Jane Austen novels and the residents of Downton Abbey.

6.       Meeting people like the ambassador of Estonia only makes me want to travel even more.  Sadly, Bloomington lacks an international airport.

7.       Did I mention I have a new passport?  I got the big version so I have lots of pages that are crisp and new, just waiting to be filled.  Not that it's killing me.  Not that I've looked up prices for flights to Turkey for Spring Break.  Not that I'm applying for a summer program in Russia.

All in all, semester 2 is starting out just fine, all things considered.

Istanbul was once Constantinople

Once in Istanbul, I found my way to my friend’s place, got to see her for a few seconds as I was early enough to catch her on her way to school, and then crashed.  About noon, I woke up and decided to go sightseeing.  I was quite proud of myself for remembering so much of what Istanbul looked like and actually was able to get around fairly easily.  I strolled through the Spice Market, Grand Bazaar, through the Hippodrome, by the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, but quickly realized that I did not sightseeing alone nearly as much.  

Shots of the Spice Market/Egyptian Bazaar

 It was blazing hot, and I was sweating mercilessly, so I decided to add a new cultural twist to my adventure and check out the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art.  Sadly, the air in there was stifling, but I did see some beautiful art, including giant carpets, beautiful books, and some gorgeous furniture meant for holding Korans.  My favorite exhibit was the ethnographic area which recreated the inside of houses of various types from around Turkey.  It highlighted women’s work, like dying and weaving wool while also showing me how a yurt worked.  After that, I decided to take a real break and head to my favorite place for Turkish delight.  Yes, Turkish delight is real and is usually made of nuts (pistachios are the most common) covered in a flavored sugary gummy compound which can then be covered with powdered sugar or coconut.  It’s much better than that description makes it sound, and I have come to the conclusion it is soooo much better fresh than when bought in a sealed tourist box so I limit my enjoyment to when I can get it fresh.  I got a sample and some tea and enjoyed both as I watched a family struggle to make purchases.  They bought a lot, but the boys wanted everything, and the parents took forever to find a box they thought would survive an airplane ride.  I got there after them and still left first.

Tea and Turkish delight

Eventually I wound my way to Taksim to meet my friend.  When we met up, we strolled through the main street of shops, restaurants, and street performers and caught up.  Eventually we decided to find a place for dinner.  One lucky salesman found the magic words of “salad bar 6 lira”; beautiful words to two girls whose colons had suffered from a severe lack of vegetables for months.  We piled our plates high with delicious veggies and then shared a main dish.  We were two bednieri gogos (happy girls).  

SALAD BAR!!!!!!!

The next morning we set out to find an epic Turkish breakfast.  My friend is a huge fan of Anthony Bourdain so when I saw he had a Turkish breakfast recommendation near my friend’s place, we ventured over there.  It was not cheap for breakfast, but we stuffed ourselves with the various kinds of bread, cheese, pepper-covered vegetables, and honey butter while looking out over the water.   They also continually served you fresh Turkish tea, so I had seven.

Our amazing Turkish breakfast

Full of delicious food from the Kale Cafe

After we could eat no more, we walked along the waterfront, seeing all sorts of men fishing, swimming, and lounging.  We only saw one woman daring to go into the water, but we saw more of her than we wanted.  We passed by an old Roman fort and eventually made our way back to the touristy area.  One of my goals for Istanbul was to buy lots of scarves.  By myself in the Grand Bazaar, I easily got overwhelmed, but with a friend, it was easier.  It was still crazy hot, so we frequently tried to cool ourselves off with stops for fresh squeezed juice and even a trip to McDonald’s for the AC.  We met up with another TLG friend that night, went to a more local part of town, took a funicular up a hill, and paid too much for tea and a great view of the Golden Horn.  We wandered around that area a bit and then made our way down through some houses.  The only negative experience of the trip happened then, but it is much better described by my friend here.  I did feel special finally making it into her blog, since her blog was one of the more popular ones in TLG.  I also was unaware we had a certain reputation for misadventures, but, as this blog probably shows, we deserved it.

Getting over the incident, we found a place to eat.  We started talking and it turned into another fabulous Georgian night, where talking to expats whiled away the hours.  Unfortunately, once we stepped out of the restaurant, we were reminded we weren’t in Georgia anymore but in Turkey, where public transportation apparently stops about midnight and taxis are not as cheap or easy to come by.  We split a cab to a more central location, said goodbye to the one friend, and then, thanks to a family, made it on the last tram on the night to Taksim, where we again caught what was probably the last bus to my friend’s neck of the woods.  Once there, I showered and packed.  We did not get to sleep until past 2, but since it was my last night on my adventure, it was worth the short amount of sleep.

Thankfully I made it to the airport just fine the next day. For some reason, there were about 7 layers of security for American flights, but I passed them all.  After an extremely long day with no sleep, I eventually ended up in Springfield.  It took my bags another 3 days to get home, but neither will be leaving America anytime soon. TSA searched my bags but did not touch the chacha.  They did however trade my beautiful red leather belt for a red HTC battery, which I'm not so happy about.

Right now I’m just trying not to turn into a pumpkin at 10pm and trying to make decisions about my life here, so processing has taken a bit of a back seat.  This may be the last blog post, or I might have more reflections or extra stories I never told.  Either way, thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed the ride almost as much as I did.  It’s been an incredible year.

Mountain Adventures Sandwiched by too Much Time at the Tbilisi Airport

The Tbilisi airport is tiny for a national capital, but the even stranger part about it is that it’s busiest when all sane people are asleep.  I flew in at 2 and had a flight to Mestia, the capital of Svaneti at 11, so borrowed the free wifi and then headed to the Astroturf underneath the escalators.  Don’t ask me why there is Astroturf in the airport, but I joined the legions of tired travelers who have napped there.  When I arrived, the airport was bustling; by the time light shined through the skylights, waking me up, it had thinned. By the time I was supposed to be on a flight to Mestia, the place was deserted.  Thankfully, two friends had shown up by then.  Unfortunately, they delayed our flight for two hours before canceling it because there were too many clouds.  We knew that they canceled this flight regularly because of bad weather, but too many clouds?  Really?

Tired and unhappy, we had to go to another part of town to collect my money for the tickets, then get on a marshrutka to Zugdidi, whence we could take a Mestia marshrutka the next morning.  Somehow we won the baby lottery, or lost, more accurately, so we had about 6 screaming toddlers on our marshrutka.  They were pretty good once we got going but one mother decided the best way to calm her screaming child was to soothe her with lullabies. I would have been all for this except her idea of lullabies were Selena Gomez’s ‘I Love You Like a Love Song’ and Maroon 5’s ‘Moves Like Jagger’, both of which are terribly overplayed in Georgia and don’t soothe my nerves, let alone a small child’s.  Regardless, we finally made it to Zugdidi, only to find a storm had killed the power.  I had to scramble to find a place that would let me top up my internet so we could find a place to stay.  A while later, we found a hostel and they said they would call the marshrutka drive to pick us up there the next morning.  Finally, some good news!

I woke the next morning to a text from another friend who was supposed to come to Mestia to meet us.  Georgia was due for 3 days of storms, so he and his friend were putting their trip on hold.  Great.  Storms.

The storms next adversely affected our trip when we spent well over an hour on the marshrutka sitting on the road in the middle of nowhere because a storm had taken a chunk out of the road and sent it rolling down the mountain.  I was getting a sincere feeling Georgia was either mad at me for leaving or mad that I had returned.  Either way, I was getting punished.

Thankfully, when we arrived in Mestia, one of the people from our homestay came to pick us up and took us to the lovely home we would be staying in for the next few days.  2 friends who had arrived the day before soon arrived and then we were treated to a massive meal that exemplified Georgian’s culinary skill.  As the day was still drizzly, we just walked into town to check things out before coming back home.  The 10-year-old, Ananano (Ana) who lived at our homestay, also showed us their adorable kittens and bunnies.  I don’t like cats, but these were pretty cute.  I was quite happy when the bunny just let me hold it, even if it did get my white shirt dirty!  We ate another huge meal and called it a night pretty early.

Even I will admit this tiny kitten is cute.

We got up early the next day to hike to and past the cross, a walk people say is gorgeous.  Unfortunately, while the weather was cooperating enough to keep the rain at bay, the clouds were enveloping all the prettiest mountains.  By the time we made it to the “lake” at the top, the cloud was enveloping us, to the point that if we got separated, we could not see each other.  Still, we somehow managed to spend 9 hours hiking around some deserted and beautiful mountain areas.  We were exhausted by the time we got home so did not make it much past another delicious dinner.

View at the Cross.  Do you notice how the clouds block all the good stuff?

At the lake

 

The next day, one friend left early and the rest of us took it easy and then got a ride to Ushguli, the highest permanent settlement in Europe.  Some people debate that it is the highest settlement and another friend debates whether it is Europe, but regardless, it was pretty epic.  The ride there can only be undertaken in SUVs and other suitable vehicles because at times it is overtaken by water or landslides.  We stopped along the way to take pictures of the beautiful scenery and even got to venture inside a Svan tower at one point.  When we got to Ushguli, it was muddy and dreary, so we walked around a bit and then went to the café, thinking we would explore more once we had a cup of tea in us.   

Svan tower we stopped at on the way

Ushguli

Ushguli, with lots of Svan towers

 The place was deserted except for the two girls who worked there until we decided to order, when a Georgian man brought some tourists in.  Eventually, he started talking to us and we learned that they had a true Soviet collective going on. There was a Russian who lived in the Czech Republic, another one who lived in Moldova, a guy from Baku, and an Armenian (I believe), as well as a Georgian girl, who seemed to be their guide.  The Georgian man was from Tbilisi and, in true Georgian style, bought us wine, chacha (hard alcohol), and food.  They toasted us, and we toasted them.  The experience was delightful, very Georgian, and restored my love of Georgia after the past few rough days.  We spent so long in the café that we had to head home after that, but none of us minded since the café had given us an excellent Georgian experience and we could all feel the chacha. Once we arrived in Mestia, we were greeted by an amazing rainbow.

That night, at dinner, the family just kept bringing out food so our table was full of the supra stack-when you stack plates of food somewhat pyramid-like on top of each other because the table is not big enough for all the dishes, usually something done at supras.  Every meal we ate there was amazing and basically supplied me with all of my favorite Georgian dishes save two, but dinners were extra large.  We only ate 2 meals there and had no idea how anyone could eat 3.

The last full day we tried to go to the ATM but found that it was not working.  We walked around in search of Svan salt, a brownish mixture that I brought home but have yet to try, and Svan gum, pine resin that tastes kind of like furniture and sticks to your molars.  The experience was sweetened by he fact that we could only find the Svan gum at a 'store' that was really a converted van.  Being a small town, there was only one ATM in Mestia so we then headed home.  Thankfully, even after our purchases, we had enough money to get us all home so then went on another hike with little Anano as our guide.  She claimed we were going to see rive and “ice”.  Turns out, we hiked to the glacier friends had talked about.   While the glacier refrained from calving in front of us, it was still awesome to see water rushing out below the blue ice.  

Close-up of the bottom of the glacier

 Even though the hike was much less intense than the one to the lake, we were exhausted since our muscles were still aching from the hike to the lake.  As it was our last night, the host family had set out chacha alongside our immense spread for dinner, so I enjoyed one last night of toasting Georgian style.  We all grudgingly agreed to finish the bottle, since anything else would be silly, and commented on how strong it was since it made all of shudder until a few shots in.   

Dinner for 4

We had to wake up at 4:30am to catch the 5am marshrutka, which, of course, did not leave until after 6am.  It also tore down the twisting mountain roads, giving me one of the few severe bouts of nausea Georgian roads like to provide.  Thankfully I survived and we rolled into Tbilisi in the afternoon.

My last few days in Georgia were spent between Tbilisi and Manglisi.  Rain hampered me from doing too much in either place, but I got to say a few goodbyes, buy a Georgian cookbook, and soak up what was left of my Georgian experience.  At home, I mostly relaxed and spent a bit of time with my host family.  Saying goodbye to them was quite sad, but I got pictures with all of them except my host father, who was not home when I left.  About an hour before I left, my host family and favorite neighbor came in to give me gifts.  My host family gave me a clock, which is certainly designed for babies, that had a sweet message about good friends on it.  That’s why they had bought the clock for me, and I felt quite touched.  My neighbor gave me some apple-shaped toothpicks, and my host brothers gave me some beautiful but incredibly heavy drinking glasses. Somehow everything fit.  My host sisters and a neighbor walked me to the marshrutka.  Of course, it was one I had never seen before and was much nicer looking than most of mine, but the drive drove so fast that I hardly got to appreciate my view for the last time.  I ran a few last-minute errands and had dinner with friends, eating khinkali and drinking Georgian wine one last time.  When I got to the airport, I had to pay quite a bit for excess baggage but made it to Istanbul just fine.