A Night at the Patriot Camps

Three weeks ago, while sitting in the dark smoky room of Traffic Bar in Tbilisi, I had a conversation with an expat about something called Patriot Camps. The very name lit up many lights on my radar screen, and prompted further digging into the subject.

In 2004, the newly installed revolutionary government of Misha Saakashvili came up with a youth program designed to take kids off the streets and into camp sites where they would play sports, make friends, learn songs and dances from different parts of Georgia, and, well, play with guns. The program has been running for three years. This year, the government already opened a camp basically meters away from the border with the breakaway region in Abkhazia and intends to open the second one in Kodori, situated to the north of the aforementioned non-state and in an area reputed for its unstable security situation.

As you might imagine, it doesn’t take much of a stretch of imagination to concoct a conspiracy theory based on the above information. It may sound like this: Saakashvili takes kids to military training camps in border regions with Abkhazia, designed to indoctrinate them with a militaristic ideology; some of the largest camps are located just next to conflict zones, contributing to stirring up problems and exacerbating the negative image that Georgia has among the Abkhaz.

I spent the next two weeks or so bugging Revi about going to visit the camp in Kodori. The proximity to the Abkhaz black hole, the presence of the Abkhaz government in exile added to the appeal of the area. Revi’s response was always the same: the camp is not yet open, but it will open very soon. Of course, nobody knows what soon meant.

This Monday I officially gave up on the idea of visiting the Patriot Camps. However, I was trying to get an interview with the guy running them, who also happens to be the Deputy Minister of Culture. It turned out my man was visiting the Mecca of Euro-aspiring countries. The director of the Youth department was available though.

I got Revi and went to the Department of Youth and Sport, where I met a young (probably late 20’s), bright-eyed, jeans and fashion T-shirt-clad government official. After the interview, I asked whether I might be able to visit one of the Camps. A shot in the dark. Irakli obliged and invited me to join them the next day for a ride to the Camp at Bazaleti Lake, for the closing evening of a 10-day series of Patriots.

Before proceeding, I should probably tell you that I wasn’t able to find any trace of military training at the camp. While this makes the remainder of the story significantly less exciting, it confirms that the Government has discontinued this part of the program starting this year, partly as a response to Opposition protests.

The next day I met Irakli, his wife and two friends, got on board the Mercedes SUV (standard ride for Georgia’s middle-class or, as I like to call it, “the new Niva”) and proceeded to Bazaleti.

The camp is located right next to a lake, in a pristine landscape of hills, valleys, fresh air, blue sky, and ubiquitous mosquitoes. The camp is a fairly small enclosed area lined with bungalows. Facilities include an astro-turf football court, a basketball court, and an outdoor cafeteria.

My second take on the Patriot Camps turns out to be quite different from my initial conspiracy theory. Although I tried hard to find traces of ideology, indoctrination or a sinister political agenda, it appears that most of the activities are genuinely oriented toward providing low-income youth with a 10-day vacation, and allowing them to interact with people from different parts of Georgia. I meet a group of Armenians, another group of Azeris, none of which speak English (I am told some of them don’t speak Russian either), a young girl from Adjara with textbook-perfect English and some Georgians who are running the camp. It seems all the kids agree about having a great time at the camp and having made many friends. The girl from Adjara tells me she misses home, though. When I ask her if she made friends with any Armenians or Azeris, she smiles and averts her eyes. Ethnic prejudice seems to present (albeit in a muted form) even in the Patriot Camps.

All Patriots wear orange long-sleeved T-shirts (imported from Ukraine, maybe?) and blue overcoats. The Georgian flag is sown on the garments. It also adorns the back of the large podium, next to a map of Georgia divided into its composing regions. Next to the cafeteria I notice a large cross when It becomes lit by Christmas lights.

After dinner and a football game with some of the kids (my skills proved horrible, although I did manage a rather inspired assist), we sat down for the show that marked the end of the Camp for the 300 kids there. What I saw was a succession of traditional songs and dances from different parts of Georgia. I found out the Georgian national instrument is called Pandura. To me it looks a lot like the Greek bouzoukia. The kids are impressively talented, and the Georgian polyphonic songs sound like a mixture of Gregorian chants and Balkan rhythms, with a twist of Georgian je ne sais quoi. Well, nevermind that…

Two interesting moments of the show are when a Chechen girl from the upper Pankisi region of Georgia performs a traditional Chechen song accompanied by a guitar-like instrument. The first half of the lyrics is in Chechen, and the second in Georgian. The audience is extatic.

The second memorable moment was a short play interpreted by two youth, probably in their late teens or early twenties. One of them is lying on a bed and seems to be having a bad dream. He is a refugee from Abkhazia, and is dreaming of his friend’s mother being killed by the Abkhaz. His friend is hiding in a corner, but is discovered and shot himself. Follows a loud and emotional exchange between the two actors. Two rows behind me, I can hear somebody crying. I turn around and see a 12-year old in tears. She is from Abkhazia. On the stage, the two men embrace and shout: Abkhazia is Georgia, and Georgia is Abkhazia! End of act.

Ossetia Safari V

We only drive back for a hundred meters. Seeing a lit window at one of the nearby houses, we stop to talk to the locals. A woman comes out, puzzled by the camera but nevertheless willing to give us her story. She is Ossetian, her husband died and she now lives alone in this house in no man’s land. Her son lives in Tskhinvali now, but she doesn’t want to abandon the house. She shows us the bullet holes that pierced the metal front door and hit her husband. He eventually recovered from the wound, but his lower limbs stayed inert until he died.

The woman takes us to the house next door. We make our way through pitch darkness helped by cell phones improvised as flash lights. In the next house we see a man, probably in his 60s, with sharp blue eyes and a prominent nose. We ask him a few question about the conflict, what they think about this and that politician, but the old man really wants to tell us his story. Which is similar to many of the story we’ve heard on either side today. Filled with frustration, sadness, desperation and fear. Unaware that I don’t speak Russian, the man addresses me in long sentences, and his eyes start filling with tears.

This is a sad ending to a long and exhausting day. I thought this would be an adventure, and indeed the experience of seeing the actual front lines of a frozen conflict is unique. Yet the sheer impact of reality doesn’t hit you when seeing the tanks, or the soldiers. It is the local people – their sadness, desperation, hopelessness and anger – that really drives home the unique relevance of this conflict for the ones most affected by it.

The old Ossetian man wipes his tears, invites us inside the house and, helped by the women, produces a two liter Pepsi bottle filled with homemade wine, as well as cheese, tomatoes and bread. We toast to everything, but especially to piece, friendship, families (living or gone). The Ossetian (and Georgian) ritual requires one to drink the entire glass of wine once the toast is finished. As we get to the fourth glass, I realize the absurdity of the situation: I am having an improvised supra (banquet) offered by Ossetians, according to Georgian rituals, in a strip of no man’s land that is disputed between a recently recovered failed state and a non-state backed up by a super-state. If it sounds complicated, well, that’s because it is.

Once the wine is finished and the good-byes are said, we get back into the old Niva. To my surprise, the Soviet SUV makes it successfully up the hill through the non-existent road. We reach the Georgian troops to find out that everybody is on high alert looking for us. They seem relieved to see us and inform us that all soldiers are aware of our presence and that the road is clear. We make our way into the gravel road, onto the potholed road, back into Georgia and finally to the highway going to Tbilisi.

Ossetia Safari IV

I left off the story after a failed attempt to get past the last check point and cross into South Ossetian controlled territory with a Georgian TV crew that lacked official clearance to go there.

It was time for plan B. We were going to try to get to the site of protests andskirmishes last week. The story goes like this. Georgians are trying to build a road that connects two Georgian controlled-villages, one of which theoretically lies within South Ossetia. This bypass road would allow Georgian villagers to maintain a lifeline with the ‘mainland’, while avoiding the need to pass through Ossetian villages. Amid South Ossetian protests against the building of the road, Russian peace-keepers intervened and blocked construction works until the two sides would reach an agreement. The Georgians naturally saw the peace-keepers’ action as further proof of collusion with Ossetians. Georgian villagers reacted by staging a protest against the peace-keepers, throwing paint and gas at the soldiers. This incident was one of the first of a series of minor shootings, grenade attacks, leading to increased fears that the worst was yet to come.

The road building site was, in fact, a strip of gravel winding for a few kilometers through an extremely scenic landscape of green hills and valleys. Driving down the road, we notice occasional excavators and trucks with workers heading home after a day of work, a sign that the road construction still continues.

Then we notice, in the bushes next to the road, a heavy tank flying the Russian flag surrounded by soldiers. At this point, I am unsure on which side of what checkpoint or territory we are, so I get a bit apprehensive. The TV crew decides to stop the Niva and get out to talk to the tank commander, a red-faced Russian soldier. The talk is short and quite calm, which can only be a good thing. Surprisingly, shortly after, the tank revves the engine and storms out of the site, down on the road. Apparently our presence was enough to scare off the Russians. Maybe we could end the conflict and still make it back to Tbilisi in time for drinks?

Following the road, we reach a group of Georgian villagers working on the field. They seem quite happy to talk to us, and complain that they haven’t been able to get to the field in days. They are unhappy about the road construction being stopped and avow having attended the protests against the Russians. When asking them about their view of the Ossetians, they tell us they grew up together with them, have relatives who are Ossetians. The older generation of Ossetians speaks Georgian, they say, but the youth only speak Russian. When asking them what is the main cause of the conflict, they reply without hesitation that it is the Russians. The head of the family seems confident that the departure of the Russian troops would solve the conflict, whereas the wife seems less convinced and adds that the situation will take time to solve.

Following the road, we finally reach ‘ground zero’, where road building seems to end. This is the site of protests yesterday. The importance of the spot is marked by the presence of three Russian tanks and – surprise – a massive war machine flying the flag of St. George (in case you were wondering, it wasn’t the English!).

The Georgians come speak to us. We ask them what they are doing there. They reply that they are criminal police. I then ask them if they are chasing criminals around the hills of South Ossetia (to my defense, I had heard complaints on the Georgian side of criminals seeking haven in Ossetian-controlled territory). Unsurprisingly, the ‘policeman’ doesn’t find my remark funny and retorts that, since this is Georgian territory, they can do whatever the hell they please.

We are told that if we follow the ‘non-road’ down the hill, we will reach a Georgian village. The valley is full of patrols, on foot or tucked in vans, old ladas or red BMW’s with tinted windows (I must point out that the latter were the local police – not to be confused with the criminal police, which uses T72 tanks instead of the more flimsy BMW).

The main street is full of villagers. We approach a middle-aged woman who is filling a water bucket. She is half Ossetian and gives us the same story of people living together. Although Ossetian and Georgian traditions vary, she says, they become more alike when people live together. David and the crew then talk to a group of men, camera off. The men, I later find out , fought in the 1990s and now are very adamant about claiming the land as their own. They want to fight again and don’t seem very open to compromise. There seems to be a marked difference in people’s statements when they are filmed.

Night is falling and we are running out of time. The Niva is again on the road, trying to reach a part of the village inhabited by Ossetians. A group of policemen give us directions and tell us to watch out for Ossetians. We follow an unlit road some hundred meters. Everybody falls silent, and tension is almost palpable.

After a brisk exchange of words among the crew, the Niva comes to a sudden halt. The driver then makes a sudden U-turn and starts driving back. “What happened?” I ask. “We could see Ossetian militiamen down the road. It is not so safe now, because they may take us to Tskhinvali…” His smile is somewhat forced and, for the first time, I start realizing that the area is somewhat more than a military parade grounds.

Ossetia Pictures

I have finally been able - courtesy of Kathleen - to get my hands on some pictures taken during the trip to South Ossetia. For the more intrepid surfers who have figured out how to see my photo sets on Flickr, you can find them there. The rest of you click here.

Ossetia Safari III

The time was 1600 hours. The green Niva was huffing and puffing its way out of Tbilisi, recklessly overtaking black BMW’s and swerving from one side of the highway to the other. The driver was a genial looking man in his early 60s, who chain smoked cigarettes the smell of which reminded me of Carpati. The passenger’s seat was taken up by our cameraman, a lanky guy in his mid 30s holding the camera on his knees while joyously smoking his Winston. Being in the back seat, I was engulfed in a host mix of dust, smog, and cigarette smoke, looked mesmerized at the erratic rattling of the steering wheel. When the Niva reached the highly unlikely speed of 120 km/h, the deafening sounds and the vibrations reached alarming levels, suggesting that the Soviet SUV was on the verge of disintegration.

Instead, it smoothly pulled over in a ditch-like alley, for us to stretch our legs, buy ice cream and, of course, for the driver to smoke. We were about 5 kilometres from Gori, the birth place of Stalin.

As we got closer to the South Ossetian border, the road became almost eerily empty, save for an occasional minibus with tinted windows. David gets a phone call from the Rustavi 2 studio, with the news that Kokoity's press secretary is not picking up the phone. That means that we don’t have the clearance to go to the other side.

The road finally reaches a small river guarded with concertina barbed wire and several soldiers in full combat gear. Their small post flies the Russian flag. We have reached the first checkpoint manned by CIS peace-keepers.

After a short discussion between the driver and the soldiers, we are turned back with the interdiction to film within a 50 meter range of the checkpoint. The cameraman takes some panoramic shots of the area and David walks around nervously, obviously disappointed.

In the meantime, several vehicles – military, OSCE and civilians – pass through the checkpoint, no questions asked. We decide we should also give it a try - this time as 'civilians'. The cameraman tucks the camera in the trunk and we slowly drive toward the checkpoint. The driver negotiates through the barbed wire as the soldiers look at us slightly bored. We are on the other side of the checkpoint, theoretically in no man’s land!

Theory of course doesn’t apply to a conflict such as South Ossetia, where realities are often times more messy and complicated. After a few kilometres of driving through a desolate landscape of destroyed buildings on a potholed road, we reach another roadblock. Large concrete blocks topped with sandbags, and to the left a derelict gas station, now filled with buff soldiers hanging out and smoking cigarettes. “Who are they?” I ask, almost not wanting to hear the answer. “It’s ok, they are Georgian,” David replies reassuringly.

The crew talk to the Georgian troops while we try to peak beyond the roadblock into the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Several minibuses filled with men and women carrying huge suitcases pour into the roadblock. The soldiers, acting as informal customs officers, rummage through the suitcases, pulling out Chinese-made toy keyboards, opening boxes of medicine and shuffling through piles of cheap clothes. I am told these people come from Russia and sell their stuff into Georgia. Suitcase trading is only the tip of an iceberg of illegal smuggling that uses South Ossetia as a trading hub.

The casual exchange of words between the soldiers and the crew turns into high-pitched sounds and angry shoutings when the cameraman focuses his camera on one of them. I see David is starting to get worried and motions at me to get into the vehicle. The cameraman stays behind, hurling insults at the soldiers, and being answered in kind. It is time for us to leave: the driver drags the cameraman into the Niva and slams the gas pedal.

“What was that all about?” I ask. David tells me the military people got irritated when the camera was filming their faces. He gives me a strange look and adds, “you know, they are not regular soldiers.” “What do you mean, like special troops or something?” I ask, not knowing exactly what that means. David nods softly, looking as if he doesn’t want to continue the conversation.

Our first attempt to break into the breakaway region ended in failure. David is not about to give up though. We are now taking a different route, and trying to get to the road building site that was the scene of protests from villagers and, also, of mutual allegations of attacks from both Georgians and Ossetians.

Musical Interlude - Part II

Arash - Temptation (Swedo/Perso/Russo Kitsch-Pop)

Musical Interlude - Part I

Zdob si Zdub - Videli Noch(Moldo Ethno Rock - pa Russkyi)

Ossetia Safari II

As it turns out, the ice around Georgia’s lesser frozen conflict was starting to melt around the edges. Here and here you can find the symptoms.

I was trying to get into South Ossetia during the biggest flare-up in many months. Even better, I was trying to get into South Ossetia with a TV crew from Georgia. Oh yeah, and the said TV station is generally considered as sympathetic to President Saakashvili.

I spent the whole evening of Thursday waiting for David to call. He finally did so at half midnight, waking me up with the news that we were leaving for sure. Did you guys get the clearance from the Ossetian side? I was able to mutter in spite of being half asleep. We maybe get it tomorrow, David said reassuringly. It sounded like our field trip would be a lot of fun.

On Friday I woke up, made sure I was prepared for the conflict zone by putting on an old worn out polo shirt and sporting a rugged two-day beard. I took my passport (do you really need a passport when traveling into a non-recognized region that is de facto independent, de jure part of Georgia, with two different Presidents recognized by various actors, and living from a combination of Russian subsidies and a flourishing smuggling industry?) and a small notebook and I headed to GFSIS office to write fair-well letters, sign my life insurance policy, and, well, check my e-mail.

The flurry of texts between me and David continued throughout the morning, containing bits like “the situation is bad there” interspersed with “we leave soon, I call you!”. At 1 PM I gave up, went for lunch, had a beer, ran some errands and ended up having coffee at Prospero’s bookstore. Just when I was about to head home, read some papers and lick my wounds, I get a phone call from David. We go now!

Ossetia Safari I

In my last post I promised to write something about the Tbilisi night life, with some references to the Traffic Bar. I am sorry to say that you are not going to get that, at least for the time being.

I also mentioned something about the Romanian President’s ratings going up by 10 points. You might wonder why I am talking about Romanian politics in a blog about Georgia. Well, let me give you the scoop on that.

The other day I was telling Ionut that I was hoping to get into Ossetia. He suggested I should be careful lest I repeat the story of the Romanian journalists kidnapped in Iraq. At the time, after intense negotiations with the kidnappers (probably including significant amounts of cash in hard currency) and heavy involvement by the Romanian President, the journalists were finally repatriated, leading to an instant surge in Basescu's popularity ratings.

The short story is that I tried, and failed, to get into South Ossetia.

The long story is that I got approached by a team of journalists from Rustavi 2 TV while coming back from lunch with Tim Blauvelt. They were interested in meeting interns working on the frozen conflicts and suggested we have a quick chat. They asked me a few questions trying to get my take on the conflicts, seemed very interested in what I had to say, offered coffee and took notes. I was on the fast track to becoming The Foreign Expert.

At the end of the discussion, the mentioned their interest of going to South Ossetia and interviewing some people. Or rather, of going to South Ossetia and having me interview some people there. Would I be interested in going there?

It all seemed a little too good to be true. There had to be a catch. It started to become obvious when, the same afternoon, I was almost dragged out the office, drove to the old town, and made to stroll ‘casually’ down some old streets, while a gigantic camera was breathing down my neck. The whole ordeal lasted close to an hour, included me setting on a bench, admiring a park, looking at buildings, and uttering some words of wisdom regarding South Ossetia. My foreign expert status was making a glamorous twist.

The trip was planned for Friday. I spent most of Thursday on the phone with David, and the remainder of the time texting him. He was trying to get the authorization to go to Tskhinvali, but there were some problems. By the end of the day, he admitted that “things are not so good there,” but added confidently “that we are going anyway.”

What is the connection between the five persons below?

So Saakashvili is the President of Georgia, right? And Basescu is the President of Romania. Moreover, Voronin is the President of Moldova. Good.

Now it gets more complicated. The breakaway region of South Ossetia (small area bordering Russia, with a population of less than100,000) has not one, but two governments. One is led by a chap called Kokoity, elected by the Ossetian population and supporting secession. The second one is led by Mr. Sanakoev, formerly involved with the separatist struggle of the Ossetians. Since those days he mysteriously switched sides and finds himself at the helm of a Tbilisi-sponsored government. He was elected with votes from Georgian-controlled villages in the region and backs Saakashvili’s policies of keeping an autonomous South Ossetia within Georgia.

Back to the point. Sanakoev is in Brussels these days, in a public relations campaign aimed at winning the Europeans over while establishing his European credentials. This is where it gets interesting, and where Voronin, and especially Basescu come into the equation.

Talking to the EU-Georgian Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, Sanakoev delivered a speech (in Ossetian!), which included the following sentence: “Georgia is coming back to Europe and with Georgia, my region – South Ossetia – should also go back to Europe.” More about this here: http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=15335

This kind of discourse reminds me of the kind of speeches Basescu was making regarding Moldova, using EU integration as an instrument for facilitating the rapprochement of the two countries (a better word would probably be “unification”). In a declaration made during the hot summer of 2006, Basescu made a puzzling statement, saying that “Romania has given the Republic of Moldova the chance to join together the European Union,” while at the same time “recognizing Moldovan authorities’ wish to be an independent state.” More on this here.

Basescu’s words can be translated as “Romania is coming back to Europe and with Romania, Moldova should also go back to Europe.” See the similarities?

I wonder if this kind of discourse will work with the Ossetians. My guess is that, for many of them, the EU still seems a distant prospect (if not necessarily a dream), while Russia is much less distant and more real.

In the case of Moldova, with over 1 million people already working in the EU, the Union is definitely a less distant prospect. Therefore, most Moldovans might be more susceptible to Basescu’s rhetoric than Ossetians from the Tskhinvali region.

Another issue where the parallel between Moldova and the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia works in an interesting (if controversial) way is “passportization.” Russia has been facilitating the issuing of passports for Ossetians and Abkhaz people, making them de iure citizens of Russia. This, of course, made the Tbilisi government very upset, and plugged into the usual accusations of a Russian grand conspiracy behind Georgia’s minority problems.

It’s been many years now that Moldovans have been queueing to get Romanian citizenship – and thus passports. Basescu recently claimed that Romania had 800,000 active applications for citizenship from Moldovans. Check out this article for more on this.

The benefits accrued by Moldovans with Romanian citizenship are similar to those of Abkhazians or Ossetians with Russian citizenship: both passports open up access to travel and work abroad, which would be much more difficult otherwise in the Moldovan case, and nearly impossible in the Abkhaz or Ossetian case (since neither state is officially recognized by the international community, travel documents issued by the de facto governments are virtually worthless).

I am aware that my above comments have probably caused rage among most of my Romanian friends (of course I know that Moldovans are really Romanians and thus have the right to a Romanian citizenship). Having said that, I think that drawing a parallel between Moldova and the two separatist regions nevertheless is an interesting framework for looking at these issues.

Coming up in my next posts:

• Tbilisi night life: Taking control of Traffic Bar
• Why the Romanian President may have his approval ratings increase by up to 10 points by the end of July.

Politics...

As one might expect, Georgian politics is complex, arcane and byzantine. In a nutshell, it is quite a mouthful. Since my understanding of it is still primitive, I will try to just offer a few rough observations based on my discussions.

Shevardnadze’s time was bad. There was no electricity, bad roads, and rampant corruption. It is a good thing that Shevardnadze left because his time had passed.

Soviet times were also bad. Even though Georgia was very rich during those years, nothing compares to sweet freedom and independence.

Rose revolution was not really a revolution. Saakashvili used to work for Shevardnadze. (Indeed he did, but he resigned a few years before the revolution. I was unable to find more about why the Rose Revolution was not a real revolution. Feel free to pick your own scenario/conspiracy theory, as I surely have.)

Saakashvili is quite controversial. There seems to be general agreement about the success of his education and police reforms. Also, people generally tend to like the better roads and more or less constant electricity supply. In general, most people tend to agree that corruption levels are lower now than before 2003.

Criticisms are varied and range from the quality of architectural lighting to concerns about foreign investment and privatization, sweeping through the whole range of political and economic issues.

My own personal assessment (unconfirmed as of yet) is that there seems to be a glaring gap between people’s expectations with Saakashvili when he first came to power, and what he was able to deliver during the several years since the Rose Revolution. To be sure, improvements are numerous and easily observable, yet the overall economic situation remains problematic and reflects in low salaries (according to one source, pensions can be as low as 15 Euro, while average salaries are around 100 Euro) coupled with high prices.

To make things more complicated, there is the perception that, despite criticism towards the President, the next elections will largely maintain the current status quo.

Finally, I must say that I left out many of juicy bits for the sake of discretion.

In the next posts I am planning to talk a little bit about Tbilisi night life. Also, depending on developments within the next few days, I may introduce you to a new and unexpected turn in my research which may just lead to some interesting findings.

Mtskheta

No, the above word is not a typo. Au contraire, it is the name of the ancient Georgian capital, and hence incredibly important. Just in case you were wondering, ‘kh’ in Georgian is pronounced with the expectorant voluptuousness of a middle-Eastern ‘h’. And, no, there are no silent letters.

One thing I probably need to work on is remembering names of places around here. My memory is somewhat hampered, however, by the extreme proliferation of consonants, that make any Southern Slavic language sound like Italian by comparison. So for now I will use my guide book as reference, and having avowed that, I will need to beg for your understanding if at any one time a particular name eludes me or is misspelled (again, this is definitely not the case for the title of this post).

So Mtskheta is the old capital of Georgia. Considering that Tbilisi itself was founded around the fifth century, this makes Mtskheta pretty darn old. In fact, it has been the centre of Georgian spirituality since Christianity became the official religion during the first half of the fourth century. While there is little left of the town itself, there remain four churches, as well as a stunning view of the confluence of Mtkvari and Aragvi rivers.

The first church I visited was the 11^th century Sveti-Tskhoveli Cathedral, which consists of an imposing Georgian-style building, dominated by its conic dome and surrounded by a walled-in interior courtyard. According to the legend, this is where Christ’s robe ended up after being taken here by two Jewish merchants in the 1^st century. Unfortunately, the robe location is enclosed by a square structure in the middle of the church, and as a result out of sight. The church lies on the site of the first ever Georgian church (dating from the 4^th century C.E.) and has been damaged, destroyed and rebuilt several times since the 11^th century. It is the burial site of many kings from East Georgia.

While Sveti-Tskhoveli lies close to the banks of the river, Jvari church is visible from far away thanks to its strategic location on top of one of the surrounding hills. The church itself (as the other sites around Mtskheta) is classified as UNESCO World Heritage, and rightly so. At the time of my visit, there was a religious ceremony in progress. Rites and chanting reminded me of Romanian Orthodox churches, and so did the garb of priests and monks. Yet religious songs had a melodic beauty that seemed to stray from the Gregorian-style chanting you hear in most Orthodox churches.

Probably the most stunning thing about the trip to Mtskheta was the view from Jvari. The hill overlooks the valleys of Mtkvari and Aragvi rivers, and offers a perfect viewpoint from observing the surrounding valleys, mountains and hills that dot the landscape. It is obviously pointless to offer any more description without providing photographic evidence. Suffice it to say that the beauty of the area dwarves most of the landscapes I have seen throughout my journeys.

Georgian Food

Back to the real stuff. I can’t believe that so many posts have gone by without any serious discussion of the clef de voute of Georgian culture – food.

To start with, one must avoid any confusion whatsoever between Eastern and Western Georgian food.

I will first talk about the latter, since my exposure to it has been minimal and all my information is based on Revi’s account of it. Supposedly, West Georgian cuisine relies heavily on vegetables, and the resulting dishes are mostly very spicy salads. (As a side note, the propensity of Georgians to give otherwise placid vegetable salads an incredibly devilish spicy twist was revealed to me early on, when my forays into said salad were shortly interrupted by flames engulfing my oral cavity, shortly followed by an activation of my tear glands and a literally burning desire to drink massive amounts of any liquid within sight. It turned out that the side effects were caused by massive amounts of paprika-style chili peppers sprinkled all over the tomatoes and cucumbers).

A second staple of West Georgian cuisine is cheese. According to Revi, gouda is a very traditional Georgian cheese, the delicious taste of which is only exceeded by its foul smell. (I tried to point out that the term gouda is normally associated with a yellow dairy product originating from the North European lowlands, yet my assertions were swiftly dismissed).

More interestingly, West Georgian cheese includes a variety that is mixed with a certain type of herb that in the West most people would associate with Amsterdam, Bob Marley or the 1960s hippie movement. Alas, it appears that the Saakashvili government is trying to curb the production of said cheese, with dramatic effects on the hallucinogenic dairy product industry in the region.

Back to East Georgia and its cuisine. This one I had the opportunity to experience first hand. First, khinkali. This was presented to me as meat dumpling, which immediately evoked memories of various Central European varieties of fried potato or flour dough with the ability to incorporate incredible amounts of calories in a tight, greasy package. Big mistake. The Georgian khinkali is indeed what one might call a dumpling, yet its thin and light boiled dough and fig-shaped silhouette look nothing like what I had seen or expected. The process of eating khinkali involves holding the fig’s end with one’s fingers, sprinkling the dumpling with pepper and then trying to slurp or drink the boiling juice that fills it, while eating the minced meat inside and concurrently avoiding the embarrassment of having juice drizzling from your chin or the even worse scenario of sustaining massive burns to the inside of your mouth. Once one has mastered the technique of eating khinkali, the experience resembles that of having ciorba de perisoare (or, for English-speakers, boiled meatballs swimming in soup-like juice) and tortelloni at the same time. Overall assessment: surprisingly light, yet tasty.

Khachapuri is basically bread filled with goat’s cheese and somehow fried. It is shaped like a pizza, and tastes somewhat like a flat gogoasa (Romanian donut). However, it must be added that khachapuri comes in different varieties. Because of time and stomach constraints, I was only able to have the classic version. I am told other types may include eggs. Assessment: heavy and filling. There is further need of sampling to establish quality of taste.

Aubergine (eggplant) with nuts. This dish is a Georgian twist on the aubergine salad one finds throughout the Balkans, supposedly originating from Turkey. The remarkable addition here are nuts, and the result is quite nice.

Kebabi are basically sausage-shaped meatballs (of varying lengths), with various spices on top – of which coriander (or cilantro) plays a major role – and wrapped into thin pita bread. The taste is somewhat close to the Romanian mici or the Bulgarian kebabcheta, although the particular spices make it unique. Georgians usually dip it into a tomato-based sauce.

Shashlik sounds incredibly Turkish to me, yet seems to be a constant feature in Georgia. Essentially it is made of chunks of grilled meat, sometimes accompanies by pieces of onion or sauce. My favorite so far.

Books and Vodka

I left off the story of my Georgian adventure at a point where statistics and graphs had taken center stage. At the end of the lecture on Tuesday, I was advised do dig into the pile of surveys on Georgian attitudes as a way of substantiating claims and adding flesh to the shaky bones of my research.

Instead, I did exactly the opposite. Diving right into the middle of the expat social scene, I proceeded to make friends, wander around city bars, restaurants and (overpriced) pool halls, and in the process imbibed with large quantities of Georgian beer, Georgian cognac and (Russian) vodka. Needless to say, my daily stint at the GFSIS office sharply shrunk to no more than 4-5 hours a day spent trying to churn through hundreds of pages of material while coming up with a list of people suitable to interview (and fighting the inevitable hangover).

In my defense, the last few days have been filled with non-stop interviews with expats and some locals, conducted in smoky bars with blaring techno music or in the quieter ambiance of outdoor cafes. People like Winston, Big John, William, Revi, George, Stephanie or Erekli were all happy to bombard me with priceless pieces of insight about Georgia, ranging from smoking habits to more serious depictions of the political scene.

So, what are the preliminary conclusions, you might ask? First, that books, scholarly articles and ICG reports are of limited use when trying to understand the complexity of real life and politics in Georgia. Even though I came here with a significant amount of facts, statistics and history bits about Georgia under my belt, I soon found myself as clueless about the real issues as if I had just been parachuted here from outer space.

Second, that my project is much tougher than I had initially thought. Providing an informed, realistic and comprehensive analysis of Georgian self-perception and its connection to frozen conflicts already seems like an arduous task. And while it is clear to me that by the end of my stay here I will have amassed enough data and knowledge to write a perfectly boring, allegedly insightful yet overly simplistic scholarly piece, I am not sure if the underlying question that drove me here will ever find a satisfying answer.

Tbilisi: Then and Now

Reading Thomas Goltz’s journalistic account of Georgia in the times of troubles, I came across a description of old Tbilisi. While the portrayal is evocative and keen, it is unclear whether Goltz is talking about Tbilisi in the days of nineteenth century Russian empire, or rather presenting it as he saw it in the heady days of civil war and ethnic conflict inferno. My guess is that the account below blends the two together.

“Nestled under the walls of the oft-rebuilt Narikala Castle on Mount Mtstaminda, and split and defined by the Mtkvari River, ‘old’ Tbilisi was a chaotic series of cobblestone streets filled with more churches, mosques and synagogues than one could count or reasonably attempt to visit in a week. Mulberry trees dropped their sticky fruit underfoot, and straggling vines grew out of the cement, creeping up the red brick walls of once grand but now mainly long-neglected mansions. Old wooden balconies leaned dangerously over the narrow lanes, and many doors still boasted ornamental gargoyle brass knockers. Once regal, most of the older homes had been turned into communal apartments, entered through mysterious courtyards defined by a high density of draped laundry and illegal electricity lines, strung from window to spiral staircase and then the street.”

Meet the Expats

After staying in last night and doing work, I felt so good about myself that somehow today I was able to devote a lot of my time to socializing and, hence, did very little productive. In an attempt to blend in with the locals, I arrived at work slightly later, although at 9:30 the office was still eerily quiet.

I had a late lunch with three of the interns: Alex, Melissa (a senior from University of Michigan) and Shannon (a second year MA student at Pepperdine), and in the process got to know them a bit. We ended up walking quite a lot to a pedestrian street in the old center of Tbilisi, and had Mexican food, out of all things. I was not expecting much of it, which was good because I was pleasantly surprised by the “stuffed tacos”, which basically consisted of juicy chunks of meat (probably pork) with sauce and a leaf of lettuce wrapped in a tortilla. Alex and I had beer and chatted about different kinds of ale. It turns out that the waitress spoke German, so again I ended up pretending I spoke a language I don’t really speak (Claudia saw first hand my skill at pretending I speak said language) and ended up being asked if I am from Germany. Prost! (which, for Romanian speakers, means “cheers” in Germany, as opposed to “stupid”).

Afternoon in the office was dull, and filled with complaints about the internet being down. Fortunately I had printed a thick stack of articles, but still my productivity levels were at an all time low.

I left early to catch a talk at one of the local think tanks (Caucasus Research and Resource Center, for those of you who know or care). In the process of traveling to the lecture location, I got the chance to practice some more “Georgian”, which by now increasingly includes pantomime, some two or three Georgian words as well as some supposedly Russian, featuring prominently resolute “DA’s”. In the end, I was able to somehow navigate the taxi through the various universities of Tbilisi (apparently there were no less than 250 of them in Georgia in 1989) and found the one named after Mr. Chavchavadze, which boasted a huge bas-relief of a fellow called Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jughashvili (better known in the west by the name of Stalin).

The talk itself was called something like “Looking at the Caucasus: the Role of Data,” and therefore promised to be excruciatingly boring. Vivid memories of Monday mornings of research training ran through my head, causing anxiety and distress. To my surprise, however, the lecture turned out to be a very interesting compilation of data presented as a sequence of graphs and looking at social, economic and political views in the South Caucasus. I do not intend to bore anyone with the details. However, it is probably worth mentioning a couple of facts that struck me as particularly relevant or interesting. First, Georgians obviously started off with sky high expectations from Saakashvili when he came to power. Continuing poverty and hardship created a significant gap between high expectations and everyday realities of slow economic recovery. As a result, Georgians have the most negative perception regarding their current economic situation. Fair enough. Now, what I find strange and, to a certain extent, hard to explain on top of my head, is that they also seem to be the most optimistic regarding their future (out of the three South Caucasus countries). How do you reconcile frustrated expectations in the present with continued optimism for the future? I guess it is true what they say, that hope is the last to die.

Second, it seems that Armenians have a very positive self-perception regarding their current wealth levels. By contrast, they are by far more pessimistic than Georgians about the future. The expectations gap is particularly interesting for me at this point, since high expectations can lead to instability and political turnover. In the context whereby Saakashvili seems to have the tendency to amass more and more power, instability may not bode such good things.

Back to the title of this post. After the lecture I met some of the expat crowd, many of which were students coming here for the summer to do research or internships, including several medical students. Other than that, a couple of World Bank folk, and a few other NGO workers. I was able to get introduced to the lecturer, who is also the CRRC director for Georgia, who enquired about my project and recommended some data sources. I am increasingly considering using surveys in my work, although I will of course have to rely on ready-made ones for that purpose (not least because I simply cannot remember all those damned sampling techniques!).

I think this easily qualifies as the dullest post so far. I am sorry about that. I guess my work might surface here and there throughout different posts. Just scroll.

As a proper follow-up to the lecture, I joined Anthony (who happened to be there as well) and walked home through Vake Park. After a while he suggested buying two beers for the road. Haven’t done that in a long time. It still works.

Getting home, I meet Nino (Anthony’s wife) and their 2 and a half month-old daughter Lizzie, who is absolutely adorable, has beautiful eyes and seems utterly unfazed by the attention shown by three adults, watching us with unabashed boredom. I guess we, grown-ups, tend to be rather boring people. That’s why I always wanted to stay a child. But then people told me I was immature.

Food Shopping in Georgia

At 5:30 I decide to head back home from work, since everybody else is long gone. I take a walk down Rustaveli Boulevard, passing the Parliament, Opera House, Tbilisi Marriott and finally stopping by Prospero’s Book Shop to pick up an English-Georgian dictionary and conversation guide. I find out that ‘sami’ means three, ‘luti’ means beer and ‘ara’ means no. So, after only two days in Tbilisi, I can already say ‘sami luti’! Not sure how ‘ara’ fits into that sentence though.

After studying the conversation guide for a further half hour, I decide to apply my newly found knowledge to buying essential groceries at the local mini market (Anthony doesn’t seem to be the eating type – the only food in the house are old dry biscuits). The lady recognizes me from the day before and offers me Borjomi sparkling water. I proceed to order bread (by pointing at the bread and showing one finger to indicate the desired quantity), cheese (by pointing at the piece of cheese in the fridge) and salami (same technique). It gets a bit more tricky when I decide I want butter (nowhere to be seen). I point at the bread and then make a gesture as if spreading something on it. I get offered a different bread. I then accompany my gestures by saying ‘bootter.’ It finally works! ‘Luti’ of course works like a charm. I even remember the brand that Alex (the English guy) mentioned earlier today. I somehow remember ‘matsoni’ means yoghurt and so I go home happy with my shopping bags full of goodies.

First Day at Work

Surprisingly enough, the expected hangover seems to be absent at the time when the alarm rings. An ungodly 7:30 AM. The stiff mattress syndrome is starting to take its toll though, as I suddenly become aware of constantly having woken up in the throughout the night. Anyway, no time to waste since I am supposed to meet Jonathan at 9.

Anthony is kind enough to leave me a note with the bus numbers that take me downtown. I get to the bus stop but none of them arrives, so I finally hail a cab and confidently say “Chechidze tri”. The driver asks me a couple of questions and, after receiving no answer, resigns himself to driving. I get dropped off in front off the Italian Embassy. The address turns out to be “Chechidze sami A,” with GFSIS actually being the same building as the Embassy. Which can only be a good thing, I imagine. The first confirmation comes when I discover the espresso machine – which is normally the equivalent of the Antichrist to any proper coffee lover. This time, however, the mechanical beast delivers fresh ground, rich tasting coffee in several varieties which make a very realistic approximation of their original kind. I am elated.

Back to business, though. I arrive with uncharacteristic puentlichkeit at 8:59, for my 9 AM meeting with Jonathan: a very laid back and sharp American guy around his forties. He gives me a quick briefing about GFSIS and then proceeds to show me around the building. As promised, he attempts to introduce me to the staff members. However, the only real person I get to shake hand with is Mari, a lovely lady who works as a secretary. All other members of the staff seem to take a quite liberal approach to “normal” working hours. Jonathan says people start to roll in around 10 AM. That works fine for me.

A few words about the working environment. The building itself looks modern, fully air conditioned and with a lovely terrace for avid smokers like me. The intern office is filled with state of the art computers hooked up to broadband internet. I get even more excited when I find a folder called “Background Documents” on the shared drive, containing thousands of various papers, government documents, reports et al., which pretty much make up the whole literature ever been published about Georgia and the Caucasus.

The other interns start arriving around 10. The last two get into the office at 11:44 AM. There are a few American girls, one doing a Masters in Belfast. She asks me if I work with Nick Wheeler or Will Bain. I refrain from mentioning anything about the latter faculty member and I pretend to be flattered she knows the names of our illustrious professors. I also talk to Alex, an English guy from London that seems pretty chill and laid back. I later find out he is 22 and taking a year off to get some field experience before applying for the Foreign Service. I suddenly feel old.

12, Chardin Street

It turns out that Georgian wine fully lives up to its expectations. Last night I met with Khatuna and went out to a very nice Café-Restaurant in the old town. The area was filled with narrow pedestrian streets, and there was a young and hip crowd all around the place. Although it was dinner time, Khatuna decided we should just have wine, and she chose a dry white variety which was absolutely superb.

Khatuna seems to know a lot of people in Tbilisi. She obviously comes from a very privileged background. Despite the fact that she has lived in the US for 8 years, she seems very Georgian. She talked to me at great length about Georgian history, and there was an unrestrained pride in her voice whenever she mentioned her country. What is interesting is that she seems convinced that it was Georgians who invented wine. Judging after the quality of my drink, I would say that if they didn’t invent it, they did an extraordinarily good job at making it their own.

After having mentioned that I am interested in interviewing some people, Khatuna calls up ‘a relative’ who apparently knows a lot of people in Georgian politics. The guy shows up in no time – prosperous-looking, balding (seems to be a national trait here, yet somehow they all manage to make their dearth of hair look good) fifty year-old guy called Erekli. He made up his somewhat faltering English fluency with an open and friendly approach. I find he represents the Republican Party, one of the opposition groups in Georgia. For some reason, he starts trying to persuade me to meet with representatives from his party in order to get a critical view of the government’s policies. His insistent offers makes he wonder whether he thinks I am somehow connected to the Romanian government. I make it clear that I am just a student researching Georgia. He retorts by confidently expressing his certainty about me becoming a very important Romanian politician. Somehow I can’t help but doubt it, yet a combination of the wine and the heady rush I get from being in a new place makes the flattery reach its goal. Finally, Erekli and I resolve to meet again and, after exchanging phone numbers, he offers to take me on a trip to the old capital of Georgia. So far, so good.

The night ends with a scenic drive around the old part of Tbilisi. Situated on either side of the river, the area is filled with ancient-looking churches and traditional houses with perched out wood balconies. It is guarded from up on the hills by ancient walls and the imposing statue of the defender of the city (which somehow reminds me of the Christ statue in Rio, that of course I have never seen save for movies and photos). Finally I get dropped off at the flat, surprisingly sober after having drunk two bottles of wine on an empty stomach. I go to bed wondering how bad the hangover would be.

Tbilisi: A First Look

I wake up feeling still wired up, not tired and not rested. After taking a significant amount of time to shower and get dressed, I decide that Anthony is a nice enough guy to present him with the bottle of single malt I had purchased in Munich. He is visibly surprised and pleased, so my idea turns out to be a great ice breaker. We chat about random things, and in the process I find some facts about him. Born and raised in New York, he taught English in the Bronx for a while until he got fed up with it and decided to embark on an adventure. He somehow ended up in Georgia, got married and had a baby 2 months ago. He is the editor of a weekly English-language magazine and works part-time for the Ministry of Education.

Less than one hour after waking up, I was already armed with a map of Tbilisi and a Georgian SIM card (Magti GSM), the number of which I still don’t know. I called Khatuna (Vaida’s former housemate and best friend), who promised to take me to a ‘new place, very upscale and with a great view.’ There I am supposed to have some Georgian wine. More about that later.

I get out of the apartment with Anthony, who shows me around a bit. This is my first encounter with Tbilisi.

Tbilisi is spread along the valley of a river (need to remember the name), in between green hills. The location is quite charming. The city itself looks quite run-down in certain areas, with potholed streets, the standard decrepit communist blocks (Georgians call them Kruschchovi, or something like that, after the Soviet leader during the time of which they were built) abound in the outer areas. Yet the wide tree-lined boulevards with smart shops and the architecture downtown remind me that the city has seen much better times.

Overall, what I saw was roughly what I had expected. Tbilisi looks a lot like Bucharest in the late 1990s, in terms of its development level. New buildings, hotels and residential areas start to pop here in there, a sign that Tbilisi is going through an incipient boom. Walking along a boulevard of Tbilisi makes me think of towns in Romania – Constanta maybe? Yet some of the architecture looks quite unique – some influences look Eastern, but yet again what does that mean? Obviously there is something about this place. Yes, it feels “Eastern European.” And it also feels post-Soviet . But there is also something else to it, something I cannot quite pinpoint. My job here during the next few weeks will literally be to identify that “something.” In other words, what makes Georgia Georgian. If I can manage that, my job is mostly done.

Good sign: Shawerma kiosks seem to be everywhere. The guy who sold mine was from Baku, looked friendly and had a big moustache. I thanked him in Turkish, while Anthony was trying to talk to him in broken Russian. I wonder if not speaking either Georgian or Russian is going to be a problem. So far, I can’t really understand anybody and hardly anyone can understand what I am saying. Yet things somehow seem to be happening. People accept my cash and give me what I ask for in return. A mixture of sign-language and English words seem to be fine for now. In the next few days I will analyze the possibility of learning the Georgian alphabet. They have 33 symbols, which apparently more or less correspond to the general idea of letters as we understand them. As long as I memorize them I can read stuff and that should make it much easier to get around.

The people here seem quite friendly, approach me with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. They seem to immediately notice I am foreign (I wonder what gives me away), yet so far none of them intended to rip me off. On the way back home I asked the cab driver for the price, and he showed me three fingers. By the way, I need to remember the word ‘skolko’ – I think it means ‘how much’ in Russian. It could be essential vocabulary.

Bucharest - Tbilisi

Saturday was a hot day in Bucharest, witth temperature probably around 35 degrees, sunny but as always a thunderstorm was just around the corner. I arrived at the airport to find massive confusion and chaos – as expected. First surprise awaits me at the check-in counter: I am told I need a visa to enter Georgia. I had talked to the Georgian consulate in Bucharest a few weeks back and they told me the opposite. This could be interesting.

I finally board the plane. Lufthansa are as always very professional and efficient. Grey leather seats, white interior, everything looks modern and streamlined. Still, flying isn’t quite the elaborate experience it used to be. Nowadays a flight from Bucharest to Munich seems more like a shuttle service hauling people back and worth, no trace of the sense of excitement when flying in the 1990s.

Excitement comes in many flavors though. Seconds after take off we run into a major storm, and for half hour the plane weaves through the skies trying to avoid turbulences and bad weather. At this point, I am so tired that I become slightly paranoid. The aircraft makes strange maneuvers, we pass layer after layer of clouds and I have no idea where I am. Note to self: need to stop watching those Flight Disaster series on National Geographic.

Upon touching down in Munich, the pilot seems compelled to point out that he brought us on time despite the initial delay. I like German efficiency. Then three hours to kill in the airport. Fortunately, the terminal is big, shiny and modern. I wander around for a while then stop to have some Bavarian sausages and Weissbier (unfiltered). Nice. After gobbling up heavy German food, I feel like I am about to pass out frim exhaustion. But the trip is just beginning.

The Tbilisi flight is operated by an old 737-300. I get an emergency exit row window seat. Time to stretch out, have a second dinner with wine and try to sleep. It turns out the emergency door is not properly insulated, so I get a worryingly cold breeze blowing right in my head. I wrap myself in the blanket, position the pillow strategically and pass out. Upon awakening, I get a glimpse of city lights from below (Batumi, maybe?). It looks like we are flying at low altitude– which is unlikely – most likely meaning that the air is crisp and there is little pollution. Thirty minutes later the plane makes a bumpy land in Tbilisi. The landing strip is full of potholes and reminds me of Baneasa Airport. The terminal, however, is brand new, modern and squeaky clean. You can definitely tell Georgia is modernizing fast.

I hand out my passport to the immigration officer. He examines it, looks at me and says matter-of-factly: “You need visa!” “But… Romania, E.U. citizen, no visa!” I try to protest. A second guy comes and points me to the visa office, throwing a stern look that allows no room for negotiation. After not having slept for 40 hours, I also am in no mood for arguing. Somehow, it seems pointless to try to explain that Romania is in the E.U. and therefore I don’t need a visa. So I go to the bank, change the dollars I got from Beny yesterday, fill out the form and hand it over to the visa guy, together with the 60 lari fee (around 30 euros). Minutes later I am the happy owner of a Georgian visa. The first one in my new passport. (I later realize that it allows only one entry. This might be a problem later, if I want to travel to Baku or Yerevan.)

I get out of the terminal. The air is still warm, yet somehow fresh. I get into an official taxi (25 lari to Tbilisi) and say the magic word “televiziaa” to the driver, who nods and slams the gas pedal to the ground, handling the car like a getaway driver in an intense police chase, while blasting from the stereo a mix of Georgian (?), Russian pop music, and Madonna. The crazy ride ends in front of Kosmo Café, to the surprised stares of a bouncer and two prostitute-like girls hanging out in front of the entrance.

Anthony welcomes me on the fourth floor of the old apartment building (pre-1960s, I would say). Poor guy looks even more tired than I do. I get a quick glimpse of the apartment. It is indeed huge, everything looks old and a bit run down – it obviously hasn’t been renovated in decades. I kindof like that. My room has a small balcony facing the boulevard and overlooking the traffic and the hills beyond the boulevard. A double bed with a surprisingly stiff mattress, a small dresser, a chair and huge mirror are the only pieces of furniture. I like the place, except for the bed, which feels a lot like sleeping on the floor. But that’s ok. I am tired enough not to care about these details any more.