Tbilisi's swinging night life

Let’s start off with one simple fact:  I am not a bar hopper or late-night party guy.  My bedtime is usually around 9:00.  Now, occasionally I may burn the night oil and stay up all the way to 11, but I’m not worth a hoot the next day.  So that’s why it’s so amusing that I’m writing about the night life in Tbilisi. 

And what a night life it is.  Tbilisi has a population of about 1.3 million; that means over 30% of the entire country of Georgia’s population lives here.  (That would equate to a US city of over 90 million people.)  The locals typically go to bars, clubs, and late restaurants – just like anywhere else on Earth.  Tbilisi has two distinct types of bars and clubs – “traditional” Georgian and western.  The more traditional clubs are usually smoke-filled, subterranean rooms where Georgian men gather to drink, smoke, and solve the world’s problems.  In other words, dull. 

The western bars and clubs are also smoke-filled, usually subterranean rooms where a younger crowd gathers to drink, smoke, and forget about the world’s problems.  In our weekend travels this is where we usually end up.  My favorite of these is the Beatles Club opposite the Philharmonic Hall.  A Tbilisi institution, the Beatles Club is decorated to portray the Cavern Club where the Beatles got their start in England.  It is, like many clubs, underground so the ceilings are arched brick supported by thick, roughhewn beams.  Like everything else in the Land of Almost Right, it doesn’t quite get everything right.  The club, for example, is dedicated to “Sir John Winston Lennon” even though:  a) Lennon was never knighted (the only Beatle so honored is Sir Paul McCartney), and b) Lennon legally changed his middle name to Ono after his marriage to Yoko.  The décor consists of copied Beatles’ albums covers, usually in Russian, and photographs which are frequently mislabeled (George is identified as Paul, for instance). 

My favorite part of the Beatles Club is the band.  Consisting of four middle aged (40-45 year olds) local men, the band calls itself “Lennon’s Lovely Hearts Club Band,” an obvious play on Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, in my opinion the Beatles’ best album.  The band plays Beatles tunes, but with an ironic twist – none of the band speaks English.  They have obviously memorized the lyrics phonetically which leads to some – oh, let’s call it interesting – interpretations.  For instance, from “Twist and Shout:”  “…word is our out” instead of “..work it on out.”   “I’ll always be there” comes out “I always been there,” and my personal favorite “my heart went zoom when I crossed the womb” instead of “boom” and “room.”  Still, it’s great fun and the beer’s reasonably priced.

I’ve also enjoyed some time in the Elvis American Diner, which is exactly what you’d expect upon hearing the name.  It is an attempt to recreate a typical American diner, a la Happy Days, with Elvis memorabilia covering the walls.  There’s no live music here, but the background music is from the King’s albums, and the cheeseburger is the closest thing to an American burger you’ll find in town (except, of course, for the two McDonald’s that have managed to wedge their way into Old Town Tbilisi). 

A bar that is worth seeing if only for the amazing amount of Soviet kitsch is the KGB club with the slogan, “We’re still watching you” written in English above the door.  More a late restaurant than a bar or club, the bestselling dishes are Proletarian Pizza and Lenin’s Favorite pizza.  Right down the street from the KGB Club is the Buffalo Bill Bar, Tbilisi’s best effort to reconstruct a Wild West saloon.  Again, it is almost right.  One of the few places in town you can purchase an American beer – Miller’s Genuine Draft at $7 a bottle -- the walls are decorated with $1 bills signed by the customers.  There’s a live band playing American country and western music, and as long as you don’t pay too close attention to the lyrics they don’t sound half bad. 

Adding a German flair to Tbilisi is the Brauhaus Bar and Restaurant.  The Brauhaus is primarily a restaurant until around 9pm when the band tunes up and the kitchen switches to cold plates of sausages, cheese, and bread.  Authentic German beer flows into real German steins and liter mugs and the night’s fun begins.  A quick sidebar here – even though there are many couples and even lots of single men and women in these bars, you rarely see anyone dancing.  The customers mostly just sit and drink and listen to the bands.  Now maybe after we leave (usually before 10p), dancing starts, but it’s strange to sit in a bar with a live band and not see anyone dancing to the music. 

If you prefer your music Irish, I’ll take you to the Dublin.  An alleged Irish pub, the only thing Irish about it is the pint of Guinness they’ll pour you.  A big fan of Guinness, I have only found it here; thus, my repeat visits to scratch that itch. 

Finally, there are the ex-pat bars.  Tbilisi is home to many Americans and they mostly frequent one of two bars depending on their age.  The “younger” crowd (30-50 years old) can be found in the Anchor Bar, owned by an American woman who settled here over 15 years ago.  The Anchor Bar is more along the line of what we’d call a “sports bar.”  There are several TVs showing live sports and they offer free WiFi.  They also serve a Sunday morning brunch that is the closest thing you’ll find here to an American breakfast – scrambled eggs, pancakes, and gravy and biscuits.  On rare Sundays, they’ll even offer grits. 

The older Americans hang out in the Hotel Betsy, aka “east Florida.”  The atmosphere is, as you’d expect, quieter, the conversation more muted, and the nostalgia level painfully high.  The view from the barroom, however, is sensational and during Friday happy hours, you can get free American food – sliders or turkey sandwiches being my preferences. 

The opportunities for late night exploring in Tbilisi are endless.  There is, it seems, on every corner a restaurant, bar, or club.  None of them, however, can compare to my favorite evening hangout – at home with my wife.  That is especially poignant as we get closer to Christmas.  Tbilisi dresses up for Christmas – lights and Christmas trees are everywhere and this is one thing the Land of Almost Right does get right. 

You can get an example of Tbilisi at Christmas by clicking on the link below.  Have a happy holiday season, my friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4Obg6gflzY&feature=related

How "bizarre" got its name

We moved into our new digs this week – we've taken over an entire hotel with the dubious name of The Iranians Hotel (google it if you don’t believe me).  It was a home for Persian guest workers and met our needs quite nicely.  It’s 12 rooms, along with the kitchen and dining room, had not been cleaned, refurnished, or modernized since the 1970s.  I live in the “penthouse,” the top floor consisting of a small bedroom with a wardrobe, a full bath (albeit a very cramped and crowded full bath), and a large sitting room with a balcony overlooking the western edge of Tbilisi.

What this exodus from the Marriott in downtown Tbilisi to the Iranians Hotel (what we have now renamed the Alamo) caused was a shopping rush.  I, for example, had to find sheets, towels, cleaning supplies (in industrial strength and quantity), nightstand lamps, clothes hangers, and laundry detergent.  In the good ol’ USA, one would simply pop down to Walmart, fill your cart, whip out some plastic, and go home, possibly stopping off at the local McDonald’s on the way.   Ah, to be so richly “blessed.”   

Here in Tbilisi, we do have a similarly equipped store to Walmart – it’s called, and I’m not making this up – the Goodwill Store.  Picture a Super Walmart, if you will – the Goodwill store has the same number of items – lightbulbs, clothing, garden supplies, etc. – but with a limited quantity of brands.  Take laundry detergent, for instance.  Your choice is simple:  take the brand on the shelf or don’t.  There is not the opportunity to say, “Hmm, this Tide is $2.99 for 16 ounces, while the generic brand is $4.99 for 48 ounces.”  There is only the opportunity to say, “Hmm.  Laundry detergent.  Do I want the little bag of Berta (the actual name of the most popular laundry detergent in country) or the big bag of Berta?”   Anyway, I did pick up some items there – clothes hangers, the aforementioned Berta laundry detergent, and some towels.  The other items were nowhere to be found.

That leads me to the topic of this essay – the Dinamo Bazaar.  (There should be a trumpet fanfare as you read those last two words.  That is the impact and impression of the Dinamo Bazaar.)  The Dinamo (pronounced Din-NAM-oh, and named after the stadium in whose shadow it resides – the Dinamo Stadium, home to the local football [soccer] club, the Tbilisi Dinamos) Bazaar is how the adjective “bizarre” gained its reputation.  Let me try to describe it to you, even though I know well in advance that my poor power to describe it in writing will do the Bazaar absolutely no justice.  The Dinamo Bazaar (known hereafter simply as “the bazaar”) is approximately 8-10 square city blocks.  That’s not a misprint.  Most of it is under a series of roofs that give the bazaar the initial impression of being in a series of large airplane hangars.  There is a lot of the bazaar that has spilled out of the protective roof and is open-air.  The bazaar is packed – booth after booth, stall after stall – of every item one could conceive.  The pathways are approximately two people wide if one is an anorexic supermodel.  The din is awe-inspiring – vendors hawking their wares, people shouting for suddenly lost children and loved ones, money changers shouting out the most up to date exchange rate (which, by the way, is GEL 1.65 for $1, GEL an abbreviation of GEorgian Lari), and customers shouting for directions from anyone who can help. 

This being the Republic of Georgia, there is no organized floor plan to the bazaar.  Paths meander like trails in a rabbit warren.  It’s not uncommon to walk down a path only to find yourself either back where you started or out on the street outside the bazaar, looking for a way back in.  Nevertheless, there is some organization to the bazaar, and that is by like items.  Looking for a jacket?  All the jacket vendors are in the same place.  Want some brand new “Nike’s” (and, yes, the use of quotation marks around Nike are deliberate; draw your own conclusions) to go with that new jacket?  All the shoe stalls are down this path – take a left, then a right, then a left down the stairs, and go around the kitchen appliances.  Just a short walk into the bazaar will take you past the hats, gloves, and scarf sector; the video games and computer software stalls; kitchen wares; school supplies; books, magazines, and DVDs; religious icons; playing cards, toys, and diapers; linens; electronics; power tools, to include chainsaws; auto parts; to whatever else you could ever want.  In short, if it isn’t in the bazaar, you don’t need it and won’t find it in country.

Outside the bazaar, in the open air portion, is where you’ll find the Tbilisi equivalent of the West Chester Grower’s Market – fruits, vegetables, meat and fish (usually just hanging from a clothesline or sitting on a makeshift wooden table), and assorted grains, spices, and condiments.  This is also where you’ll find large, bulkier items like carpets, TV sets, and used cars.  It makes you shake your head to wonder what kind of family needs to purchase 50kg bags of coffee beans, rice, and angel hair pasta (that’s 110 pounds!), but that’s a typical packaging.  Salt, for example, comes in 10kg bags – 22 pounds.  Sugar, unprocessed and in large crystals, can be bought in 5, 10, or 20 kg bags.  You don’t really see the smaller quantities available in the US and Europe.  No two-pound box of oatmeal or 8 oz. containers of curry here; the motto is definitely “go big or go home” when it comes to shopping.

OK, you’re found your items and you’re ready to buy.  Unlike the rest of the country (to include bakeries and supermarkets), prices in the bazaar are non-negotiable.  They’re the same in every stall – the 10 Lari jacket you like in this stall is 10 Lari in the next stall and the next stall and the one after that.  It is strictly a binary option – take it or leave it.  While denying the sport of haggling, it really isn’t necessary in the bazaar.  Prices are pretty reasonable; one might even say cheap.  Let me give you the rundown of my purchases yesterday as evidence.  I bought:  12 wooden pants hangers and 12 wooden shirt hangers; two towels; a bottle of glass cleaner and a bottle of bathroom cleaner; a bucket to carry them in; a set of sheets (consisting of a sheet – for some reason, the idea of fitted sheets hasn’t seem to have caught on here – a pillowcase, and a duvet cover); a small lamp for my nightstand; and a plastic trashcan.  The total cost for all these items was less than 50Lari – about $30. 

So you’ve purchased a couple of 50kg bags to complete your shopping trip.  How do you get them home?  There are men and boys who walk around with flatbeds like you’d see at Home Depot or a large nursery.  For a tip (usually 1 Lari, about 60 cents, 2 Lari if you’re parked far away or you have a lot of stuff), these porters will load your purchases on their flatbeds and follow you around until you’re ready to load your car.  This obviously doesn’t help the traffic flow through the narrow aisles.

Remember that stop at McDonald’s you’d make on your way home?  Here, we make a beeline to the world’s greatest shwarma shop.  You’ve seen them – meat carved into the shape of a pyramid spinning on a vertical skewer shaved into a tortilla, covered with yogurt or mayo or ketchup, and garnished with onions, cilantro, hot peppers, or tomatoes.  That’s fast food here, and I can’t get enough of them.  So at the end of a day’s travels (and travails), here are four Americans, laden with bags and shwarmas, piling into a cab for the drive back to the Alamo.  Life as we know it, and not a bad one.  Not bad at all.

Thanks for reading.

Street walking in Tbilisi

Walking around Tbilisi is a bit like walking through the fun house at the carnival.  You see things that don’t look just quite right.  You see things that aren’t really there, and you see things that could be.  You see things that look vaguely familiar, but just don’t look quite as you recall them.  You see things that make you laugh, and you see things that make you flinch.  Occasionally you see something of breathtaking beauty, but mostly what you see is a distortion from the norm.  That’s Tbilisi.  Not that there isn’t potential here.  Potential and, in an agonizingly few cases, absolute magnificence. 

Tbilisi used to be, as you know, a republic in the Soviet Union.  The Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was treated like a red-headed step child most of the time.  The leadership in Moscow did what was required and little more.  An example is the architecture.  Tbilisi is inundated with Soviet-style apartment blocks.  These blocks look as if they were set down by a giant child playing with blocks.  They are rectangular, uniform, functional (for the most part; more on that later), and remarkably unimaginative and unattractive.  Their unwavering color is concrete.  Made from cinder blocks and concrete, they have all the charm of a mean drunk.  In a few rare instances, on the main road from the airport to downtown Tbilisi for example (a road named George W. Bush Highway), one side of all the buildings (the side facing the road, of course) have been painted.  At one time it was a bright red.  Now, three years later, it’s a pale pink.  The buildings are so ugly that I can’t even photograph them.  The camera lens shuts itself tightly when I point it at one. 

Their beauty is matched only by the quality of their workmanship.  In almost every case, elevators have been broken for years (and many of these apartments are 10-12 stories high).  Bare wires are omnipresent, many humming with electricity.  Washers and dryers, all Soviet-made and built into each apartment, have become little more than a place to toss your keys when you enter the apartment.  And if you like the color “concrete,” you’ll love the interior.  Most are a dull gray that gave up long ago any chance of being attractive.  The only color in most of these buildings is the spray painted graffiti (surprisingly, mostly in English).  Residents hang carpets and unbelievably garish wallpaper over these bare concrete walls, but the shoddiness of the finish is as obvious as Rosie O’Donnell in a dayglo thong. 

And it’s not just the big things that are wrong.  For instance, they don’t seem to have grasped bullnose tile here so counters end abruptly, with the gap between vertical and horizontal half-hazardly filled with caulk and in some cases leftover mortar.  Wire to outlets run along the wall itself, not hidden behind the walls as in the rest of the world.  And plumbing pipes are exposed, the better, I suppose, for the legion of plumbers and DIYers who spend their weekends trying to coax just a little bit more hot water and water pressure from them.  Ugly.  Just ugly.

And then there are the sites in this town that are staggeringly impressive.  Tbilisi is in a valley, surrounded by steep hills.  That hasn’t stopped the Georgians from building on them.  In fact, if there are two rocks on top of one another, the Georgians have built something on it.  One of the most impressive edifices is this large fort that overlooks the river and downtown Tbilisi.  The photo below doesn’t really do the thing justice.  While not incredibly effective, as proven by the number of times Tbilisi has been sacked by invading armies, it is a point of pride to all Georgians – “Look!  We built that a thousand years ago!  And it’s still standing.”  If you can get to it, it provides some of the most beautiful and breathtaking views of the city.  The photos below don’t come close to matching the actual views.  Trust me – the views are spectacular.  Getting there, however, is an exercise in overcoming common sense.  Note you don’t see any goats in any picture of the fort.  That’s because goats are too smart to climb the paths to get there.  These paths are to casual hiking what LT Calley was to thatched huts (look it up; that’s a funny line).  And once you get up to the fort itself, you have this set of stairs to climb that go practically vertical (see the picture below if you don’t believe me).  What makes the whole thing complete is the lack of ANY safety considerations – no handrails, no signs cautioning you not to go up there, no safety nets, and no huge air bags to fall into once you’ve lost your balance.  The only way to climb the steps, and many of the paths leading to the top of the fort, is literally on all fours. If you don’t have vertigo when you start the climb, you’ll have it when you get to the top.  But the views make it worthwhile. 

Even the streets in Old Tbilisi offer their share of impressive buildings and construction.  Many of the old houses have overhanging balconies, some of which literally overhang the river a hundred feet below.  Wine being the national drink, each house has its own arbor, many woven into the actual structure of the house.  Some of the streets are so steep that steps have been built into the side of the street to allow for better downhill access (going uphill is physically demanding but relatively safe; coming downhill reminds you of the power of gravity – you build up speed very quickly with no soft landing anywhere in sight).  It’s amazing, what with average alcohol consumption levels being what they are and combined with the steepness of the streets, that there aren’t little crosses posted at the bottom of each street, much like we do in the US at the sites of deadly car accidents. 

I hope you can see why I enjoy walking the streets so much.  Every turn, every side street, every building makes you stop.  Sometimes you stop to marvel, other times you stop to figure out how that building is still standing, and yet other times you stop just to shake your head and laugh (see the final picture below).  But one thing’s for sure – there’s always something to see in Tbilisi.

Thanks for reading.

Eating my way through Tbilisi

I have been enjoying immensely the restaurants in Tbilisi.  What I haven’t enjoyed is imagining how those delicious meals are being prepared.  You’ll see what I mean later.  Let me start by clarifying something:  earlier I wrote that the cheese bread, called kachapuri (pronounced “kotcha-pure-ee”) is like pizza.  It’s more like cheese toast.  Remember when you were a kid and you took a piece of cheese, laid it on a piece of bread and shoved it in the toaster oven?  (For those of you under 50, ask an elder about a toaster oven.  They used to be THE appliance to have in your kitchen.)  Well, that’s what cheese bread is like.  They also jazz it up as you can see in the first photo below.  It is ubiquitous here and is served at every meal in some configuration.  It is delicious, but if you ate it at every meal you’d quickly weigh half a ton, so I’ve tried to be judicious with it.

Meals here are off the “meat & potatoes” menu.  They eat a lot of meat, generally at every meal, usually with potatoes in some form or another, and bread.  Not cheese bread bread, but regular flat bread that is just wonderful.  I’ve made quite a few meals so far out of nothing but bread dipped in honey or Nutella.  (Yeah, I have a bit of a sweet tooth.)  But back on track – meats here come in a lot of forms.  My favorite so far is something called choslik, pronounced “shosh-lick.”  We know it as kebab.  If you order beef choslik you get cubes of meat that have been grilled on a skewer.  They are served with fried onions.  Interestingly, the chosliks aren’t cooked with vegetables on the skewer as we would do it.  The meat and vegetables are cooked separately and then combined on the serving plate.

If you order pork or veal choslik, it comes in ground form, looking like a long tube of meat into which the skewer is inserted.  It’s served wrapped in a tortilla-type bread, again covered with onions and pomegranate seeds.  I’ve seen chicken choslik on the menu, but I haven’t had that yet. 

Another favorite of mine is khinkali, pronounced “king-collie.”  Have you had steamed dumplings in a Chinese restaurant?  Khinkali are similar.  They’re dumplings stuffed with spiced meat and juice from the meat and either steamed or fried.  Picture a sack tied around the top.  That’s what a khinkali looks like.  You eat them by hand.  You pick up the dumpling by the knot at the top.  You hold it upside down and bite a small hole in the bottom.  Then you suck out the juice.  The mark of an experienced khinkali eater is how much juice you spill.  The goal, of course, is not to spill a drop of the juice.  If you spill the juice, the locals laugh at you and you get a wet chin.  You then eat the rest of the dumpling and meat inside.  Georgian tradition requires you to leave the knot on your plate.  It shows that you’re so wealthy you can afford to leave a portion on your plate.

Khinkali are served five or six to a serving, so they’re the perfect appetizer to share.  I say that but I’ve seen Georgians who can eat 20 or so by themselves.  While I do like khinkali, eating 20 at one sitting is not a goal of mine.

These delights are washed down with a choice of beverages.  My favorites are Natakhtani (“na-tock-tawney”), the local beer.  You can buy a half-liter in any restaurant or grocery store for about $2-3.  It’s a pilsner with a nice, clean taste and a foamy head.  It seems to go well with everything, especially after you’ve had two or three of them. 

I also like drinking Borjomi (“bore-shommy”), a sparkling mineral water.  You can really taste the minerals in the water, but it’s not an unpleasant taste.  At least I enjoy it, and it’s a good alternative when you don’t want beer (like at breakfast).  And, of course, Georgia is famous for its wines.  Almost every house has an arbor from which families make their own wine.  There are stores dedicated to nothing but wine, and the varieties are mind-boggling.  E.g., right now the featured wines in the stores are semi-dry and dry whites.  Apparently, different wines are featured at different times of the year.  I’m not a wine drinker so I can’t make any recommendations; I’ll leave that to my wife after she visits.

They have ethnic restaurants in Tbilisi as well.  We went to a Chinese place a couple of nights ago.  It was familiar food but the ordering is a bit different.  In the US, you order kung pao chicken, you get the chicken w/ vegetables, rice, and an egg roll or soup.  In Georgia, everything is á la carte.  For instance, if you order kung pao chicken that’s what you get – kung pao chicken.  No rice, no egg roll, no soup.  If you want those items, you have to order them separately.  They’re insanely cheap – a bowl of steamed rice was about 50 cents – but you have to remember to order them.

Now on to the more disturbing part of eating in Georgia.  Those of you who have weak stomachs or don’t know how sausage is made might want to stop reading here. 

OK, you asked for it.  I don’t think there’s an FDA in this country, and sanitation doesn’t seem to be at the forefront of any chef’s dinner plans.  Meat is often sold street-side from butcher shops populated by hairy, greasy men.  See the photos below for a typical street-side butcher shop.  We walked by this one early in the morning, when I took these pictures.  About four hours later, on a 50⁰F day, the same meat was sitting in the same bins. 

You don’t have to buy your meat from these shops.  You can also get them in your local grocery store.  You can buy it whole, as shown in the picture, or you can have the store prepare it for you, also shown in the picture.  The skin is nice and crisp, but there’s a garlic clove inserted every 3” in the meat, and I’m not a garlic fan, to say the least.

Buying fish is another story.  Fish are caught in the River Mtkvari (your pronunciation guess is good as mine here), the river that runs right through the heart of Tbilisi.  The water is green.  I don’t mean slightly green; I mean dyed-green-for-St.-Patrick’s-Day green.  It’s also filled with trash, industrial waste, and God knows what else.  Carp from this river is also sold at street-side stands where the fish are gutted and hung on a rope like clothesline until purchased, even if that’s a whole day.  Needless to say, I can’t recommend the fish. 

On the whole, though, I’ve really enjoyed eating and drinking my way through Tbilisi.  I still miss my personal favorites – Debbie’s chili w/ dumplings, a rack of ribs, and good ol’ American hot dogs – but I can’t complain so far.  Thank God the hotel has a gym. 

Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures below.  See you again soon when I’ll be writing about the architecture of Tbilisi.        

Initial thoughts

So, I’ve been incountry all of 36 hours now, about half of which were spent catching up on sleep and trying to overcome jet lag.  But I’m back to “normal” now and have had my first look around Tbilisi.  Woke up this morning to 31⁰F and snowing, but we still managed to get out and look around.   Here are some initial thoughts, in no particular order:

The cops drive around with their flashing lights on all the time.  I’m told it’s so they can be more easily seen.  If they want to pull you over, they hit their siren and wave their arm out the window.  People drive very fast here, lane markings and speed limits are merely suggestions, and the right of way follows the rules of physics:  faster and bigger vehicles go first.  Honking the horn every block seems to be required, and turn signals are optional.  Parking is first-come, first-serve in any (and I mean ANY) available space.  Why waste a perfectly good sidewalk when you can park on it?

The entire city of Tbilisi is under construction.  The national bird seems to be the crane.  But, really, that term “under construction” is a bit of a misnomer.  There is a lot of construction that has been started, and, for varying reasons, sits unfinished.  In some cases, the builder ran out of money; in others, construction began before acquiring the necessary permits, and was halted by the authorities until said paperwork is obtained.  For whatever reason, there are a lot of half-finished buildings all over the city.  Even unfinished, though, they’re more attractive than the Soviet-era buildings put up in the 1980s.  Those are uniformly cinder block rectangles, each uglier than its neighbor.  Painting, when done, is an afterthought, and lots of buildings are only painted on the side facing the street.  Sides and backs are bare concrete.  Tbilisi in the daytime is not an attractive city.  They do have a way around that, however.  Lots of buildings currently under construction or renovation hang a huge, painted canvas in front of the building, showing you how the building should or will look.  They’re very realistic.  I didn’t realize the bank across the street from our hotel (we’re staying at the Marriott on Freedom Square) had a “faux front” until the wind moved the canvas. 

Oh, and while I’m on architecture:  The drain pipes don’t go all the way to the ground.  They stop halfway down the buildings and drain from there, making a shower about head high you have to walk around.  You can see what I'm talking about in the picture below. 

Women, regardless of age, worship the high heel.  Even in snow, stiletto, 5” heels are the fashion of the day.  They’re worn with jeans, too.  Now, I’m certainly not a fashion maven, (just ask anyone who’s seen me dressed to go out) but even I shake my head at this fashion statement.  Even women begging in front of the international hotels (and there are a lot of those) are wearing high heels. 

We drove to the National Training Center for the Georgian Army to turn in some paperwork and pick up mail this afternoon, and once out of the city, Georgia is a rural society.  Cattle graze wherever the grass grows, even right up to the edge of the road.  Goats and sheep are a fixture of the landscape, and you can’t swing a cat by the tail without hitting a stray dog.  The terrain is very hilly and often quite steep.  It’s a pretty country and I can’t wait to see it in the spring.  Or at least not covered by snow. 

We went to the Goodwill store today.  Not what you’re thinking.  The Goodwill store is a Super Walmart on steroids.  They have EVERYTHING there – a cigar shop, a kiosk that sells beer by the liter in plastic bottles, a gun shop, a bakery, a grocery store, a hardware store, an electronics section that rivals Best Buy, a coffee shop, and just about everything else one could want.  The prices are a bit higher than you can find elsewhere, but, my God, the convenience!  A picture of the store's front is down below.

Also had a bite in a small café that makes the best beef and cheese bread in Tbilisi.  These are the national foods of Georgia:  bread baked with cheese and bread baked with beef.  They make it the old fashioned way:  women dump flower and water (I don’t think they use yeast) and whatever else they need into this huge tub and mix the dough with their hands.  Their arms, actually, since the tub goes past their elbows.  Then the dough is dropped onto a stone oven and baked.  It comes out flat and shaped like a trapezoid.  Cheese and/or beef is then spooned into the middle and the whole things goes back on the stones until melted.  It is delicious. See the pictures at the end of this blog. 

Well, that’s about it for my first 36 hours in country.  We’re heading to Gori, where our offices are located, tomorrow, so I’ll have another opportunity to see the sights. 

Thanks for reading.

The Georgian Butcher Dance

Hi, all.

I've been reading about Georgian culture and one item just fascinated me.  It's called the Georgian Butcher Dance, and, having married into a family of dancers, I had to look deeply into it.  The Butcher Dance is done in small villages in the North Caucasus Mountains.  These villages are very remote so the Butcher dance is rarely seen by outsiders.  The dance occurs every year, twice a year, at the equinoxes.  It starts with the village electing a tshkvili (shock-veeley), usually the wisest elder in the village.  The tshkvili sets the exact time for the dance, sometimes at noon, other times at midnight. 

When the time for the Butcher Dance approaches, the villagers dress in their traditional costumes and come to the "town square" for lack of a better word.  The tshkvili separates them by gender and orders the villagers to form a huge circle, men on the north side of the circle and women on the south side (I imagine having women on the southern side of the circle has something to do with fertility, the southern part of the village getting the most sun and getting it earlier in the day.)  When the circle is formed, the tshkvili enters the circle and begins to chant, thanking God for watching over the village the past year and asking Him to continue to watch over them in the upcoming year.  His chanting reaches a crescendo as the villagers watch in absolute silence. 

When the tension is at its very peak, the tshkvili sings in a big, booming voice, "You butcher right arm in, you butcher right arm out, You butcher right arm in and you shake it all about..."

A quick history of Georgia

The history of Georgia goes back before recorded history.   Part of Georgia’s Black Sea coast was settled by the 9^th century BC and acted as a trading post with Assyrian and Greek sailing vessels.  In its history, as we’ve discussed before, Georgia has been conquered by the Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, the Byzantine Empire, Seljuk Turks, Mongols, Huns, Persians, Arabs, Armenians, Russians, and, today, by American contractors. 

In 337 CE, King Mirian III converted to Christianity, making Georgia the world’s second Christian state (preceded only by Armenia).  By the end of the 5^th century king Vakhtang had established a feudal state (as opposed to today’s futile state) with his capital in Tbilisi.  Georgia existed under a variety of rulers, being split apart by some and reunited by others, existing as a “bread basket,” if you will, providing agricultural goods as tribute to whomever ruled the region at that particular time.  Georgia remained a backwater until King Davit IV (aka David the Builder) drove out the Turks and reunited Georgia in 1121.  Under his rule, Georgia became the most powerful state in the Caucasus region.  His rule is known in Georgia as the Golden Age. 

The Golden Age ended in 1220 by Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes, followed by the Black Death starting in 1366, and Tamerlane who invaded the country six times between 1386 – 1403.  The last king of a united Georgia was Alexander I (1412-43), who, upon his death, split the country into three parts – one for each of his sons.  Georgia remained three separate “mini-kingdoms” until the Russians invaded in the 18^th century, driving one of the three kings – Vakhtang VI – into exile in Russia in 1723.  Vakhtang VI is revered in Georgia for his enlightened rule and his public work projects.  He constructed irrigation channels and had the intelligentsia write a complete history of Georgia and the Caucasus region before he skedaddled to Russia. 

Georgia experienced a variety of different rulers for the next 200 years, among them the Prussians, the Turks (again), the Persians (again), the Russians (again), the Chechens (where did they come from??), and, coming full circle, the Russians (yet again).  They remained under Russian control until the Russian Revolution in 1917.  After the Russian Revolution, Georgia briefly regained independence.  This only lasted until 1921 when the Red Army again invaded Georgia, occupying the entire country in only nine days (the start of a pattern, as we’ll see later). 

Georgia remained a part of the USSR as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic until the Soviet Union fell in 1989.  When the USSR began to disintegrate, Georgia began a campaign to secede from the USSR.  This was brought to an abrupt halt on April 9, 1989, (a date commemorated by a street name in Tbilisi and other town in the country), when the Soviet Interior Ministry sent tanks into Tbilisi, killing 21 demonstrators.  The Georgian Supreme Soviet (the equivalent of a state government) responded to the massacre by declaring Georgian law superior to USSR law, and then declaring Georgia was an “annexed and occupied country” in February 1990.  In April 1991, Georgia declared itself, once again, an independent nation.

Life as a trade partner with the Russians went smoothly until 2008 when a province of Georgia, South Ossetia – heavily populated with ethnic Russians, not Georgians – declared itself autonomous.  When the central government in Tbilisi challenged this claim, South Ossetia asked Russia for assistance.  Georgia responded by launching a full-scale military attack against South Ossetia’s provincial capital and largest city, Tskhinvali, in August 2008.  The Russians responded immediately, sending combat troops into South Ossetia and bombing targets in Gori and Tbilisi.  Five days of heavy fighting ensued, ending in a Georgian retreat.  France brokered a ceasefire on August 12^th (nine days after the start of the conflict).  (See?  Told you we’d come back to the nine-day thing.)

Today, Russian troops remain in South Ossetia, and South Ossetia is, de facto, an independent territory recognized by just four nations – Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Nauru (Nauru?!).

A not-so-quick side note:  Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili was born in Gori (where I’ll be working) in either 1878 or 1879.  A gifted poet, he won a scholarship to the seminary in Tbilisi in 1894.  He soon became involved in revolutionary politics and was expelled from the seminary in 1899, taking a job as an accountant and record-keeper at the Tbilisi Meteorological  Observatory until 1901. 

After participating in a violent demonstration against the government in 1901, Djugashvili went into exile, taking on a new nom de guerre, Stalin, which in Russian means “man of steel.”  He joined the Communist party and in 1912 founded the party newspaper Pravda (“truth” in Russian).  In 1922, he became general secretary of the party’s Central Committee, and upon Lenin’s death in 1924, maneuvered himself into a position of absolute power. 

Stalin died on March 5, 1953.  In 1956 Khrushchev denounced his crimes and in 1961 his body was moved out of the Red Square mausoleum he shared with Lenin. 

Stalin is widely seen in Georgia to this day as a “strongman” who, through personal strength and conviction, pulled the USSR into the 20^th century.  His crimes are widely overlooked in country and a statue to him still stands outside the Parliament building in Tbilisi.

So, there you have it, a quick 900-word history of Georgia.  Next time I’ll discuss the geography, climate, and culture of Georgia.  If you have any suggestions or ideas for this blog (like “Quit writing it.”), let me hear from you.  I’ve opened a new email account that I’ll use only for this blog.  It’s rclifton12@yahoo.com.  Thanks for reading.

Primary source for this posting:  Burford, R. (2011). Georgia (4th ed.). Guilford, CT: The Globe Pequot Press.

Still waiting

Some random thoughts as I wait for General Dynamics' HR department to send me the paperwork so they can hire me.  First off, the title of this blog, Georgia on my mind, is two-sided.  Obviously, it pays homage to Ray Charles' song of the same name, which I believe is also the state anthem of Georgia.  But what I was thinking of when I selected the title was the Beatles' song, "Back in the USSR" where Paul sings, "...and Georgia's always on my mi-mi-mi-mind."  Seems to fit since I've been doing a lot of thinking and researching the Republic of Georgia in general and Tbilisi, the capital city and my soon-to-be residence, in particular.  Here's what I know:  the word "tbil" in Georgian means "warmth," and "..isi" means "place of."  Thus, Tbilisi means "place of warmth."  It got its name from the sulfur springs located just south of the city and famed for their healing powers.  Can't wait to try them, especially in the winter. 

I know that Tbilisi, situated along the Silk Road, has been a starting point, ending point, and ultimate objective for every neighboring army in the region.  Apparently, capturing Tbilisi is easier than bowling during an earthquake.  It's been done (capturing Tbilisi, that is; I don't know who else has tried bowling during an earthquake) by the Turks, Arabs, Persians, Mongols, Hittites, and probably a few others who didn't slow down in Tbilisi long enough to leave an impression.  Naturally, all of these cultures have left an impact on Georgia.  It is, for example, one of only three cities in the world where a church, a synogogue, and a mosque abut each other. 

There is a lot I can't wait to see in the city.  All that I need is the right paperwork to get there.  Hopefully, that will come soon.  I'll write more when I get there.  Thanks for reading, and your suggestions are welcome!!