Sakartvelo and where to find it
I landed in Tbilisi three or fours hours delayed due to the post-Covid-19 labor shortages across European airports. It was a cold late Spring evening, rain had just stop. In the taxi towards my friends apartment, George, a 26 years old taxi driver, father of 3, started to tell me about the high cost of gas.
— “Since crazy Putin went into Ukraine, I have to drive 14 or 15 hours per day to afford all my kids.”
He was probably happy having me as a customer, my lack of phone service didn’t let me book a ride through the widely use app Volt, so I agreed on jumping into George’s unofficial taxi. I later learnt that the 180 GEL that I paid were an enormous amount for a 30' drive.
A few minutes later, as we approached the Tbilisi suburbs, out of nowhere, George crossed himself twice. I asked why, and without a drop of sarcasm, he told me that we were driving by a church. Old and young Georgians cross themselves every time they see a church, and there are a lot of churches in Georgia. Minutes later, as I asked about Russia, religion came back up:
— “Georgians, Ukrainians, Russians, we are all Christian brothers, why do we fight? We should have peace.”
Christianity, I was starting to learn, is a pillar of Georgia. In my previous travels, I had experience strong Islam, Jewish societies, not Christians.
Given my late arrival, and the lack of food on Georgian Airways flights, my first Georgian dinner was just awaiting. Over the last decade, a new wave of restaurants have turned Georgia into a cool and foodie destination. As soon as I arrived at my friend’s house, we headed back out to“The King and the Bird”, a less than one year old restaurant in the West bank of the Mtkvari river. Khinkalis, khachapuris, Qvevri red wine, my first Supra — feast in Georgian, many to follow.
I could write a full book about Khinkalis and its fillings, traditionally pork, beef, mixed meats. The new cuisine wave has brought new flavors to the fillings: curries, veggies, cheeses... the most traditionalist are not happy about it. This Georgian traditional dish is what you would expect from a country in the middle of the Eurasian continent. An Asian looking dumpling, with a thicker dough, closer to a ravioli, filled with the most Mediterranean tasting meat I’ve ever had outside of my grandma’s kitchen.
What is Tbilisi?
It was during my first few days in the capital that I got to experience the new Tbilisi. A young, tech-savvy generation, that gained conscious in the aftermath of the 2008 war. A generation filling old Soviet buildings with coffees, restaurants, art galleries, work spaces, clubs, bars. Old Soviet buildings with a renewed spirit and purpose. Tbilisi is transforming, to what exactly is still too be determined.
In my first morning, I walked to the Holy Trinity Cathedral, a monumental building built only in the 90’s (consecrated in 2004) overlooking the entire city, as if Jesus himself was on top of the hill. I crossed the Bridge of Peace and hiked up to the Mother of Georgia statue, which holds a sword and a glass of wine. The statue and the church both crown the capital. Religion, war and good wine, a brief and precise description of Georgia.
As I wondered the city streets, going into stores, coffee shops, without noticing, I went back to the Spanish streets I grew up in. Pretty and dirty, warm colors, old and new buildings together without much coherence. Big roads for cars and small sidewalks for pedestrians. Small breeze, an unlimited amount of sun. Old ladies buying in the market. Older man sitting by the construction sites. Old polluting cars, lots of noise. Crazy drivers shouting at each other. Colorful fruit trees on the street, a full blue sky. Spain in the 90's, I thought.
In the crossroad of empires
The more I walked, the more I noticed the flags. Georgian, European, Ukrainian. The country’s leadership has been pushing to become part of the West and make Georgia European — whatever that means. Nation-building at its peak.
Yet, what surprised me the most aren’t the grand quantity of flags that cover streets and stores, but the lack of Russian and Persian references, the two historical influences of the country.
Don’t get me wrong, Russia is indeed very present in Georgia, in the form of old books in flee markets, in shapes of old Soviet buildings, in words spoken by old Georgians, in souvenirs stores with small Stalin figurines. But having two regions occupied by Russia— or probably because of that — , Georgia has walked away from the Russian sphere. Russia is part of the past. It is only a matter of time that all old Soviet buildings are replaced by new and the Cyrillic alphabet is only studied in University.
Safavid Georgia, as the Persians called the northern region, today’s Georgia, was part of the Safavid Empire for centuries but that can hardly be seen in the streets of Tbilisi. And don’t be fooled by the Tbilisi Opera House, such was rebuild in the 19th century and it calls more for an Orientalism renascence than a real Persian building.
In the south east, closer to Azerbaijan, the remembrance of once being under Persian rule emerges. In Telavi, the capital of Kazbeghi — the famous wine region — , the Castle that once belonged to the King Erekle II revels the country’s past. This royal is widely remembered given that in 1783 chose Russia over Persia to protect the integrity of the Georgian state. Erekle II forged a protection deal with Catherine the Great against the southern Persian neighbors to avoid an invasion, given the common religion and Russia’s proximity to the West. Regardless of the pact, in 1795, Persia invaded Georgia, destroying Tbilisi and occupying the Eastern most provinces until 1814.
More than two hundred years later, the country remains in a struggle to get closer to the West. Perusing European integration while two of its recognized provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, are stuck in the past. It seems as if Georgia had to chose between territorial unity or integration with the West.
Yet, not everyone thinks the small nation has to chose a side. On another taxi, this time to Lisi Beach — a small lake in the north of Tbilisi that welcomes locals looking for a escape from the city — , a young driver from the north of the country, reminded us of how little he really cared about the European Union, Russia or the United States:
— “I am Georgian, not Russian or American, nobody else can tell me the opposite. All these European flags you see, these are all a show” and he continued, “my country’s real name is Sakartvelo, not Georgia, these politicians are all lying”.
Sakartvelo — საქართველო in Georgian alphabet — stayed in my head. I couldn’t stop wondering, what else has been erased to make Georgia more Western?
The new Berlin?
Sunset was around the corner and with that, ChaCha — pomace brandy — came around. Mutant Radio was out first stop, an old Soviet radio station turned into a hype bar with a mix of locals and foreigners, mainly Europeans. Tbilisi is the new Berlin, or so they told me. The second stop was Mtkvarze, a techno club on the Mtkvari river. We jumped into a taxi. With too many shots of Chacha on us, I realized how the driver was crossing himself, but I couldn’t seem to find the church. As I laughed about how drunk I was that I couldn’t even find the church, my friend told me a deep truth, a truth that only comes with a certain level of alcohol:
-“It is only through religion that this country exists. Without Christianity this all would be gone”. We danced and drunk to an unnecessary level, we forgot about the church, the war. The night was young.
An uneven road, the only way to Russia
On my last full day in Georgia, I woke up early. I was heading north, almost to touch the Russian border, to the Gergeti Trinity Church. A monastery at the bottom of mount Kazbek, frequented by German and Central European hikers, now turning into a skiing destination.
The road north known as the Military Highway is the only route from Tbilisi to the southern Russian city of Vladikavka.The only thin corridor cutting the Caucasian mountain range through the middle. A Belorussian tour guide, an Armenian-Gerogian driver, a German women, and myself on a ban with the wheel on the right side, given that many Gerogian cars are imported irectly from Japan.
Our driver made a first stop in the suburbs of Tbilisi for a 10 GEL coffee (1/3€). A first bad decision considering the drive ahead. Not long after leaving the capital suburbs, a line of hundreds or probably thousands of trucks began. Trucks waiting patiently to cross into Russia, overtaking half of the right lane. The trucks and the speed of the Georgian drivers, made the road experience more extreme. Trucks from Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan take the road everyday to cross the border.
We drove up towards the Caucasus, in opposite direction of the Aragvi river, in which the legend says two sisters, one blond, one brunet died due to a love affair gone wrong on top of the mountain range, turning half of the river black and the other half white. Nature at its best.
As we climb up the mountain rage reaching 2,300km+, several ski resorts emerged. Georgia has been developing skiing resorts, aiming to attract winter tourists from the Middle East, Europe and Asia. A skiing middle point in the heart of the Eurasian continent.
With the high altitudes, fields full of sheep emerge everywhere. In broken English, our Belorussian guide told us that many Arabs come to feast around the sheep they chose to sacrifice. He then continued to tell us about the types of sheep, as I started hearing about it, I forgot were we were really going, the road was the destination.
The road seemed to be an organism. Sharp turns overlooking incredible and frightening valleys. A river in different colors. Tunnels that become avalanche shelters in winter. Thousands of sheep and shepherds dancing north and south with the seasons. Small local stores at every corner. Growing ski resorts. A small Chinese village. Trucks lining up for kilometers, as a cue of ants waiting to go into their nest.
As we started to descend on the other side of the mountain, approaching the Russian border, we came across a huge construction complex under the name of “North-South corridor”. Flags everywhere, this time from China. A group of Western development banks are financing the construction of a 5km road, including tunnels and bridges that will cross the Caucasian range shortening the trip between Tbilisi and Vladikavka. A Chinese company began the construction a few years ago, bringing with them hundreds of workers to develop the project.
After stopping for beer and snacks, our driver told us about this source of mineral water off-road, close to South Ossetia, following the flow of the Terek river. We jumped back in the ban and started following the Terek. It was here that I start asking about South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and the war.
In the West we think about this area as one of the two occupied Russian regions of Georgia, but the conflict has many layers: ethnicity, history, identity, death. The peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetian are hardly given any agency, as aren’t the soldiers killed during the 2008 war, or the thousands of Georgians killed during the ethnic cleansing after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Only a few days before this trip, the self-declared President of South Ossetia threatened with annexing the region to Russia.
Now, even if the war seemed to be at frozen, South Ossetian and Russian forces kept expanding the border south. Meters of Georgian land are being occupied every week and month. As we approached the breath-taking mineral water source, I wonder if the frozen conflict will turn into a hot war again and will this be the next battleground between Russia and the West? Will South Ossetia be the trigger to a world wide conflict? Before I am able to ask about the identity of the Abkhazi people, our guide, who has been drinking a full wine bottle to himself, tells me to stop with the political questions. No politics here, he tells me, as he opens the second bottle of Georgian Qvevri wine.
On the drive back to Tbilisi, I sat in front. Our driver, in an even more broken English, told me about his heritage. An Armenian born in Tbilisi, as were his parents. He had indeed a Georgian passport, but he was Armenian, not Georgian. Being one of the oldest communities in the country, the history of Armenians in Georgia dates back to the birth of both nations. In this midst of ethnicities and identities, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much the driver looked exactly like my uncle, living thousands of kilometers away in the other extreme of the Mediterranean.
The last stop of the trip was Korbuda restaurant, a family owned business with some of the best Khinkali’s of the entire trip. Our guide who was well into the second bottle of wine told me how non-Georgian it was to include vegetarian Khinkalis in the order. At least, I told him, I was going eat them with my hands.
We arrived in Tbilisi at sunset, one of the very first summer nights of the year. It was going to be a warm night and I was already feeling nostalgic about leaving. For some reason, it felt like home, “I will be back” I told myself.
