derek

I ran into a strange event in Tbilisi yesterday. A large public square was blocked off, people stood in a circle and watched cars take turns driving around various obstacles as fast as possible, skidding every turn. To my surprise, tons of peope stood inside the barrier, risking getting run over if a car accidentally skids just slightly too much.

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People watching.

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More of the crowd. Ania told me a Polish magazine featured the “top three ugliest Soviet-style buildings in the world” — and one of them is in Tbilisi. Is it possible I found it?

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Rati and I went to a small village the other day. Thousands of years ago, before Tbilisi was built, this village was the capital of Georgia. The main attraction today is a church, the oldest in Georgia. In the picture above, we are in the church yard.

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Standing in front of the gate of the church.

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Back in Tbilisi, a nighttime scene. The illuminated house above is the president’s house, which I wrote about before, where Saakashvili lives.

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Today is the final day in Georgia. I’m not sure what I’ll see today — I think we’ll take another trip outside the city. Tomorrow morning, I have a bus to Istanbul, where I’ll stay for about a week.

This is Rati. He’s Georgian, 18 years old, a medical student and my guide to the country for the next several days. We’ve gone up one of the many mountains that make up Tbilisi (and fill the entire country) to see the city from up high and take photos.

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This is me, also on top of a mountain. Behind me is a river that runs through the center of the city. Notice the strange color of the water. All water in Georgia looks like that.

While on the subject of water, I’ve noticed one aspect of public infrastructure that is abundant and functioning in Tbilisi — public water fountains. Georgians always walk up, wash their hands, take a drink and then splash their face. The ritual is always the same. I’ve been stopping at every fountain we pass to do the same. The weather here was above 90 degrees Fahrenheit yesterday.

When I came to Russia in late 2008, I was in the coldest weather of my life. Now, the hottest.

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Some things Rati has told me about Georgia, and some things I’ve learned myself:

Georgian men kiss each other on the cheeks when they meet.

Rati estimated that a person like me (25 years old, college educated) would probably have a salary between two and three hundred dollars (US dollars) a month in Tbilisi.

Although Georgia is incredibly poor, they have done an excellent job of reforming many of their political institutions — something that hasn’t happened in Russia. People trust the police. Police don’t take bribes. The legal system, in general, functions. Writers enjoy substantionally free speech. Crime is very low.

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Fruit is a real treat in Georgia. It’s abundant and cheap. Exotic too — I’ve tried several fruits here I’ve never seen before. Walking in the street, it’s not unusual to see cherry trees, fig trees, blackberry trees and grape vines. Or, from a street merchant like in the picture above, you can buy a kilogram of fruit for around a dollar.

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Many of the streets in Tbilisi are like this. The city is around 1,500 years old.

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A cathedral high in the mountains. Georgia has a very religious, conservative culture. The vast majority of the country is Christian Orthodox, and very religious. While Georgians walk in the street, any time they see a cathedral, they stop to cross themselves. I’ve been walking behind Georgians who saw a cathedral miles in the distance, atop a mountain, and they stopped for the ritual.

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In front of the biggest cathedral in Tbilisi.

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The presidential house in Tbilisi — where Saakashvili lives. Notice the side of the house is painted with both the Georgian flag and the European Union flag. Why? Rati tells me that Georgia is a “European country.” Is it? Most Europeans certainly don’t think so. He’s the first person I’ve heard it from. Within Georgia, though, there is really a movement to Europeanize the country. Saakashvili wants Georgia to eventually be a member of the European Union. Will it ever happen? Right now there’s a big debate in the EU as to whether Turkey (to the west of Georgia) can and should join the union. I think it will be a long time before Georgia’s turn comes.

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These domes are ancient Georgian public baths. The baths themselves are underground.

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Lunch — “acharuli khachapuri.” Bread made in a brick fire oven, filled with cheese, topped with an egg and a slice of butter. Absolutely delicious.

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Houses built by the Soviets in the suburbs of the city.

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GORI

Today Rati and I took a trip to another Georgian city, Gori. In the picture above, we’re riding a mashrutka (Russian word) — a small mini-bus. Gori is most famous as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, one of the world’s most notorious butchers.

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Seen out the window on the side of the road: a farmer herding his animals.

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Seen out the window on the side of the road: a refugee camp. In the recent Georgian-Russian war, thousands of Georgians were expelled from their homes by the Russians. The government has set up tons of shelters and refugee camps, like this one, across the country, as temporary housing for the victims.

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The official state-run Stalin museum. After Stalin’s death in the 50’s, the Soviet Central Committee decided to create a museum dedicated to him in his birthplace, Gori.

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The museum was absolutely amazing — a real piece of history. The museum is exactly the same today as it was when the Soviet Union first created it in the 1950’s. We were given a tour guide who told us about Stalin’s beautiful, kind family, his industrialization of Russia (with no mention of the basically slave labor used to create the factories), his great victory in the war against fascism, etc. The most amazing part was when we were shown a list of Soviet politicians that Stalin had killed — Trotsky, Zinoviev, etc. — and told that they were all very, very bad men (real criminals; murderers!), and it was a great act that Stalin had ridden the country of them.

Of course, there were no mentions of the gulags, the great forced migrations of various ethnicities, the butchering of innocent citizens, or any of Stalin’s other crimes against the country.

In other words, we were treated to real, vintage Soviet propaganda, circa the 50’s.

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Stalin’s death mask, made hours after his death.

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The house Stalin grew up in.

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A statue of Stalin. Notice that somebody left flowers at his feet.

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As I’ve written before, every Russian city has a statue of Lenin in the main square. Russian cities used to also have Stalin, but his statues have been destroyed long ago. This one, in Gori, Georgia, still remains.

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In lighter news — a chicken.

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Gori castle on top of a mountain. Georgia is filled with ancient castles on top of mountains. This one was guarded by two security guards with machine guns. I couldn’t figure out what they were protecting.

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On top of Gori mountain, overlooking the city.

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That’s all for now. Goodnight!

(continued from yesterday)

So, I was frantically walking around the city, looking for a place to buy a SIM card. It was impossible. Everything was closed and I gave up.

Plan B: frantically walk around the city looking for a pay phone. When I found the first one, a babushka sitting nearby started yelling. I asked her to translate to Russian and she told me the phone was broken, but there’s a working one across the street. She was wrong — the one across the street was broken too. The one further down the street was also broken. Actually, all of them were broken. This city has almost no pay phones at all, and certainly no functioning one. It wouldn’t be the first infrastructure deficiency I’d notice; roads are dotted with potholes, outside the main avenue there’s absolutely no garbage bins, no public toilets, no sidewalks that aren’t cracked.

Plan C: find a cigarette and hope to calm down. I asked a shop owner in the street, and I was lucky enough that he both gave me a cigarette and spoke English. He was nice enough to let me use his phone. I finally came in contact with the girl from CouchSurfing, and she agreed to meet me in 2 hours.

Finally!

I could relax now and get dinner. Walking down the street, I saw a really interesting babushka, so I tried to sit down near her and secretly take a photo. A group of beggar children nearby saw me, all ran up and started excitedly asking me where I was from, and did I fly on an airplane into Tbilisi?

I asked if they knew where a cheap restaurant was, and one of the boys told me to follow him down the road. A girl asked me for money, and he embarrassingly hushed her away. For whatever reason, he wanted to treat me like an equal, not somebody to beg from. I followed him for almost ten minutes to a restaurant and offered to buy him a meal, but he refused.

Thank God the menu had an English translation. Otherwise, I may have accidentally ordered “brain in flat” or “stewed brain.”

My first Georgian meal. The food was excellent and a live band played what I’d call “Georgian folk,” but really I have no idea what I’m talking about. Lots of drumming, insanely fast string instrument strumming, synchronized chanting-singing and some full-on yelling.

I paid for my meal and went to the statue where I was supposed to meet my host. I waited. An English guy walked guy came up, said I didn’t look like I was from around here (white guy with an overstuffed backpack — strong hint), and started making small talk. He’s on an almost-year-long bike-around-the-world trip. He started in England and has already made it this far. He’s been camping in the woods almost every night in the suburbs outside cities. The CouchSurfing girl was half an hour late, and I was becoming increasingly nervous and thinking about my options. Socially awkward English guy wasn’t helping.

Plan D: after forty-five minutes (10:45 pm!), I remembered that before I left St. Petersburg, I wrote down the address of a hostel in case of emergencies. Perfect!

Said goodbye to English guy, got in a cab, gave address to the driver (speaking my barely-understandable Russian) and left. He had a hard time finding the place, but after lots of circles and U-turns we finally arrived at the “Green Stairs” hostel. I knew we were at the right place because the words “Green Stairs” were spray painted on the wall.

I nervously walked into the yard, trying to figure out which of the many doors belonged to the “hostel.” Ends up the hostel is just some guy’s house. He speaks English and works as a translator. His salary is small, so to support his wife and children he rents out the three extra rooms of the house to students. He recently learned about the hostel concept in Europe and decided to re-market his rooms that way, and hence, has been running a “hostel” for two months now.

The man is incredibly nice. The house is absurdly dirty. Dusty wooden plan floors; stained, molded walls; a hallway that doubles as a kitchen because it has a refrigerator and a bunson burner in it; a bathroom with a showerhead but no tub, so water sprays directly onto the floor. All this for $20 USD a night. Anyways, what choice did I have?

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Goodnight.

TBILISI — DAY TWO

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Above two photos: the view from my window. Beautiful mountains, rusted tin roofs, decaying wood panels.

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Good morning. Despite having hardly any sleep last night, I woke up early — 7 am — with the sun shining in my face and the intense heat pulling me out of bed. Tbilisi is hot. It feels like a desert here. I think I spent almost $10 on cold drinks today (water, juices) alone.

The hostel owner told me I could stay another night, but one night only — tomorrow somebody else has already booked the room. The main mission for today was to find out where to stay next. Another CouchSurfer had told me previously that I could stay with him, so I had to make contact. I walked around the city for hours, waiting for shops to open up (which doesn’t happen until around 10 am) so I could buy a SIM card and call him.

In the meanwhile, I explored the city. A babushka selling fruit in the street, recognizing me as clearly a foreigner, pointed me towards a house, yelled in Georgian, and put her hands next to her head to act-out sleeping. She kept saying “Nazee! Nazee!” so I thought this may be the word for “hotel” in Georgian. Ends up it’s a woman’s name. Nazee is an old woman that, much like the owner of “Green Stairs,” rents out some of her rooms to travelers.

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Above: Nazee.

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Nazee agreed to let me stay with her the next day, since I already had one more night booked at “Green Stairs.” Eventually, I bought a SIM card and came in contact with the other guy from CouchSurfing, and he agreed to meet me the next day, so I wouldn’t need to stay at Nazee’s. I returned to her house and politely declined the offer. She smiled, shook my hand and accidentally spit some food onto the floor while talking to me.

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As I write this, it’s around 3 pm, and so far I’ve been exploring the city. Initial thoughts:

Tbilisi is a far cry from what I expected. I was expecting something like the Estonia experience — another tiny former Soviet state that has become politically friendly with the West and is currently engaged in bitter conflict with their former rulers, Russia. I was wrong.

Estonia is fully Europeanized, and Estonians are doing well for themselves. Everybody is multilingual, and everybody is fluent in at least Estonian, Russian and English. The city is filled with modern building, American companies, luxury brands. Free wireless internet everywhere. Tourist information in English for all the European visitors everywhere you look.

Tbilisi is more like Iraq. It is poor. Very poor. The buildings are all dilapidated. Not like Vyborg, where buildings are abandoned and destroyed. Here, they are in such a condition that you wouldn’t beieve anybody lives there — but they do. Public infrastructure is somewhere between poor and nonexistant. This is the capital city of the country, and next to nobody speaks English.

To describe the city in a sentence, I would say: steep, narrow, winding streets, framed by broken buildings, filled with old women selling wares and begging children.

In the 2008 American presidential election, a memorable moment came when the Georgian-Russian war broke out. John McCain, wanting to prove his anti-Russian credentials, made a statement: “We are all Georgians now.”

What the hell was he talking about?

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Today I arrived in Tbilisi. It was probably the scariest day since I started traveling.

Where to start?

Before arriving in the country, I was already unsettled. My plane was hours late, and I didn’t know how that would affect my first day. Upon arriving at the airport, I went to passport control and adopted the strategy I’d practiced in dealing with Russian bureaucracy: I placed my passport down and stoically stared at him without smiling or saying a word. In turn, he also stared at me without saying a word or doing anything. I wondered if I did something wrong.

Eventually he called someone else over and talked for a while in Georgian, saying something about “American.” He let me in without a problem after that, and he lightened up after I asked how to say “thank you” in Georgian (I already forgot the answer).

Immediately after leaving the airport, a bunch of taxi drivers started advertising to me. I remembered from Russia never to fall for this — the taxi drivers always target naive foreigners and demand exorbiant sums before letting the passenger out. I didn’t want to fall for the trap, so I knew I had to take a bus. I looked at the side of the first bus and realized something terrible I somehow managed to never think about before: Georgians use a different alphabet, I know nothing about it, and there’s no English translations.

Above: nice Indian girls who helped me.

I got on the bus and thankfully found a group of Indian students studying in Georgia who are fluent in English. I asked if the bus went to the center of the city. They asked where I wanted to go. I said, uh, I don’t know — just to the center. Nowhere really.

I didn’t bother to look up anything about the city at all before coming. Also not very smart.

The plan: someone on CouchSurfing.com (a social networking site for travelers) agreed to host me at her house for a few days when I first arrived. So, I should come to the country, find the center of the city — shops and an easy place to meet, buy a new SIM card for my phone, and call her to let her know I’m in the city and arrange a place to meet.

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Above: mountains and buildings out the window of the bus.

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The drive from the airport was beautiful and shocking. Tbilisi is a city in the valleys, surrounded by picturesque mountains. It is also filled with some of the most extreme poverty I’ve seen. Buildings I passed by had a state of dilapidation I’d expect in Afghanistan.

Another shock: the “George W. Bush Highway.” I wish I had time to snap a photo, but the bus moved too quickly. That’s right — believe it or not, the Georgians loved Bush enough to name a highway after him. Bizarre, huh? Since Bush took office, the United States has given tremendous support to Georgia for the sake of gaining advantage against Russia in the former-Soviet states. This is what eventually led Georgia to belligerent foreign policy that escalated to a full-on war with Russia in late 2008. They thought Bush and America would ride in to the rescue. So much for that idea. Apparently they’re not too angry to rename the highway, though.

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Above: remnants of the Soviet past. Notice the USSR star atop the building.

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I didn’t get to the center of the city (“Freedom Square”) until around 7 pm, when I desperately started searching for a phone shop. I only found one, and it was just closing and the owner refused to sell me a SIM card. He told me it was too late to buy anything — all shops were closed.

He was right.

By the way, almost nobody here speaks English. Almost no one.  Thank God I learned some really basic Russia over the past nine months. Everyone here speaks a little Russian.

At this point, I started getting the nervous. The sun was setting and I had nowhere to sleep for the night — I still hadn’t contacted the girl from CouchSurfing.

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This has to be continued later. I’m using wireless internet in a McDonalds and they’re closing now. Will write tomorrow I hope.