More News From Urbnisi (II)

            One night this month the televisions in all of the houses announced in union that there would be snow this upcoming Sunday.  Immediately this stirred conversation.  Could it be that winter would come so soon?  

            Throughout the week the paths that run in between the households were sporadically blocked by piles of wood.  The cars, no matter how clever their drivers were, could find no way around them and began to make detours.  The local mshtrutka was not in the least pleased by this change in traffic.  It was about as big of a panic that I can imagine the village finding itself in.   

           Yet everyday life still continued and the kids after school kicked their footballs and ran about doing whatever kids do.  The older kids, the ones fortunate enough to have a computer, lurk inside their living rooms and play video games.  All the students have the same video games; they lend them to one another and copy them onto their computers.  Whether that’s legal or not is another matter, hardly worth enforcing since the games are all pirated anyways.  Yet when they have issues with these games they typically wait outside for me to pass and drag me inside to fix whatever issues they are encountering.

            Besides being kidnapped this week to help an 18 year old play some American Civil War game I was stopped by other students who either have a unique sense of curiosity or are just desperate for conversation.  They stopped me, on my way home from school, to point out to me a tractor.  It was a blue and large, quite rusty and drives up and down the main route in the village everyday accomplishing those feats that only tractors can accomplish.  I’m not entirely sure as to what that is but no matter… 

            “Mike, do you love tractor?” asked the little boy anxiously, his eyes gleaming up as if his happiness for the next few days depended on my answer.

           

“Yes, of course.”

            “Mike, this tractor Belarus,” he responded.

            “Really?  A Belarus tractor?”

            “Yes.  Belarus.  It is good tractor.  You like?”

            “Yes.  Very much.”

           

            He wasn’t alone and they all began jeering and clapping.  Perhaps this is some strange joke or perhaps this really is a cause for celebration.  A few days later however, I noticed something slightly odd in the class room.  It was in the early afternoon and we had just finished with one exercise and there was a brief moment of silence.  Then from the distance the sputtering noise could be heard and the sound of the rough engine got closer.  Their eyes peered dreamily out the window, as they always do when there is a sound or movement and as the tractor approached one raised his hand and asked, “Mike do you love tractor?”

            “Yes I do.”

            “You like tractor Mike?” he asked again, attempting to confirm my appreciation for the blue smoke sputtering monster.

            “Yes.  I drive tractor.  I have many tractors.  I love tractors.”  These words just came out attempting to deflect or rather deflate any upcoming questions regarding the tractor.  And then the inevitable:

            “Mike this tractor Belarus.”

            I acted stunned.  “Belarus,” I stammered.  “There is no way.”  The suspense was built and the class reacted so.

           So far the issue of the Belarusian tractor has died down.  Its luster no longer delivers classroom prate and this is why.  The students have discovered an internet tractor game.  It is the rage.  Out of all the things that the internet offers the tractor game seems to be the cream of the crop.  Thus a war has been sparked between the young and the adolescents, the tractor game versus Spongebob Squarepants.  It’s a daily battle filled with screams and tears and then more screaming.  But that’s ok, because at least they’ve stopped playing with fire.

Photos!

 

 

This Is Where Mineral Water Comes From

And This Is Where Mineral Water Goes

 

 

 

The Kazbegi Adventure

            My friend Heikki and his girlfriend Katja came to Georgia about three weeks ago and we made an excursion to Kazbeg.  When we arrived at Didube Station on the 23^rd of October attempting to find our mshtrutka to Stepantsminda the taxi drivers, without even asking us, knew where we were going, and this is why:  we had come to the decision to book our rooms in advance, which gave Rhezo, the man who owned our home stay, ample time to notify the world.  One of the taxi drivers told us that he was waiting for three people who were heading to Kazbegi and who were supposed to depart the day ere.  In other words, us.  We passed on the opportunity of an 80 Lari taxi ride for the mshtrutka.     

           Rhezo met us at the mshtrutka stop in Stepantsminda and brought us to a small cabin that sat just outside of his home.  When asked what time we would like to partake in dinner, we said 6 or 7 and also informed him that we would go out for a bit to explore and shake off the three hour mshtrutka ride.  We promised to back in an hour so that he could take us to the Georgian-Russian border. 

            With that hour to spare we went out and explored the small perimeter of Stepantsminda.  There isn’t much to be honest, but that could be said about anyplace, sometimes you just have to readjust your sight.  We were searching for a café and passed the first hoping to find one a little closer to the center, which is about a block or so.  However, the next two that we encountered were closed and showed no signs of having their statuses change.  We stopped and began a half hearted attempt to reassemble our thoughts when immediately a white jeep screeched to halt right next to us.

            “Senor! Senor!” he called out before shouting “Momenta!”

            Apparently I look Spanish.  Which is kind of interesting because more times than not I’m mistaken for being Jewish. 

            This part of Georgia most likely has more in common with that part of America that is residing west of the highway I95 and east of the river that divides the continent into two.  Its population is small, around 1,800 and the speed of life is to say at the very least, quite slow.  All that it encompasses are a string of mountains of unbelievable heights, decrepit small shops and trees reaching in every single possible direction imaginable.  Perhaps most similar, are that the conversations and news in this part of Georgia circulates with such speed.

Mt. Kazbeg

            The city of Kazbegi, or Stepantsminda is often mentioned amongst the tourists in Georgia and there really isn’t a clear idea as to why.  Mt. Kazbeg is the third tallest mountain in Georgia, the tallest being Mt. Shkhara.  The city is often referred to as Kazbeg which comes from the name of Gabriel Kazibek

Chopikashvili who aligned himself with the Russians when Georgia was annexed in 1801.  However his son, who resigned himself as a shepherd, Alexander Kazbegi, wrote The Parricide which emerged after years of Alexander Kazbegi collecting and amassing legends and folk tales from the locals of the area.  Its hero was Koba and after a young Joseph Dzhugashvili read the book he would only answer to the name of Koba.  A few years later he changed his nickname to that of Stalin.

            Vasili, the budding entrepreneur who spotted us, was apparently related to Rhezo through some marriage.  He carried a notebook with him, a notebook whose pages were worn and filled with what seemed to be the notes of a mad man, a derelict who refused to heed to the rules of grammar and more noticeably any of the lines that ran across the page.  He asked us where we were from while he searched these pages furiously and frantically for Finland.  Apparently, the country of Finland had managed to avoid being documented by Vasili and so he named off the Prime Minister of the Netherlands and looked at Heikki to see if such information would suffice.  It didn’t.

            He rambled some more and for some reason I started to day dream.  I do this often when I have no clue what is going on.  I guess it could be a natural mechanism of defense against boredom or perhaps something worse and he left with an oral agreement that he would drive us to the Gergeti Trinity Church for 40 Lari. 

            We resumed our mission and took off for the first café that we had seen when entering the city center.  It was a basic café and if the letters on its window indeed serve as its name than its name is thus:  “Kafe BEER”.  The place was empty, save for a man painting some spare room and the owner who rested behind the counter.  There was a small display providing the potential customer with examples of products, namely beer.  We ordered and ate and soon Rhezo appeared in the parking lot, waiting for us.  Everyone here knows everything.  It would hard to go missing in a place like this.

            We took off to the Russian border and the car hugged the winding roads that overlooked the Terek River down below.  This was still the infamous Military Highway.   The Military Highway was a road built by Tsarist Russia and in my opinion never finished.  It stretches from Vladikavkaz, in North Ossetia to Tbilisi and was essentially and practically the only route to Tbilisi from St. Petersburg/Moscow.  There’ll be a separate blog dealing on this subject later, so check back for it.

200 Meters From The Russian Border

            The Russian border sits inside of a tunnel and while we didn’t enter it, we were close enough for some sense of satisfaction.  We turned around and headed back.  On the way back, through the medium of conversation, Rhezo learned of our dealings with Vasili and cut the price by a quarter.  We accepted.  Vasili must have got the message because he never reappeared.  The journey to the Gergeti Trinity Church could only be accomplished by foot or jeep.  Any other means would be foolhardy.  We settled for the jeep and began to climb up the mountain.  It was a good decision because in retrospect, had we walked we probably would have expired due to fatigue or from a chance encounter with a bear.  Not that we saw any but still the possibility lingers….

           To call the route a road is little generous.  It is nothing more than a path that has in some parts sunken, filled with water and frozen over.  When we finally reached the top and our feet crunched into the snow, we were simply amazed.  The view was something so picturesque that one will just stand there and stare.  Alone, perched on the peak of a small mountain (2170 meters) sat this church alone in isolation that peered over the entire city.  Its interior immediately demanded your silence and attention and it was a demand that required no effort to fulfill.

The Gergeti Trinity Church

            We went back to our cabin and kept warm for a bit by the gas fueled furnace.  Heikki plugged in his computer, powered it on and immediately, the lights began to dim.  The power went out.  We left the cabin and went to the city center to get candles and some small provisions for the night.  There we discovered that not only that our cabin was draped in darkness but that the epidemic had spread across the city.  The stores were open, but were completely dark and we used the light that shone off the display screen of our phones to illuminate the selections of beer, wine, bread and small trinkets.  Before we left the power returned giving each electrically powered object a chance to say hello in its own unique way.     

The View From The Gergeti Trinity Church