Carpetblogger

Are You Going To Kazbegi?

You certainly should! Carpetblogger and the Beirut Correspondent headed up to the Caucasian village in Georgia two summers ago and had a great time hiking around the Holy Trinity Monastery, listening to polyphonic singing and falling into pits filled with sheep heads.

Hans at Kaukasus alerted us to the helpful, well-written site Kazbegi in the Caucasus that details all the homestays in the villages located around the 5000 meter (16,500 feet) Mt Kazbegi. It includes great details that remind me why Georgia is such a bad-ass place to travel, such as:

"At the time we visited the homestays in Jutta, the village didn’t have any phone coverage. That’s why there are no phone numbers listed, ask the locals! But try to remember the first name of your host—because the surname for all the people from Jutta is the same: Arabuli."

"The friendly family might want to give you their huge Caucasus dog as a present."

A giant Kavkaz shepherd is the perfect souvenir from a trip to Kazbegi!

The Carpetblog Effect

Did this highly influential blog force a change in marketing strategy at our beloved World of Urine/Wine in Tbilisi? 

On the left, August 2006. On the right, February 2008.

Stalin's Carpets

Surprisingly, there aren't that many museums or monuments to Stalin anymore. I guess killing more people than Hitler and drawing national borders that are still causing inter-ethnic bloodshed doesn't merit as much admiration as it used to.

Except in Gori, Georgia.

Located about 80 kms from Tbilisi, Gori probably doesn't have much more going for it than it did when  იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე ჯუღაშვილი (Ioseb Vissarionovich Jugashvili. If you haven't noticed, I love the look of Georgian script) was born there in 1878. For example, a lot of people still don't have running water in their apartments. Still, you grasp the tail of fame where you can and Gori residents embrace their native son more intensely than ordinary Georgians do, which is to say, pretty intensely.

I had heard the museum was lame so I wasn't disappointed to find out it, in fact, was. I was much more disappointed that I had to pay $10 for a ticket. (Full disclosure: this was my second visit to a Stalin museum. The first was in Batumi in 2006, described here. I didn't like Batumi.)

Built just after his death in 1953, it's a typical Soviet-style museum, in which a bunch of uncurated, unanalyzed crap  -- newspaper articles and photos and random memorabilia -- is thrown up on the wall ("unanalyzed" is probably the kindest criticism of this museum. It's a lot like the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California in that sense).

Not only that, it's all in Russian and Georgian, it's freezing cold and museum ladies stop to stamp your ticket every time you enter a new room, even though you're the only one in the museum. Though you have to admit, their stamp is pretty awesome.

Neither of my Georgian colleagues had been in the museum before. One was excited to see it, the other less so. Naktia was particularly reluctant to have her picture taken in front of one of the multiple statues, suggesting that her hostility is a response to the repatriation of her grandfather.

"Repatriation?" I asked. "What does that mean?"

"Sent to the gulag," she responded. "No one heard from him again."

"That's a completely reasonable point of view," I said. "You're not cutting off my head in that photo, are you?"

But even she softened up a little when we got to the room with all the gifts Stalin received from his admirers within the empire Formerly Known as Evil. How could you not be impressed by carved chess sets from Tajiks? Ivory boxes from the North Koreans? Silk weavings from the Chinese? Wooden shoes with his and Lenin's face on them from the Dutch. Wait, what? The Dutch?

Naturally, I went straight to the personalized face carpets bestowed by Turkmen and Azeris. The Turkmen carpet was seriously beautiful, even if Stalin's features were oddly Asiatic.  As  gifts, personalized carpets really do stand the test of time, even for people who are not dictators. However, the going price for one these days in Baku is about $600 and I can't think of many friends on whom I'd spent $600 for a carpet. If they were dictators, maybe.

Disappointingly, the Stalin Museum has no gift shop. However, Tbilisi's flea market is one of the most reliable places for Stalin memorabilia, if you're in the market for that sort of thing. (Are you also in the market for Hitler memorabilia? That's what I asked myself after I bought a 1950's alarm clock with his visage on it in Tallinn. I told myself it will would add a bit of dictatorial balance, sitting next to my Mao alarm clock. But no, I am actually opposed to Hitler memorabilia. I realize this is incoherent. I guess I got a thing for dictators).

Soviet History in a Bottle

Knowing my taste for Georgian wine, my Georgian friend told me to watch out for a delivery he had sent over to my hotel. "Make sure they give it to you," he warned.

Having already purchased six bottles at my beloved World of Wine/Urine. I worried that I had already reached maximum capacity (Carpetblogger Travel Hint #1: half empty suitcases are convenient for transporting wine and carpets). If it didn't all fit, I figured I could always go local and drink a bottle before leaving for the airport at 3 am. Or on the plane.

A wine gift bag arrived and as I pulled the heavy, dark bottle out, dirty flakes of old label fell onto the bed. Capped with what looks like a heavy glob of dark chocolate, the bottle seems to have spent time in the ground or a dusty cave. A wood tag tied around the neck indicated the contents were vintage 1961 and "Rkatsiteli." The bottle leans slightly to the right.

From the Cradle of Wine, a blog devoted to Georgian wines, says this was one of the most popular varietals in the Soviet Union.

Rkaksiteli (pronounced "rkah-tsee-tely"; Georgian რქაწითელი; literally "red stem") is a variety of grapes grown along the Black Sea coast of Georgia, used to make dry white table wines of the Kakhetian style...

Rkaksiteli grapes are often blended with other grapes: with Khikhvi and Mtsvane to produce Rkatsiteli Khornabujuli wine; with Mtsvane to make the aged white wine Tibaani; with Chinuri and Chkhaveri for sparkling wine; with Saperavi and Cabernet Sauvignon for a semi-dry rose wine; or with Khikvi and Mtsvane for the fortified white port Kardenakhi. Rkatsiteli is one of the oldest varieties of grapes in the world; clay vessels have been found in Georgia with Rkatsiteli seeds dating from 3000 BC.

We can all agree that this is a pretty awesome gift.  I do think there are some pros and cons to consuming a bottle of 47 year old wine made during Soviet times, however. Not that I doubt the skills of the mid-century Soviet winemakers in Georgia, but there's a reason why you don't see a lot of 1961 Volgas or Zhigulis on the streets any more. Other, more tangible considerations than "quality" and "longevity" frequently guided production decisions in those days.

But I think the best reason not to drink this is that it is history in a bottle. The early 1960s were the era of the Khrushchev thaw, when it began to become more OK to say that Stalin had made a few mistakes. The Berlin Wall went up. Khrushchev gave millions of landless peasants the right to migrate to the cities and built millions of gray, poorly made five-story apartment blocks ("Krushchyovkas") to house them, shaping the psychological landscape of Soviet cities for decades. In Georgia, dissident and first democratically-elected President Zviad Gamsakhurdia began resisting Soviet efforts to Russify Georgians. There was a lot going on when the wine was bottled.

Where did this wine sit out the stagnation of Brezhnev's 70's? Why wasn't it drunk by a Georgian looking over the precipice of the '80s? How did it survive the chaos, civil war and hardship of Georgia's first years of independence?

I think it has too many stories to drink.

Instead, it will sit on the shelf, next to the "Za Karabagh!" ("To Karabagh!) Jubilee vodka I bought in Baku (on the left) and the limited edition Turkmenbashi vodka from Ashgabat (in the green cylinder).

Ask Carpetblogger: How do I Manage Sticky Debates about Nationalism While in the Caucasus?

Traveling writer Josh Kucera, came across this very helpful "Seven Rules of Nationalism" on Steady State. He's on his way across the Caucasus now. These will serve him -- and you -- well!

1. If an area was yours for 500 years and ours for 50, it should belong to us – borders must not be changed.
   
   
2. If an area belonged to us 500 years ago but never since then, it should belong to us – it is the Cradle of our Nation.
   
   
3. If a majority of our people live there, it must belong to us – they must enjoy the right to self-determination.
   
   
4. If a minority of our people live there, it must belong to us – they must be protected against your oppression.
   
   
5. All of the above rules apply to us but not to you.
   
   
6. Our dream of greatness is Historical Necessity, yours is Fascism.

It's Kaf-KRAZY!

Just because I wasn't terribly kind to Batumi, or the mashrutka driver that delivered me from it, doesn't mean I don't love Georgia. Absolutely not the case. What's to love about Georgia? Here's a list:

Food: It's not Turkish, let's be 100% clear on that. But Georgians know how to combine simple ingredients like walnuts, spinach, garlic, tomatoes, onions and eggplant together so harmoniously it's like living on a higher plane and incredibly hard to replicate successfully beyond the border. HoM and I visited our favorite Tbilisi restaurant (World of Urine) twice.

It was about 1000 degrees in Tbilisi and the cafe is down in the wine caves, which made it even more appealing than usual. Its spinach balls are divine and the owner spent a lot of time explaining to me, using helpful hand gestures, that Abkhazani sausages are different, but just as good, as kupati. It's just that they're made of different contents of the pig's stomach. Or something like that.

World of Urine is also great because the old dudes there know their wine. If you say, "I need a good wine to take to Kazbegi," they can offer several suggestions. If you say you need a good wine to take to Baku, they'll politely suggest something sullen and dusty that tastes like ass.

Sans Souci is also a fantastic little cafe. The food isn't quite as good as World of Urine's, but it has wireless and sits right next to one of Tbilisi's ancient churches.

It's owned by Georgia's most famous puppeteer (puppets are surprisingly big in the Caucasus, so degrees of fame in this realm are plausible) who staged "The Battle Of Stalingrad: a Requiem" using puppets, which seems pretty ambitious to me. They served a fruity little summer red the evening we were there, making it awfully difficult to walk home.

Mountains: The Caucasus are like the Himalayas without the Indians! We traveled up to Kazbegi and I experienced pangs of regret at my failed mountain climbing career (so many careers, so many pangs of regret).

The view from my bed

If you've ever seen the old Lonely Planet Caucasus edition, the Holy Trinity Church on the cover is where we were. Unfortunately, the light was exceptionally harsh so the photos aren't that great.

Kazbegi is about 20 kms from the North Osseti...I mean, Russian, border. Vladikavkaz, a city with a great name, is just 27 kms away.

One of the best parts about hiking in the Caucasus is coming across a pit full of fresh sheep heads. While Holy Trinity church is of the Georgian Orthodox variety, just up the hill from it stand a little white shrine covered in melted candles and surrounded by empty vodka bottles, where Georgians come to sacrifice a sheep or a calf.  There's a pit available for convenient head disposal nearby. I'm not sure where throwing the heads into a pit fits into the orthodox theology, but there are a lot of modern traditions that haven't really taken up there in those mountains.

Georgians: Georgians are hospitable, open, sexist, family-oriented, stubborn, headstrong, inscrutable, horrible drivers, fantastic cooks, hilarious -- everything you need for an entertaining visit.  While up at Holy Trinity, I was fortunate to hear polyphonic singing. Georgians will break into song for any old reason, and that day it was a group of workers laying concrete at the church. It was the most otherworldly sound I've ever heard and I find it impossible to describe.

Gangster's Paradise

Should you ever find yourself in Batumi, "capital" of the optimistically named Adjara Autonomous Republic well, sorry ‘bout that.

Batumi might be the original gangster’s paradise. A subtropical seaside fiefdom once run by autocrat/gangster Aslan Abashidze, which, like its partner in attempted secessionism, Abkhazia, has been a thorn in the Georgian government’s side since the Rose Revolution. Misha reined Abashidze in with a backhanded bitchslap in 2004 that almost resulted in war, but low-rent bandits still prowl the streets in black Mercedes, clearly having nothing productive to do or steal.

Autonomy has not been kind to Batumi. In fact, I have never been to such a destitute place where probably one in three vehicles are Mercedes so hot flames spew from their tailpipes. These are the kind of stripped down models preferred by those who believe that driving such a car back to their home village communicates its owner’s increasing economic and social stature far better than, say, shoes for the kids or indoor plumbing.

Stalin at home in Batumi

Accordingly, the only commerce that appears to be thriving are sports books, mini-casinos and freestanding automats (like slot machines). The local government has tried hard to spruce up the downtown area, but walk a few blocks from the center and it’s positively third world – crumbling housing; women peddling a few kilos of day-old produce on broken sidewalks; sweaty, idle, unshaven, shirtless men with protruding bellies practicing their craft. I couldn’t wait to leave.

That’s not to say I couldn’t find a diversion. Like every good Georgian town, Batumi has a museum devoted to favorite Georgian son, Iosif Vissarioinovich Dzugashvilli. Iron Joe decamped in the little white wooden house for a couple months in 1901 to do some old-fashioned organizing. Now, lucky visitors get to gaze reverently at the rough framed bed he slept in.

This museum was interesting for two reasons. First of all, Stalin was in Batumi when he was quite young, so the paintings and photographs from that era depicted, in all truthfulness, what could only be called a hottie. Who knew Stalin was a babe?

Stalin at the Batumi Station

Secondly, it’s really rare that you get to see the human side of someone responsible for 20 million deaths and for engineering cultural experiments that are still causing mayhem today. The museum really tries to show a man who, in addition to achieving so very much in the realm of civil society, loved his mother and his two wives. Very touching.

Stalin and Mother at Gori

The Road to Europe Is Long and Rocky, Part 523

Seeing the European flag in places like Sarpi, Georgia always makes me smile at humanity’s unceasing optimism, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to suggest such optimism is, at best, misguided. Our good friend BReed, in a post better entitled "We Were Molested By the Soviets for 70 Years and All We Got Was Electrification and These Stupid Stamps, points to but a few reasons why EU membership is such a distant dream for the Georgians. I have come across a few examples myself in my recent travels.

Now, everyone knows I love Turkey. I recognize that I tend to overlook elements of Turkishness that hold up poorly under close scrutiny. I’m just saying that, having seen Romania and Bulgaria, and spent a fair amount of time in Georgia and Azerbaijan, the Turks are getting the shaft from the EU. Let’s stop pretending that the EU gives a shit about human rights (would that Turkey had oil), buy those pesky generals off (everyone’s got their price) and let ‘em in already. Armed with a firm understanding of the principles of supply and demand, the Turks have got it going on.

Let me give you a comparative example. The Turks have a fantastic nationwide bus system. They know there are people who want to go places and money to be made getting them there. Competition is cutthroat and you can be reasonably certain of getting to your destination in one piece, in a respectable degree of comfort, on time for a fair price.

At one point of my journey, I had doubts. A bus on which I was riding broke down on the coastal highway between Trabzon and Hopa. As clouds of acrid smoke rose from its nether regions, I felt a rising – and too familiar -- sense of despair.

Passengers stood on the narrow, shadeless shoulder as cars and dump trucks filled with boulders roared past the driver and conductor, who were involved in intense negotiations or, possibly, castigations, that involved many hand gestures.

Nothing good happens to your travel plans when your bus catches on fire.

However, in no more than 15 minutes, another bus pulled up. Passengers and baggage boarded and the journey proceeded with no further delay.

That NEVER happens. I fell in love with the Turks all over again.

Contrast this to my mashrutka ride from Batumi, Georgia to Tbilisi.  I won’t bother elaborating on the general peril associated with riding in moving vehicles with Georgians, but let’s say just adherence to basic principles of highway safety was par for the course.

But, seriously, how stupid do you have to be to run out of gas on the country’s busiest highway, between its two biggest cities, with petrol stations every two kilometers, after already stopping twice to put no more than three or four liters at a time in the tank? HOW FUCKING STUPID?

I think Europe is pretty stupid sometimes, but this might exceed EU directives for maximum stupidity.

Live Through This!

Everything I want to say about Azerbaijan but can't is here on long-time reader Breed's new site. Breed's now in Tbilisi, but has wasted plenty of time drinking with the Produer in Baku, kicking ass in Bishkek and picking cotton in Ferghana.

No castrated commentary here!

Summertime Reading

'Cause you've probably forgotten, or maybe never heard of, the horror that was the  2004 Beslan school massacre, check out Chris Cheever's painstakingly (emphasis on the pain) researched piece in Esquire this month. It's so long, you'll probably want to pick up a copy, but some of it is online. It is a testament to just how little human life matters in some part of the world.

Cheevers is a former Marine and NYT reporter in Moscow. I think he's one of the few that "gets" what's happening in the FSU now, especially Azerbaijan. I would quibble with the article because it doesn't provide enough "before" and "after" context and it would have been interesting to get more insight into the decisions behind the Russian response, but the piece is truly outstanding.

Alternatively, you could keep reading about the injured racehorse.