About a year ago I was walking in the Bronx and a German Shepherd bit me on the forearm. The owner laughed at me and sarcastically told me to call the cops while the dog strained at his leash to get another piece of Cifaldi jerky. I ran away and went to the ER, and got 4 rabies shots over the course of 6 weeks.
What does this have to do with Georgia (the country) you ask? Well, the dog had a collar that said "Stalin4eva," but more importantly since I got bit I'm a bit frightened of dogs, and Georgia has a small problem with wild dogs. “Small” as in “big.” They are everywhere and when they sense your fear they follow you around looking cute and docile but are secretly plotting to rip you to shreds the moment you let your guard down.
If you ignore the dogs, Georgia is a very cool country to visit. We spent about three weeks in Georgia and loved it. Pro tip - if you want to experience massive culture shock spend 6 weeks in Japan and South Korea then fly to Georgia via Kazakhstan.
We arrived in Tbilisi and spent about a week there in total. We took a day trip to the wine country in the east, went to the Caucasian mountains on a 4 day hike up north, and went to Kutaisi in the center of the country as well. Below are a few thoughts on our time in Georgia.
The Georgian Pour
Did you know the earliest archaeological evidence of winemaking was found in Georgia, making Georgia the birthplace of wine? That’s right, France, Italy, Spain, they got nothing on Georgia (except membership in the EU).
We knew Georgia was a wine and cheese country, and after several months in Asia we were very ready to get blasted on fine wine and stuff our faces with dairy products. No offense to Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, or Thailand, but there’s a reason you haven’t had a delicious 2017 Cabernet from the Hanoi region, and it’s because that wine ain’t good and also doesn’t exist.
From Tbilisi we took a trip to the wine country a few hours east, although the entire country except the high mountains produces wine. We were guided on our tour by Vazha, a very knowledgeable man who gave us a lot of insight on Georgian culture throughout the trip. We were also joined by a couple from Germany, Olaf and Sandra, who made the entire experience even better.
A somewhat related note - if you need to make friends while traveling, talk to Germans. They are truly the friendliest travelers I’ve consistently encountered. I was already planning to visit my friends Regine and Torsten in Leipzig, whom I met while hiking in Nepal. On this leg of the journey we additionally met two German couples that we will be visiting, for a grand total of three lovely German pairs that we are looking forward to seeing again in Leipzig (Regine and Torsten), Berlin (Sandra and Olaf) and Munich (Caroline and Jürgen). More on this after we visit Germany, but suffice to say we extended our trip in Germany to almost a month to see all of these wonderful people. Also if you hike ANYWHERE in the world roughly 40 percent of all hikers you meet on the trail will be German, it’s a law of nature.
We drove to several wineries and quickly experienced what I will call the “Georgian Pour.” It’s when you think you’re about to get a few tablespoons of wine to taste in a lineup of 4 or 5 wines but instead the server just dumps half the bottle into your glass and you end up drunk after two “tastings.” Then they’ll insist you drink a shot of chacha (a spirit made from wine residuals that is about 40-50 percent alcohol) when you’re about to leave, just for an extra dose of hospitality.
Wine in Georgia is traditionally made in a unique fashion, in underground ceramic vats called qvevri. The skin of white grapes is left on, providing an amber color to most Georgian whites. This amber wine is actually getting popular in the USA, and I first saw it last summer when a friend of mine told me about “orange” wine. It’s good, and it pairs well with cheese and bread, of which there is always plenty in Georgia.
Our last stop of the day was the most memorable. We had visited a big winery first, then a smaller local winery after that. For our final “tasting” (imagine winning the Superbowl and calling the Gatorade bucket being poured on the coach a “tasting”) we visited a Georgian family that brewed their own wine on their property, and would also cook us a traditional Georgia feast called the supra.
Put yourself in our place for a moment. Close your eyes and imagine this: You walk into a lovely house around 8pm, the sun just setting. A gigantic dog is chained to a post and barking at you, but he’s a good boy. You’ll play with him later. An older gentleman is grilling kebabs of pork on a pit in the backyard, while his wife sets the table. Their son comes up and immediately gives you Georgian pours of his homemade wine and a huge cheese plate. You’re already halfway drunk and about to be fully toasted, you’ve discussed philosophy (poorly) with some Germans, and you’re pretty sure you asked your guide too many questions about politics.
The son leads you into the dining room, where a massive pile of food is lovingly heaped upon the table. You see bread, cheese, olives, pork skewers, chicken, a different kind of bread with cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, a vegetable stew, more bread, grilled eggplant, dumplings, more bread, and of course, bottles of wine and cha-cha. The son explains to you that he is the tamada, or toast-master, and the rules of this Georgian tradition are simple: do not drink when the tamada is giving a toast, and drink after the toast is done. Easy. Your soberness can still be salvaged.
Everyone starts to dig in, hoping to make a small dent in the wall of bread and cheese, and the tamada starts his toast. It’s short. Basically “I’m glad you’re here with my family and we can share our food and wine with you” with some extra details. You all drink. You start to eat again. 30 seconds pass and the tamada starts another toast. Unusual, you think, but maybe he wants to add something. It’s another short one. “So nice to see different people here, I will toast to international friendship.” You all drink. You start eating again. 30 seconds later, the tamada starts another toast. This is when you realize that the tamada will continue to toast every minute or so during the dinner, and you will never be sober, and Georgia is a land of bread and cheese and wine and friendship but also hangovers and weight gain, and it’s beautiful.
The Sosos
Soso is short for Ioseb, and is a common nickname in Georgia. We met several Sosos, and two stood out in particular. The first Soso was the curator of a building that was used by Stalin around 1904 to run an illegal printing press that produced communist leaflets and other anti-Tsarist literature.
We walked into the museum/communist party headquarters around 5pm on a Saturday and heard a voice around a corner say “Gamarjoba!” Stumbling out of the darkness came Soso. Soso was maybe 70 years old and is the sole caretaker of the museum. He is an avid communist and after the Georgian government cut funds to the building after the fall of the Soviet Union, Soso and the now much diminished Communist Party of Georgia took over.
Soso immediately made it clear he spoke little English, and we made it clear we spoke little Georgian. He also didn’t talk so much as yell. First came “WHERE YOU FROM?” and when we responded “America” he immediately shouted “CIA CIA!” He was smiling so I figured he didn’t hate us. Before taking us on a personal tour he forced us to take several shots of cognac with him and eat some chocolate. This was off to a great start.
Soso led us down a spiral staircase to the printing press room, exhibiting his full range of English by telling us “USA POLITIC NO GOOD, PEOPLE GOOD” and slapping me on the back quite forcefully. He also called me “COLONEL CIA!” and Laura "MRS. AMERICA" and let us know “I KGB, KILL CIA” while making shooting gestures at me. So far, the cultural interchange was strong.
After the printing press he led us upstairs to “Stalin’s Room,” where there is a recreation of the little bed Stalin slept in while taking a break from destabilizing Tsarist Russia. He insisted we sit on the bed while he took a picture of us. After we stood up, he handed me my phone then slapped me on the back again. I looked at my phone and noticed the screen was covered in blood. Then I looked at my shoulder and saw that it had blood on it as well. Then I looked at Soso’s hand and saw it was dripping blood profusely. Somewhere along the way Soso had cut his hand, and he had been bleeding for quite some time.
It got weird after that. Soso was embarrassed that he had bled on several of my possessions and on me. We insisted he take an alcohol wipe from us but since he couldn't drink the alcohol wipe he refused. We eventually got him to wrap up his hand though. Soon after that, two Georgian men came into the room looking for a tour, and Soso promptly commanded us to sit back down again on Stalin’s bed while he spoke to the newcomers. While I sat on Stalin’s bed in my blood shirt watching a drunk Communist yell at a new pair of tourists in Georgian and frequently using the word “AMERIKULI” I thought maybe it was time to leave. Thirty minutes later we managed to get out, but not before Soso made us take more photos. I made sure to get him to shake my hand at the end.
The second Soso we met was a much different person, and we saw him several times in different places across the country. His name was Ioseb Jughashvili, better known as Stalin by westerners and Soso by his “friends.” Stalin was born in Gori, just 30 minutes west of Tbilisi. Although most people remember the Soviet Union as primarily Russian, there were in fact 15 Soviets that made up the Union, with Russia simply being the largest and most dominant. Stalin didn’t learn Russian until he was 8, and from his accent during speeches his Georgian provenance was obvious to all Soviet citizens.
So, Georgia is the home of one of history’s worst people, but also one of the most influential. I have a fascination with how someone ended up becoming like Stalin, and although I didn’t have an interest in visiting the house he was born in (that seems a bit too much like a pilgrimage) I am fascinated by the vestiges that remain of him across the country of Georgia.
To be clear, with the exception of Bloody Hands Soso, not a single Georgian we met was proud that Stalin was born in Georgia. However, there is a definite difference in the way Stalin’s legacy is treated in Georgia compared to Hitler, Pol Pot, or other dictators. There is no Stalin worship and his memory seems to be slowly being erased, but you can still find traces of him across the country. His childhood home, the printing press, his dacha outside Tskaltubo, statues and images of him that persist in odd places.
There is no hero worship here, but rather a stubborn persistence of memory and some selective division between what happened in the Soviet Union, and what happened after. It’s almost as if Georgia cannot quite decide between erasing all memory of Stalin and washing its hands clean of him, or keeping him as a national icon that took over Russia from the outside and made Georgia’s mark on the world. So they take the middle route and hope that nobody mentions “Georgia” and “World’s Most Evil Man” in the same sentence. Looking at you, Austria.
The Hike
In our constant quest to walk a knife’s edge between fat and fit we decided to embark on a four night hike in the Caucasus. To ensure we didn’t lose too much weight we ate khachapuri (cheese bread) every day leading up to this hike, every day during the hike, and every day after the hike until we got on a plane to South Africa.
Anyway, this hike was remarkable, and quite a different experience for me from the diarrhea extravaganza that was the Jirisiin Ridge hike in South Korea. We took a train, then a marshrutka (which is just a big van that is the primary mode of transport in Georgia) from Tbilisi to the town of Mestia, then from there started the hike in the rain. The four night route was from Mestia to Ushguli, which claims to hold the title of “Highest continuously inhabited settlement in Europe.” It’s pretty damn high, at about 7000 feet above sea level. On the way we visited some very small villages that were also pretty damn high. One feature all these towns shared was the presence of defensive towers that double as residences. These strange buildings dot every town, and in most cases are hundreds of years old, remnants from a time when the inhabitants of this mountain valley were constantly at war with invaders from the North and South.
After a not so great day in the rain, the weather cleared up and the rest of the hike was spectacular. We even got to ford a river on horses! Which incidentally was the first and last time I’ll ever get on a horse. Nobody told me how unstable those things feel once you're on one of them, and I did not like it at all.
We also met lots of Germans (no surprise there) and had the good fortune to meet Jürgen and Caroline, a couple from Munich who were having their own adventure in Georgia. After I gave them questionable directions one morning (I had no idea where we were going but wanted to look cool) then saw them alive in the evening, we had some beers and conversation and hit it off. It helped that we were the only four people staying at the trailside hotel that could easily accommodate 50. Low season is great!
By the end of the hike we were exhausted, and ready to take a marshrutka back from Ushguli to Mestia and relax in a place with wifi and a private bathroom. So of course there was a landslide on the way back to town. We sat there in the van, watching the rocks tumble down intermittently about 100 feet in front of us, and pondered our life choices. There were four of us in the van, plus the driver, and we talked over our options. The rocks were still falling (mostly smaller, with some big ones mixed in) but the van driver and a few other random Georgian men were telling us it would stop in less than an hour, and a bulldozer that was already parked nearby would clear the way. I wanted to trust the random Georgian men and wait, but the other three people (including Laura) wanted to leave and hike above the landslide, and rejoin the road on foot. This would be backtracking our route from yesterday and take about 4 hours, and I’m a lazy man so I was against this.
I am also a man who respects democracy, so after I was outvoted we left to hike above the landslide. Using the time honored skill of pantomime, our driver told us since we paid him to take us back to Mestia he’d meet us back on the road once the landslide was cleared, which was really nice of him. So I ran ahead of Laura and the others, saw the landslide was already being cleared from above (making a mental note to tell Laura “I told you so”), and met our driver again. He had smoked maybe 15 cigarettes and would smoke a few more before the others arrived. We got back to town a few hours later than anticipated, but none of our heads were crushed by flying boulders so that counts as a win.
Russians Pay 20 Percent
Another fascinating aspect of our time in Georgia was seeing Russia and the war in Ukraine through a Georgian lens. Everywhere in Tbilisi you can see anti-Russian graffiti, Ukrainian flags plastered on walls and hanging from buildings, and even anti-Russian messages on restaurant menus and wi-fi network names. In one restaurant we connected to the wi-fi network “Russia is an occupier” and read on the menu that “A service charge of 20 percent will apply to all Russians because Russia occupies 20 percent of my country.”
To explain - Russia does pretty much occupy 20 percent of Georgian territory. In a conflict in 2008 Russia invaded the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and after the war ended just…didn’t leave. This was overshadowed in international news by the events in Crimea and later Ukraine, but Georgians have not forgotten, and the relationship between the two countries is tense. The interesting part is that although many Georgians distrust Russia, their country is massively dependent upon Russian trade. As one Georgian put it to us, “How can we join the EU when we know what Russia will do? They think Georgia is still their country, and they will punish us if we upset them.”
Since the war in Ukraine started, thousands of Russians have moved to Georgia, taking advantage of the cozy relationship between the two nations that allows Russians to live in Georgia with no restrictions for a year. This has driven up the price of real estate in Tbilisi and prompted intense responses by some Georgians, particularly the younger generation. Some bars are said to require a “loyalty pledge” for Russians to enter, signing a paper that denounces Putin and the war in Ukraine. There are massive protests against Russia and the war, and in general the feeling of tension is palpable in Tbilisi, though less intense in smaller cities and mostly non-existent in the countryside.
You can hear Russian spoken almost everywhere you go, and most middle-aged and older Georgians speak fluent Russian from the Soviet days. It’s a very strange experience to see hordes of Russian tourists ambling about Tbilisi in front of graffiti that literally says “Russians go home.”
In the end, I felt a bit sorry for the Russians. At least some of them don’t agree with what Putin is doing, and there is nothing they can do about it. So they leave home, and come to one of the only countries that will allow them to move there, and then must live every day with the knowledge that they are unwanted by a large part of the populace. During our final night in Tbilisi we wandered unknowingly into a fancy cocktail bar run by Russians (I figured it out when I saw giant Cyrillic tattoos on our bartenders’ forearms and also when everyone spoke Russian). At first we felt uncomfortable, knowing this was a place some Georgians would not like to have in their city. But everyone was friendly, the drinks were great, and it was just another lesson that people are not always defined by their nationality. Except, of course, Americans. USA! USA! USA!
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