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Travel Stories >> Georgia >> To the Conference

OFF TO THE CONFERENCE - JUNE 24, 2003

[ Note: to those who read aloud in their heads, when I mention a Georgian word, consider the fact that the Georgians stress the first syllable in their words. ]

I have been hired as a consultant to the SAVE project (the one Roger is working on), and my scope of work involves facilitating the project’s first annual work plan. I love these facilitations because I get to work with the local staff (who are wonderful) and I get to see some of the country – but most of all because I get to learn about the project. It is a good project but with some very ambitious goals and the Chief of Party, a very kind and very accomplished development specialist, seems grateful for some assistance in helping him plan, prepare, and get through these three days achieving all the team has set out to accomplish.

But back to the best part of today. So Tamuna (say: Tah – moona) – the office queen and I, together with driver Tariel (readers will remember Tariel (say: Tah-ree-el) from our arrival in Georgia at 4:50am last week) are heading off to the conference site, 2+ hours north of Tbilisi in the Kazbegi mountains – not too far from the Russian border. We are in some very high mountains and in fact the alpine beauty (it is June so we can see snow in the distance but our surroundings are covered with little white, yellow and purple flowers) is almost overwhelming. The three of us are coming up here earlier because there is much to check on to confirm the venue is ready to receive the entire 24 of us this evening (and for the rest of the week).

So… we start our journey today in Tbilisi where we leave on the late side because I run off to find Roger to find out where our suitcase for this trip is located so I can grab the digital camera (he is coming with the rest of the team in the bus later and will not be able to stop along the way to take pictures, whereas I may). We wait while I locate Roger who has to locate Sergo (readers will remember Sergo from our first tourist venture out of Tbilisi the second day we were here) who knows where he put our suitcase. We finally find Sergo out by the vehicles and Roger asks him where our bag is, and he tells us that it is in Tariel’s car (the one I am going to be riding in). Grrrrrr, could I have been a bigger dope? Ok, so now we really are off.

Ok, not yet, because Tamuna needs shampoo (and snacks for the road) so we stop at a Georgian supermarket (not particularly reminiscent of a Western supermarket, mind you). While Tamuna is buying her various staples, Tariel gets me out of the car to check out the fresh fruit (the vendor, a kind, portly woman wearing some striking eye shadow). I have eaten nothing here, by the way, that hasn’t been wonderful (ok, except in the Marriott, but hotel food is hotel food after all), and the fruit is extraordinary. We are in plum and cherry season (oh, and farther out of town there are strawberries but we are getting to the end of those) and the cherries come in sweet and sour as well as red and yellow. The yellow cherries are sweeter; both are to die for. The vegetables and fruit here are all grown in fairly organic conditions – by accident but fairly organic just the same - no fertilizers, no pesticides, just sunshine and water. Tariel asks the vendor for a taste of this or that and hands them to me; everything he gives me is delicious. He lowers his voice to whisper to tell me that these (or those) cherries are a day old or three, and shows me how to look at the stem to find that out. He and I actually converse usually in Spanish given his previous work experience, his Spanish is excellent and he frequently reverts to it to ask me questions or tell me things. It is ever so slightly surreal, to be this far from Spain, in distance and situation, and be speaking in Spanish to this man. I say to him in Spanish, “Let me pay this woman something for eating all this fruit.” To which he relies in English, horrified, “Of course NOT, in Georgia taste (sic) is FREE!.”

It would seem that a significant fruit for the Georgians is the plum. There are large sweet red plums (like we know) called kliavi, there are smaller bright green sweet/sour plums called alucha, and there are small sour plums called, t’qemali. T’qemali plums are used through the plum season and made into what can only be called a thin jam (a sauce) that is served with grilled or fried meat dishes. There is green t’qemali, yellow t’qemali, and red t’qemali, depending on when during the growing season they are harvested and processed. I have had the green and the red and while different, they are both extraordinary. To describe the taste of t’qemali sauce would be hard, actually. It is made with boiled, pureed t’qemali fruit together with garlic, Georgian parsley, and other as of yet secret ingredients (but Tamuna swears the green t’qemali has no sugar; although the red does). This wonderful condiment shames catsup and goes well with meats and starches (potatoes, breads of all kinds). If we end up with the house we are considering, there is a t’qemali tree in the yard and I have every intention of learning to make this sauce – for the rest of my life (I haven’t yet considered the fact that I will find that difficult to do while living in countries without t’qemali trees, but hey, I haven’t reached that challenge yet)!

All right, so we travel out of town right by the road we have been looking at this house on; a house that needs some work (the patio is not yet tiled, I am to choose light fixtures with the landlady, the kitchen must be finished – cabinets and appliances) but one that meets many of our bigger specifications. I am realizing that if we end up in this house that we will be located very centrally and very conveniently for day and other trips out of town. The main highway is called the Georgian Military Highway (the name has no relation to recent times, but rather stems back to the 1800s) and is the direct link between Tbilisi and Russia. It is a well-maintained (relatively speaking) road and can even accommodate the 18-wheeler trucks of produce and other items traveling from Turkey to Russia. Apparently this route has served for centuries (in different conditions) as a major route between Asia and Europe.

As we leave Tbilisi city on the Georgian Military Highway and enter the surrounding country-side, we suddenly come upon Jvari (the spectacular 6th century church on the mountain crag overlooking the Aragvi River) up the mountain on our right (don’t miss the enormous statue of Soviet poet Mikhail Lermontov situated along the roadway) and the wonderful town of Mtskheta which is built around the church of the Living Pillar (Sveti Tskhoveli) – all of which we explored our second day in country. We zip along the highway; Tariel has his radar detector set and it seems to be working. The scenery becomes bucolic, the lush wide Aragvi River valley we are riding along and the spectacular, completely undeveloped, mountains along us on either side. It is a warm, sunny day in June and we are heading to the mountains. We are all in a good mood and we chatter and listen to the radio or Tariel’s tapes. Beside the road (which quickly goes from divided two lane to single lane) the vendors hawk the usual motor oil, vegetables, cherries, alucha (plums), but also bread (puri), and a very special bread called, khachapuri. Khachapuri looks like a pizza dough molded into the shape of a flattened football. It is served warm/hot with melted sulguni cheese (sort of mozzarella-like) in the middle – and sometimes an egg in the middle, too. It is amusing to drive along and see these breads (maybe 15”-24” wide) hanging out by the road to be sold. Some of the more conscientious vendors cover theirs with plastic wrap (the roads are very dusty!).

We pass by many roadside gardens, looking green and healthy here in this rich river valley. We pass flocks of sheep grazing or walking along, and many dogs, and many cows (especially later in the foothills of the mountains) – which all look healthy and well-fed – and are just as dopey and stupid and the cows at home! The children are all out of school now and so there are occasional groups of teens, hanging out in the roadside villages. The Georgians are a good-looking, a healthy-looking people, with bright eyes, clear, easily tanned skin, and ready smiles.

After we have traveled a little more than an hour we come upon the Zhinvali Dam. Holding back the Zhinvali Reservoir, it seems rather unremarkable until you pass it and are able to see the water behind it. Tariel tells us that he has swum here since his uncle lives in the village just south (downstream?!) of the reservoir and is an engineer for the dam. He tells us that the water is very cold. And it looks very cold, but it also looks incredibly inviting. It is a fascinating blue-green color, really a teal. And it snakes out into three or four valleys so that it is impossible to see the better part of it (but allows you to imagine how huge it is). This is the water we wash under and we drink out of the tap in Tbilisi. I try not to think about where it goes and what happens to it between this spectacular location and my shower.

At the far north end of the Zhinvali Reservoir we come suddenly upon Ananuri… a military complex that dates from the 16th and 17th centuries (“I like the older stuff, myself,“ says Tamuna) complete with chapels, and like any good fortress, crenellated walls and daunting defense towers. I take a picture of this and vow to return, perhaps many times. Sitting in this valley with those lush, green hills behind it, it is indeed a striking piece of architecture.

We continue on our way and I read in the Georgia book I have that once we enter the mountains and begin to climb that we should stop for three items in particular. Since I am a tourist, and am behaving like a tourist, and am traveling with two Georgians who are gracious enough to humor me, I suggest we stop for all three. The first “must-see” is called a pokhohki (a huge round hat made of lamb fleece that, from a distance looks like an enormous white, fuzzy sno-cone) and of course I try one on and Tamuna shrieks, “You MUST buy this! I will buy it for you! It is beautiful!! You will be all the fashion in Chicago!!!!” (Chicago?) No, no, I buy it – it is only a few dollars and it will be a conversation piece for the rest of my life – even thought Tamuna insists these are VERY much in fashion everywhere now. Everywhere? I have been lots of places and have managed to miss seeing this. I look at my reflection in the car window with this thing on and I am suddenly reminded of a James Bond film, I can’t remember which, that involved ski bunnies and lodges. In the 60s. The snow bunnies are wearing skin-tight ski outfits and these huge round white fuzzy things on their heads. In the 60s. In my jeans and short sleeves I look a little like a human dandelion. Of course we take lots of pictures, oddly enough, Tariel looks good in all the pokhokhis he tries on… especially the dark ones. I can picture him in the dark blue buttoned up traditional Georgian jacket with knee-high boots on, arms crossed, and dancing that wild eastern dance where the men look like they are kicking from a sitting position.

Our next must-try is the original version of a now-popular snack for kids on the US. Fruit leather. It is outstanding. I try apple (ok), and plum (I love it), and buy a huge (one size fits all) roll of plum leather for 45 cents. No preservatives, no sugar added, no colorants, and mostly, no Disney character on the fancy plastic wrapper, just a big flat piece of dried fruit rolled to travel. It is called tklapi and although it looks sort of leathery (brownish) it is just the right mix of sour and sweet and is a much better workout for your teeth. Our last must-try is the least successful. A sweet called churckhela. Churckhela looks, at first glance, like a really lumpy brown candle, swinging from the vendor’s table by its wick. It is, in fact, a candy (of sorts) made from boiled grape skins and walnuts. The walnuts are strung on pieces of string and dipped into vats (apparently) of this grape skin syrup (gee, think they add any sugar!?), let to dry and (ostensibly) harden and are then eaten off of the string. The churckheli I bought was more rubber on the outside than crunchy candylike and Tariel was disgusted. “Don’t eat that one, it’s not done right.” He continued to tell us that in his uncle’s village the families make a lot of these during the grape harvest and in October then that happens he will make sure I get GOOD churckheli, none of this rubbery stuff.

We begin to really climb and I find we are in a gorgeous Alpine valley of sorts full of tiny flowers, the mountains rising up on either side of us (that is, including the one we are climbing) are covered by a carpet of lush bright green grass that stretches for miles and miles both vertically and horizontally. It is breathtaking. I feel the urge to break into song, “…the hills are alive…” (ok, not really, but wow!).

We wind along up the hairpins, easily passing the 18 wheelers (and double! trucks) from Turkey who are struggling to negotiate the toughest turns (on a one-lane pot-holed road) on their way North into Russia. We arrive at our hotel, which is actually a ski resort, built in 1987 with Austrian money and know-how (and has not, apparently, invested much in maintenance or improvements since then). It has that same Eastern European dusty, sort of run-down feel around the edges, but it staffed by a lovely manager (Nana) who is eager to assist us in any way possible – and spends the next three days doing just that!

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