It's been weeks since I returned from Georgia, but given the time I had, my snowy weekend in Tiblisi is still powder fresh on my mind. Forgive the Ray Charles title, but I'm sure Georgians would be proud to call that old masterpiece theirs.
A "mashrutka" is a beat-up van that acts as affordable regional transportation in the rising land of the Fallen Red Star. They are always running (except when they break down), often rusty, sometimes quick, and they never have seatbelts. The driver is usually a smoking, black-jacketed, well-worn wise man of the road.
I attempted to take the posh way out. I booked a flight from Yerevan to Tiblisi a month earlier. Eventually I discovered secondhand that Armavia was canceling all Tiblisi-bound flights. I never got a phone call or email from the airline about my cancellation. Good thing I had a friend on an email list of consequence, or else I'd have been left at the sleek but empty airport without a way across the Caucuses, bereft of at least 24 precious hours of my Georgia time.
The mashrutka was the way to go anyway. The ride was as one friend put it through "stunning" landscape. On the way out of Yerevan, the lesser Caucuses lifted on either side of a climbing plateau like giant, rolling white capped waves. Eventually flowing water reversed course and the mashrutka switched back and forth along steep curves into a barren, but gorgeous valley. Here I remembered the rule about riding in mashrutkas: never look forward through the windshield, lest it affect your stomach, your bowels, or your sense of attachment to mortality.
According to the sign, the new border post on the Armenian side was built courtesy of the US Embassy. The mashrutka driver ordered everyone off, and after passing through an open air immigration checkpoint, I walked across a bridge into Georgia. It reminded me of the border between India and Nepal at Kakarbitta, which was the last time I walked across a bridge that formed the boundary between two nations.
In the midst of the jet age, it is a great thrill to walk over a border.
It's always a marvel to me that so many nations are completely different when passing over an artificial political boundary, as if long ago people sensed the different aura and separated themselves as naturally if the border had been the impenetrable wall of the Andes or the Sahara.
Whereas Armenia's mountains are round, yet rough and foreboding, Georgia's mountains seem more crisply defined, but smooth and storybook like- decidedly more Alpen. The pine forests in Georgia are thick, whereas Armenia has sparse taiga-esque vegetation.
Entering Tiblisi for the first time, I immediately got the magic of the place. The spires, the lights, the steam of the hot springs, the smoke of the chimneys, and all the energy filled the river gorge which the city straddles. Tiblisi means "Hot Springs" in Georgian. Funny that there's also a Warm Springs in the State of Georgia where FDR used to go to recoup and divest himself of the weight of the Potomac.
This was the first place I've ever been to that seem like three major religions live in complete harmony. This is of course an illusion: given history, not all has always been a religious love-in in Tiblisi, and some gigantic places like New York, Jerusalem and Istanbul have even more churches, mosques and temples all in one place. But it was the way the three types of buildings were contently situated around the town - as if halls of worship were like different colannades of the same temple.
So I have a confession to make. I didn't really do a whole lot when I was in Tiblisi. But like any good student of political science, I have plenty of excuses. First of all, it was snowing beautifully (i.e. pretty hard) for nearly the entire time I was there and I didn't bring proper footwear.
Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine have something in common. The Soviet Union saw to that. They all have sword weilding "Mother" statue on hills above their capital cities. The USA installed television towers. Tiblisi has both.
I had a cozy hotel room at the Hotel City which had a glass elevator and thoughtfully supplied a corkscrew in every room (eh hem Le Meridien Senegal!).
Also I enjoyed eating so much that sightseeing played second fiddle. Georgian food is MARVELOUS. I first discovered it in Ukraine a few years ago, as there was a Georgian restuarant for a time in Sevastopol. The higher ups in the Soviet government used to take visiting foreign dignitaries out for Georgian food in Moscow to brag about this region's culinary acumen.
Next time I'm back in Georgia, I'll blog about exactly Georgian food is, but if you don't know, google it and then make a reservation. Meanwhile, above is a picture of a khatchapuri joint. Look at the adverts on the window and listen to your belly grumble.
I did go out one night. I had dinner with a Georgian friend of mine who I went to grad school with back in Denver five years ago. We ate and drank and told stories. She explained how she just barely escaped the Russians invading her country in 2008. We talked proudly for hours about how productive and awesome all of our friends are.
Ahhhhhhrrrrkkkkitechture. Very impressive here. Balconies! Pitched roofs! A mix between Crimean Tatar, Key West and Kyiv. What a match heaven and the gorge made.
Then there were the hot springs. I love hot water and will go out of my way to lounge about in it. Tiblisi's namesake is of course its hot water, the Orbeliani Baths date from the 17th century, and Pushkin had the best bath of his life there (thanks Lonely Planet). According to Gilpin, the best bath of his life so far was on Mt. Kurama in Japan, but awarded second place in his exhaustive list is the sulfur-infused, Samarkandish Orbeliani Baths in Tiblisi. This experience had all the finest ingredients. There was a near perfect temperature (around 105 degrees F) and total zen tranquility - one is granted his own private chamber with a hot spring pool and a circular hole in the 400 year old domed ceiling, just big enough to let steam escape and snow fall on one's bended arm.
It took this experience to decide that I must install my retirement cabin atop a geologically volatile area. With an daily experience like the Orbeliani Baths, earthquakes and volcanos could't possibly cause an old man to worry about dying anything but extremely happy.
So as you can see, I took lots of pictures with my new camera. These pictures demonstrate the extremely rich and diverse religious and cultural heritage of one of the greatest places I've ever visited.
These pictures speak for themselves. I didn't do any reading, tour-patronizing or museum-going. So it follows that I will end this blog by telling you all how I paid $50 to swim in 50m long Vake Pool, one of the greatest swimming pools on the face of mother earth. Not a single drop of chlorine. It is filtered by UV radiation.
Georgia - what a glorious place in time to have existed, if only for 60 hours.
