Georgia საქართველოში
April, 2023
It is getting very dark in the valley. Dogs bark wild and chained from unseen places, reverberating off solemn, smoky mountains, so perfect as to seem painted on, like a colossal set backdrop. Cicadas roaring in alternation, then in tandem; water and moisture trickling and gushing downwards, churning and gurgling in main pipes and the rapid river that even the mountains bow to; God is here in Georgia.
My companion and I have set off late from Batumi–– at this moment perhaps too late––catching a cab to Korolistavi and attempting Mt. Mtirala for the second time. Alas the Southern Caucasus conquers us again, though this time not because of a bear, as had happened on the prior attempt, but a snow-covered path that no longer seems to exist.
Shortly after this hike my companion and I will part ways. This sultry evening comes in waves in my memory; like a stabbing dream, like the intangible, horrific sweetness only lovers know. So much time has elapsed, though only seconds. I think about you all the time.
My companion and I have set off late from Batumi–– at this moment perhaps too late––catching a cab to Korolistavi and attempting Mt. Mtirala for the second time. Alas the Southern Caucasus conquers us again, though this time not because of a bear, as had happened on the prior attempt, but a snow-covered path that no longer seems to exist.
Shortly after this hike my companion and I will part ways. This sultry evening comes in waves in my memory; like a stabbing dream, like the intangible, horrific sweetness only lovers know. So much time has elapsed, though only seconds. I think about you all the time.
Coming out somewhere near Kveda Makhunseti, we hit the road hitchhiking, thumbs pointed up in the purple haze of twilight; a blissfully soft breeze is whispering Summer’s onset, tickling my face, blowing up my shorts and into my sweating crotch.
Not one car slows this evening. Though we always have much luck with rides in the Lower Caucasus, tonight no one is biting. The nearest cab in Batumi cancels the ride, leaving us quite stranded and slowly resigning to a very, very long walk back to civilisation. A slow and creeping sense of unease as the black night marches on, the ceaseless barking of wild animals;
‘Could that be those massive dogs that beset us coming down the mountain road earlier?’, I ask aloud, laughing.
Silently, we walk. Insect life illuminated by the sudden appearance of the sporadic, lone car snaking down the steep pass. Rubber footsteps on hot bitumen, the rustling of clothing and the metal clang of the water canister. My heart is racing, my palms perspiring. I am utterly exhausted from the lengthy hike and the growling hunger in my stomach is stripped only by the adrenaline coursing outwards from my solar plexus.
A brown, beat-up sedan pulls up alongside us.
‘Batum?’, a gruff and kindly male asks.
‘Yes!’, and peel for the doors.
Inside we are blasted by a wall of Georgian music. That deeply primitive, incomparable richness and soul; music birthed in impossible snow-capped, tropical mountains, the mossy rock, hazed mist and prehistoric dinosaur ferns as big as trucks; that murky Black Sea…the sea of the flood that cleansed the earth of sin.
The man is in his late thirties, weathered, with kind, brown eyes touched with nostalgia and melancholy. He is local but thinks we speak Russian. My companion is a Slovak and can follow. I have no idea what’s going on and smile like one does when they have no idea what’s going on.
‘English?’, I ask.
‘Ruski. English little! Me, Roman!’
We introduce ourselves.
‘Georgia. Beautiful. Beautiful country!’, I praise.
Roman nods enthusiastically.
‘You…?’
He pretends to smoke a joint.
‘Marihhhhuuaana?’ (emphasis on the ‘hhhhhhhuuaa’)
‘I used to smoke lots of marijuana. No more. I love the smell of marijuana!’, then inhale dramatically.
‘Marihhhhuuaana, good!’, putting his thumbs up grinning, driving on two wheels and a death wish.
The night blurs past the windows, turn after turn the long descent. We say nothing to each other; in silence we listen to the music. I feel the floor of my gut rising in total exhilaration; a feeling I had when I was 16 and my Dad picked me up after i’d hit the bong.
‘Indeed it is ecstasy to plough into the unknown; to be utterly unchained. Life is made of moments like this...’
I think to myself; to collapse into bed, earned, not stolen with anxiety-ridden low-grade panic over all the bullshit we never get around to. Just being alive.
We pull up in downtown Batumi. The neon of back-alley slot halls, the filth of alcohol and gambling advertising preying typically on the down-and-out and desperate; crumbling Soviet-era apartment blocks; so close but just out of reach, somewhere out there, the combed, pristine seashore promenade. Here, the places real Georgians inhabit, hidden from view behind mountains of fresh-cut-and-dried tobacco, moonshine cha cha in repurposed pasta sauce bottles; homeless sleeping on cardboard boxes; begging hunchback women old enough to be your Grandmother. How can they suffer to smile whilst those who possess everything material under this sun strut in Dior with such misery on their faces?
We all swing open the doors and step out into the heaving city. Roman comes around and embraces us like brothers do when going off to war. His hold is so tender, so genuine.
‘God bless you Roman’.
His car screeches away from the curb, pluming exhaust. We make through the chaos for home.
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Georgia obliterates the closed mind, or shutters it forever. In Georgia, I began to learn what it means to be true to yourself; to follow your gut down the road despite your fear; sometimes the beating of your heart is an indication of the lesson you are being asked to learn; programmed by circumstances from so many past lives, your ‘fear’ isn’t yours, anyway; it is no longer relevant, not even real.
Georgia doesn’t care about your flashy car; next to the flow of foreign, luxury logos streaming down the boulevards of Batumi, she provides you with a thousand smashed-up bumpers clinging on to dear life like old men who refuse to die; heavily dinted, worn and weary but inevitably wiser and with more character than the younger, prettier models .
Georgia gives everyone a chance; the cow or enormous pig have just as much of a right to cross the road as you do; the wild, rabid dog under your verandah needs shelter just as much as you do; the elderly lady with one tooth selling fake honey also needs to make a buck as much as you do. What makes you so special? Everything needs to eat. In Georgia, make delicious food and give glory to the peasant kitchen. Exemplify and gentrify it, overprice it, criticize it, slap it in the most pretentious eateries of New York City, Sydney and Amsterdam.
Georgia gave me the toilet that didn’t flush properly. It showed me how pathetic my trivial frustrations with the world are. She gave me the thief who charges twice, a pretender so worthy of an Oscar and more gifted at subtext than Chekhov. Georgia served me my Western privilege in her glorious, tarnished mirror; the arrogance of the world I come from, the ignorance of what is denoted there a good life.
Georgia taught me the parallels life has to a marshrutka ride – life doesn’t come on time, nor does it depart when you are ready. You must wait there patiently on the side of the road, shut up and keep hope that soon it will come.
Georgia gives you sudden, deafening fireworks right outside your window; caught in a dream or a nightmare, wedged between East and West, it could just as well be an invading army exploding the sky apart. The building could be about to crumble beneath your feet; you could be about to die, at any moment; these could be your last seconds on earth – will you have peace with the life you have lived?
Georgia illustrates the parallel universe of the oligarchy; inequality of medieval, feudal proportions; material perfection and serenity – like that in the film Children of Men – hidden behind golden gates, just out-of-sight of the utter misery and enormity of the slum existing to serve that little strip of silken luxury by the sea; the stink of authoritarianism wafts from surveilled, Potemkin CCTV resorts, mingling with the smell of raw sewage from the ghetto.
Georgia as she swims in my memory now has shown me that there is nothing in life more valuable than being kind to others; no amount of money, no renovated house, no neatly paved sidewalk, no clever online train ticketing system, no functioning bureaucracy, no designer handbag - can ever be worth more than looking at yourself in the mirror and approving who stares back.
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