Ten weeks in to my stay in Tbilisi, Georgia, and I still find myself engaged with the place. Usually, by this time, the mystique of the new has worn off a bit and somewhere my mind is casting around for a new place to be. But, perhaps because I still consider myself to be an ex-punk, there is just something in the general anarcho-contrarian vibe here that resonates.
Take, for example, the language. On hearing a small boy in the street shouting out “Mama, mama!" most people would not unreasonably assume that he was wanting his mother. And, in pretty much every other country on the planet, they would be correct. But not here in Georgia. Here the word “mama” actually means “father.” And, somewhat inevitably, the word for “mother” is actually “deda,” a close approximation to the word for father used by everyone else.
If you expect Georgians to do something one way, they will most likely do it another.
Plumbers will typically arrive to fix your tap mid to late evening. Other builders will knock on your door at 7 in the morning on Sunday to do the job they’d been promising to do for some time. Last month, a local guy started to cut down low branches on the street outside with a chainsaw at a quarter to midnight on Saturday. No one batted an eyelid. All just par for the course.
Georgians, like punks, also love to consume alcohol. And they also do a pretty good job of producing it - especially wine. They claim to trace their viniculture back to 6,000 BC, thereby beating their close neighbours the Armenians by a couple of millennia. Wikipedia does not back up this claim but who really knows?
They have their own distinct style of wine-making - using not just the flesh of the grape, as the Europeans do, but also the stem, seeds and skin. To make a bit of extra cash, most wineries will also make some the Euro-way too. But they know of course that theirs is best. One distinct, and strangely enjoyable, feature of Georgians wines is the prevalence of semi-sweet reds like Kindzmarauli. Refreshing on a balmy summer’s evening.
One spin-off of the wine-making process is a fearsome spirit known as “Cha-cha.” After one of the wine-pressings, the sludge of skins, seeds and stems is filtered out and distilled a few times, until a fiery liquor remains. Cha-cha produced by major wine-makers is typically around 40% alcohol. That produced in the villages, typically 80%!
In addition, Georgians brew both normal, German-style lager and an assortment of craft beer IPAs and APAs.
With all this alcohol floating around, and cheaply available, one might imagine that Georgia would have a not inconsiderable alcohol problem. Not so, they claim. Why? Because the condition of alcoholism is not recognised by the Georgian health authorities. Drug dependence - yes. But alcohol dependence - no. There are no alcoholics here!
Another thing that Georgia is famous for is being a cradle of human civilisation. In the 1930s, some five miles north of the border with Armenia, near to the village of Dmanisi, local archeologists were digging up a site known to have been a stopping point on the old Silk Road. They found heaps of exciting stuff from that era but then dug a little deeper and began to find prehistoric remains. Fast forward to the nineties, and archaeologists began to unearth human bones and skull fragments dating from around 1.8 million years previous.
This created considerable uproar, and not a little scepticism, in the paleo-anthropological community worldwide. Up until that time, it had been generally accepted that early humans had not left Africa until 1 million years ago. More diggings, sponsored by American universities, ensued, finally resulting in the discovery of a wholly intact human skull from the same era, the only such ever found.
American paleo-anthropologist, Herman Ponzner, in his book “Burn,” recalls his time on these digs with a huge enthusiasm. His experience of being involved in making groundbreaking discoveries was however slightly tempered by his recollection of the sheer amount of local alcohol that it was considered de rigeur to consume nightly, especially when big discoveries had been made.
Having read Ponzner’s book, I set out to check the Dmanisi site with a friend one hot Sunday. The experience seemed to encapsulate many aspects of Georgian culture.
Leaving at 10.30am from Tbilisi’s Southern Marshrutka terminal, we travelled the first 50km, to Marneuli with ease for the equivalent of about $1. Marshrutkas are local minibuses. From there, we got two more Marshrutkas, one to Bolnisi - a town established by German immigrants in the time when Georgia was part of the Russian empire - and thence to Dmanisi village. All was going smoothly so far. However, after arriving at Dmanisi, and seeing people look at us like they’d never seen tourists before, it quickly became clear that the archaeological site was not near here.
It turned out that we had gone past the turning some 15km back. A taxi-driver demanded an exorbitant sum to drive there. So we stayed at the Marshrutka stop and waited for the next one heading back towards Bolnisi. After about twenty minutes, a local man arrived. He explained in broken Russian that the next one would be another hour and didn’t himself look totally confident in his prediction. Attempts to hitch drew a blank so we stopped another cab. This guy came up with a more reasonable fare so we jumped in. He drove, in typical Georgian style, ie as though being chased by the cops, all the way back and then down the road that leads to Armenia, off which the dig site was situated.
Exiting the cab, we began to walk up the dirt track marked as leading to the site. There were some buildings at the top. Peering into the first building, wondering if this was some kind of office for the archaeological site, revealed it to rather be someone’s home, complete with food gently cooking on a stove. I exited, walked around the back and found an attractive-looking church building, locked, but with an open ante-room that featured three modern-day renditions of iconic Jesus figures.
Walking back round to the front, an aging priest emerged, presumably from his house, looking a little concerned at us as we wandered about. He gestured that the dig-site was over there.
We followed as recommended and after a while came to a loosely-gated compound with an unoccupied ticket booth adjacent. Entering through the gate, a woman ran up and took us back to the booth to pay our admission - 3 GEL (about $1). We were then left to wander around.
I guess the whole site covered about one acre. The main digging place had a simple roof to keep the rain out. The smaller digging sites were simply left as they were. Reproductions of the skulls found were on display in cabinets and one skeleton lay at the bottom of a hole about two metres deep and covered with glass.
However, given that this was the site of discoveries so radical that they had changed the shape of anthropology forever, I was supremely intrigued by the way that we could simply wander down into the actual digging areas. No gates, no fences. No warning signs. If you fancied pottering around amongst the heaps of random bones still scattered about, no problem! It seemed like, after the digs and endless partying had come to an end, the site had simply been left to its own devices, until another US university fancied sponsoring another dig.
I found this inspiring, and very Georgian. Why fence stuff off? And why make a big display of it all? Or besiege the place with health & safety rules? There is, I think, deep within the Georgian psyche, an inherent recognition of a pointlessness in both trying to protect ourselves from life, or in trying to make a big show of it.
Having wandered about amongst the bone-fragments and bits of pottery for a while, we made our way back down the dirt track towards the main road. The road, whilst a decent-sized highway, was very quiet. It led to just a couple of small villages, before it crossed into Armenia, and it was evident that no one was travelling that way on a Sunday afternoon.
However, Georgians know well the difficulties of travelling in the parts of their country not covered by the Marshrutka local bus system. Hitching along Marshrutka routes seems to result in not so many lifts. But once you’re off those, they’re happy to give you a ride. After half an hour or so, we got a lift back to Bolnisi and found a bar where we could grab a beer plus some Khinkhali and Khachapuri. Feeling replenished, we walked back to the Marshrutka stop, hoping to get one back to Marneuli and thence Tbilisi.
About five people were also waiting at the stand. 30 minutes passed without any sign of a Marshrutka. Quite a number merrily drove past going the other way. Numbers had swelled to about 15 now, with one woman complaining that she had to get to Kutaisi this evening (a city about 300km away) and that at this rate she wouldn’t be there til 3am.
Finally, a Marshrutka rocked up and everyone clamoured to get on. The driver wasn’t having it. A heated discussion ensued for about five minutes, which came to an abrupt end when another Marshrutka arrived. However, the driver of that one also didn’t want to continue back towards Tbilisi. Another heated debate ensued. The first driver took the opportunity to have a rest in his cab, the throng being busy with the second.
It was hard for me to work out whether the driver simply didn’t want to go, or was just trying to drive the price up. However, after some twenty minutes of debate, he did just drive off without taking anyone with him. Some travellers wandered off, clearly giving up on the idea of getting out of Bolnisi for now. For those remaining, the focus moved now to a taxi-cab that had pulled up at the stop. He would go to Tbilisi for 50 lari total. We immediately offered to take two places. More and more debate ensued as to who would take the remaining two places. Suddenly, just when it looked like nothing was getting decided, four Georgians got in the taxi at once and we were left standing there!
That’s how it goes. We decided to just get a cab, and to stop placing further faith in Marshrutkas or hitching, and succeeded in hailing another fairly quickly. He agreed 45 lari. We got in. He promptly removed his yellow taxi sign from the roof of the car and drove off at breakneck speed, as though auditioning for James Bond.
Forty five mins later we were back in Tbilisi, half an hour before Google Maps said we should be! We got back on the metro and headed into town.
I enjoyed this day out very much. Georgia is a country calibrated not for comfort but for adventure. Yet it still seems to be remarkably safe. The first Africans that left some 1.8m years ago clearly made a wise choice.
Hi, Dev.
Thanks for this. I'll admit I often don't read your posts, yet when I do I often find myself greatly rewarded for investing my time that way, as I have now as I lie here icing my spine after my latest chiropractic adjustment.
As an identifier with punk ideology; a once-frequent traveller and a reformed drinker I found much to pique my interest. Your writings often spark the wanderlust in me, and are truly inspirational, yet I find myself tied to my therapeutic practice (work) here in Bristol...
Sending love.