Youth work as it is
At first I thought that I have completely nothing to write about. (You get used to everything very fast). That is not true, plenty of exciting stuff has happened, of course, I will not mention or describe even half of it, but I`ll try! Let the amount of letters not frighten you off, there are different parts and maybe some of them will be interesting or helpful, who knows.
I`ll start from the volunteering part itself. A part of me which is engaged with the organisations I`m volunteering in (or at least trying to be part of). Since september I was involved in several international and local projects to a different extend.
I helped a bit with one project which took place in small village called Gremi and more specifically – Temi (eastern Kakheti region).
Temi is translated like a `community` from georgian and it is in fact a community of socially vulnerable people who live active and happy life with support of local and international volunteers (mostly girls from Germany 😉 ) My task was about an hour or two in total. Some not interesting bringing the materials and more exciting – playing with local guys couple of songs for the charity festival.
It was organised by international participants of the youth exchange for fundraising, spreading the word to the public and supporting the community.
Than happened my mid-term training which helped me reflect and reconnect to my own project. It took place in Kobuleti, so I could swim with jellyfish again.
After mid-term I was very motivated to do something for the host organisation so we decided to make an official meeting with new Droni members to get to know each other better, to introduce, inspire and explore their own intentions. It went very well. Something like 5-6 hours just flew very fast. Some of the new members are getting more and more engaged with an NGO, which makes me very glad.
Since planning in Georgia is a very tricky thing and you can`t always count on your own schedule or predict. I wanted to continue working with new members, but we happened to have an international project on migration topic.
It was a bit distractive, however, a perfect time to learn something new in project running, hosting and supporting. So I switched myself as I could from one thing to another. I had to get in touch with coming participants before their arrival prepare some info for them and do some workshops during the project. The format is very new for me I was very nervous, but seemed like it went well. It was interesting to interview some people with IDP background, know their stories and experience that in some simulation games.
Since that time we`ve made couple of workshops for local members like stencil creating, media literacy, meditations and breathing techniques and much more.
I feel a lot of ideas being born in me and I really want to put them in life, but mentioning something that haven`t yet happened is weird so I`ll skip that.
…and living in Georgia is not just about those projects and activities and ideas. It is also about the travelling.
Travels are fatal…
This small part will be about places in Georgia I`ve visited during the past three months (not all of them are mentioned below, just the juicy ones). I didn`t want to make a list of the places and create an impression like: “yeah, I`ve been to places, here`s the list and pictures.” I thought it might be interesting for some readers to know a tiny bit of nerdy information about those places, since they have cultural and historical value not only for Georgia, but for Caucasus region and in some cases for people with same beliefs all over the world.
I`ve mentioned before that for georgians roots, family and history are very important and it seems that it is also important for foreigners who come here (it`s either a family relation to the country or country raises your interest to own roots at some point.). My friend who was born and raised in Russia has german relatives who were moved to Georgia in first half of 19th century. Long story short – we decided to look for family cemeteries, friends, relatives and etc. So we went to Asureti first.
Til 1940 the village had up to 20 000 Germans, but Stalin deported them in 1941-42, however, we managed to find an almost abandoned cemetery with some friends of a relatives. What is more important and catching the eye is German architecture of 19th century.
Streets and houses which remained look very not georgian and it`s just 20km southwest from Tbilisi. After we went to Bolnisi, it used to be a big german colony with a name Katharinefeld. Wikipedia might tell you that there`s a graveyard and some signs of German influence, however, it`s only few buildings and small details in a city decoration.
Graveyard was turned into park as it was quite common to do in the Soviet times, nothing remained, some graveyard stones were used to make new memorials for Soviet Georgian activists. The city itself have some german vibe, but it is not visible really. And nowadays it`s mostly inhabited by people from Azerbaijan.
Next stop: Dmanisi
The destination is interesting first of all because it was one of the places where the oldest human skull was discovered outside of Africa. Early human fossils, originally named Homo georgicus and now considered Homo erectus georgicus, were found at Dmanisi. At 1.8 million years old, these fossils represent the earliest known human presence in the Caucasus. Besides, it has one of the most impressive Christian cathedrals of 6th century right next to the Early Bronze Age city ruins.
I would like to mention two artificial touristic destinations, both of them are quite nice and lovely, filled with history and tourist-oriented people who are surviving because of the foreigners mostly. Two of them are capitals – one is the capital of Love – Signaghi and the other one is Mtskheta a capital of an early Georgian Kingdom.
Mtskheta is one of the oldest cities in Georgia and being protected by UNESCO, however, those monumentalistic Orthodox Churches (Samtvaro – 11th century, Svetitskhoveli – original one from 4th century and Jvari which is a bit outside of the city uphill – 6th century) are surrounded by very sticky artificial environment – the professional beggars, tour guides and sellers. The city looks very european with all those lanterns “like in the old times” and nice pavements, however, feels very wrong. Signaghi on the other hand brings more air and a breathtaking view to the Alazani Valley.
It`s the capital of Love and lots of couples going there to get married, and the city has only two hotels all the rest are just guesthouses with families living right next to just married or in love couples. Not saying it`s bad, just a bit weird for europeans. Some touristic (not) websites are referring to the great wall in Signaghi like the second biggest after Chinese, it`s big yes, but come on.
Alaverdi, Holy Trinity Church (Sameba), Armenian Church of the Red Gospel (or Karmir Avetaran) – are three biggest churches in Georgia (well, there`s Bagrati in Kutaisi which is 2 meters higher than Alaverdi after reconstruction, but that is another story).
Alaverdi is one of the oldest (around 6th century) and most honorable churches in Georgia, the male`s monastery was founded by one of 13 Assyrian monks – Joseph on a place where pagan religious center dedicated to the moon was located. It is a heart of annual religious and harvesting traditional celebration – Alaverdoba.
It used to last for three weeks reflecting the pagan cults. Since Kakheti is the world’s oldest wine region and monks also had their own wine, the end of harvesting season attracted a lot of people and it still does. The Alaverdoba celebration survived the Soviet era. Nowadays the celebration still consists of wine tasting as well as dancing and singing and traditional animal slaughtering and cooking (there`s also a pretty funny short movie called Alaverdoba worth mentioning and watching). The cathedral was attacked a lot of times and since it`s foundation was used as a prison, as a storage, as a shelter for animals and nevertheless.
Karmir Avetaran could be the biggest church in Tbilisi, but it`s armenian, accidently (or?) a lot of armenian cathedrals are falling apart mostly in Tbilisi. It`s understandable and a bit funny. Karmir Avertaran was built in 16th century and reconstructed in 19th century by the citizens. In 80s the church was used by georgian artists and painters as a workroom. In 1989 Kamir Avetaran was “blown up” (the armenians say), the official representatives blame the earthquake that happened a day before.
And there was a plan to build main Georgian church (The Holy Trinity, or Sameba) in this particular place. However, authorities changed their minds and decided to build it on an armenian cemetery – Khojavank.
The cathedral of the Red Gospel (well, the ruins of it) are located in Avlabari – the ancient Tbilisi city district which for some time was even an independent part, like a city in a city. Avlabari used to be a place of living for armenian intellectuals and other science and culture related armenian activists. Even nowadays the population there is mostly armenians.
These are the abandoned sulfur baths in Avlabari.
There`s one more place worth mentioning – a place called Vardzia. I`ve been there for several times already and I like the region, the nature and I have special love towards this cave-city-monastery complex of 12th century.
It really feels like a city, a bit noisy, even without any tourists, full of inner movement.
However, I`ve never been to the cave monastery complex on the other side of the river called Vanis Kvabebi (8th century). It was attacked many times and after building a wall it was turned into a women’s monastery (around 12th century) with very strict rules and they`d throw women from the rocks as a punishment.
It felt very close to mystical-beyond-this-world experience up there. Not just the heights or claustrophobic caves you are surrounded by and have to climb up for 30 meters.
Something different, like thoughts about looking for god in the ash (the caves are digged in the volcanic mountain rocks).
It`s all about getting lost and found.
“Never trust Georgians,” some Georgians say. It`s partly true. Happened to me several times those bummers with time management. Georgian Maybe Time, you know, it`s multi dimensional. They say the hike to the waterfall in the national park of Lagodekhi will take us 3 hours there and back. Well, eventually it took us around 8 and we didn`t even had time to enjoy the goddamn waterfall (at least took lovely pictures).
Me and well-known (in a certain group of people) person went for this hike as soon as we arrived to the city. It was hot September, I really wanted to swim and Crab – to ride horses. So we went to the waterfall, not even thinking that running water could be a bit chilly and horses just don`t walk in the woods normally.
We ended up in a pitch dark, without any equipment or water, just a will to survive (and get to the pre-paid dinner and comfy beds) and one litre of wine.
On our half way to safety Crab fell to the rocks, because of joy and feeling connected to the nature. I was super scared, `cause I know how bad it could be, however, all good what ends well. We got to our comfy beds, chacha and multi-lady skype meeting chatting for half of the night. I would still recommend this hike.
Kolchak
Around two weeks before that fateful hike my fellow-musician-friends experienced that obligation free attitude of some Georgian people. They were on tour heading to Georgia from Saint-Petersburg and were promised golden mountains, golden rains (ha-ha, meaning money, you nasty) and all the colors of Georgian hospitality.
Well, the guy just disappeared two weeks before their arrival not organising a single thing. Guys contacted me and asked for help, which was an honor, a challenge and sometimes even fun. I`m still struggling here in search for `my-type` of musicians and people. Friends of mine are definitely suit the profile and play kind of music I really miss in here. So I organized a place and some bits of equipment and promotion with a maximum effort and efficiency which was possible with such short notice.
The day of the show and guys refuse to play! after a beer or two, some `I-beg-you-pretty-please` and other manipulations I got the black-gazing-melancholy rays I was craving for and musicians got their applause and gasoline money.
This tiny experience turned me back to the stuff I love with all my heart and like doing. It was hard to recover after GEM-Fest. (Read pt.2)
However, even on the street filled with live music places hardcore is not a priority and on one of the gigs we were kicked out from the venue by the police. Well.
Unknown Dragon on gold
One more thing happened to me quite recently is that I discovered a catalogue-book about georgian animation history. Starting from 60s til nowadays. We found it in one basement wineries. The owner lady gave us an amazing homemade wine and was very kind to us, while we were in the middle of winetasting the conversation turned to an unexpected angle. She shared with us, that she was an editor of a book, which we might find interesting and brought it.
I was amazed, however, it`s just a 100 copies georgian book with a lot of images and work behind it. The main editor has her own movie museum which is still there to be revealed and discovered.
I like this about Georgia – it`s very unpredictable, surprising and sometimes even irrational, but for sure with a lot of beauty and love behind.
I became irrationally patriotic about this country, it`s culture, origins, differences and weirdness. It was interesting to rediscover my own friends through the prism of Georgia. I`d suggest you to try your friends being out of the context of their own country, it`s surprisingly interesting.
Some of them, who were visiting Georgia for the very first time were surprised and often this surprise came with complains and strange comments. Lately I`ve been protecting Georgia from my own friends` european-everything-is-in-it`s-right-place state of mind whining about Georgia being not like the other places. It is disturbing sometimes, when people just don`t get that it is not about comparing, but knowing and accepting the difference.
In a flat countries like Estonia you don`t think that if you climb somewhere up you might hurt yourself (or others with rocks falling because of your sloppiness), you don`t meet armed people with dogs in a touristic places and no one warns you that to avoid lethal damage you have to leave the unknown objects without touching and especially that field over there, because it is full of bombs.
My friends did appreciate the time stopping for deserts` views and local food, the traditional music, dances and outfit as well as people and life loving attitude. The people will remain discriminated and misunderstood, but nature, with all those small stegosauruses running around, will eventually win.
