Meeting the Expats

It’s Tuesday and it feels like I’ve been here for a month. Monday was blessedly wonderful. The others had to go to work, but I got to stay home, unpack, and take a nap. In the evening, we met a bunch of Expats at a Georgian restaurant in Old Tbilisi. Old Tbilisi is just like it sounds—the oldest part of the city. The Expats taught us the proper etiquette for the Georgian supra, and advised us on how to eat khinkali, a traditional Georgian dish.

Basically, khinkali are giant dumplings. The dough surrounding the meat is twisted into a knot at the top which is never eaten. The little knots are left on the plate as a means of boasting on “what a man you are” for eating so many. When eating, Georgian’s are obsessed with forks. There’s very little food they eat with their fingers other than khatchapuri (cheesy bread). Khinkali, however, must always be eaten with one’s hands—Georgians are ever amused when foreigners try to eat them with a fork. The trick to khinkali seems to be: grab the dumpling when it’s hot, and take a bite in the dough to let out the steam. Then tip your head back and suck out the juices. Only then can you actually eat the khinkali without squirting juices across the table… Good khinkali eating form is considered an art in this country…a talent I do not yet possess…fortunately khinkali are quite tasty and I don’t mind practicing.

After dinner one of the Expats took us on a walk through Old Tbilisi. We walked past the sulfur baths into Chardin which is the quaintest little simulacra you’ll ever find. A few years ago, USAID and the World Bank (I think) funded a clean-up of a small section of restaurants in Old Tbilisi. What was created was a very posh, European collection of cafes along three short streets that’s made to look like “old-style Georgian architecture” but in fact it just looks like a collection of swanky European cafes surrounded by dilapidated hovels. In the summer, everyone eats outside, so it’s a perfect place to have drinks and enjoy cool evenings. All the menus are in Georgian and English, and all the servers speak Russian or English as well as Georgian. Every café has flat screen TVs (both indoors and outdoors)…very popular for anyone desperate to watch the World Cup. The food is usually good. The Chinese restaurant on the corner is fantastic! They basically use spaghetti for all their noodles, but the sauce they put on them is to die for! Be careful when you order fruit plates in this city. I don’t quite understand it, but I think “plate” translates as “boat” because the amount of fruit served could easily save an entire armada from scurvy for a year. The ice cream at Café Marrakech is the best ever. They cover the ice cream in fresh fruit, chocolate shavings, whipped cream, and strawberry syrup! However, dinner in Chardin can be quite expensive. A full meal (including drinks, appetizers, main course, and dessert) will cost you around $10!

If you’re at all acquainted with the business or Expat community in Tbilisi, it is impossible to walk through Chardin without bumping into someone you know. The first night we were there, we bumped into recent acquaintances who immediately insisted that we share their table. Expats in this country are different from those I’ve met in other places. All of them have fairly illustrious positions, and many of them are considered “important” people in the business community, government, or educational institutions. What’s funny is that any one of these people would be insignificant back in the states. They are the elite here simply by virtue of being American or because they are native English speakers. I don’t mean to diminish these people in any way, they’re all highly educated and deserving of attention…it’s just that here the pond is fairly small and it’s easy to become a big fish. The common story seems to be: “I graduated from college. I didn’t know what the hell I was going to do with my life. Someone asked me if I’d ever heard of Georgia and I said ‘Isn’t it somewhere near Alabama?’ Before I knew it I was shipped off to this backwater country and I liked it so much, I decided to stay.” Very rarely does the story deviate.

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