Back in the USSR - Georgia Part II

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We arrived at the Georgian border, our car devastated by dirt and snow, and breezed through the checkpoint without hassle. Americans don’t need visas to Georgia, which I find a remarkable turn of events given the history of the region. A quick stamp and we were off. Others weren’t so lucky. I didn’t care.

The dramatic mountains followed us north, and, while obviously pained economically, there was a notable and sudden change the moment we set foot inside Georgia. Road signs were often bright and new, and frequently in proper English too. Sure there were plenty of Soviet-era Ladas, Volga’s, and Niva’s, but plenty of foreign cars raced through the streets too. The traffic police actually did their jobs and patrolled the city in clean new VW’s and Skoda squad cars. The street lights not only worked, but had bright bulbs and were actually placed in the drivers’ immediate line of sight. I saw not only construction sites everywhere in Tbilisi, the vibrant ancient capital, but also construction sites with actual workers and functioning cranes, cement trucks, and momentum. The downtown, where scenes of revolution unfolded only a few years ago, is the site of a brand new Courtyard Marriott Hotel, a sparkling, bustling McDonald’s, and fancy Western restaurants and bars. Above it all, on top of the magnificently green mountains which surround the city, is a dazzling, unbelievably tacky communication tower that flickers with lights so bright they remind me of Las Vegas. Somehow, it fits. The city is really a discombobulated teeming landmass with Soviet influence, ancient Caucasian history, and the manifestation of the 21st century vision that Georgia’s charismatic, US-educated President, whom I once met in Washington, DC before he was President, has envisaged. Aside: he told me at the time he would be Georgia’s next president. I smiled, thinking it a bit odd to say. I’ll never forget sitting in my living room in Uzbekistan watching the live news on BBC 18 months later, that he had successfully staged the Rose Revolution. Next time someone tells me they will be president, maybe I’ll listen.

My favorite restaurant in Uzbekistan was a Georgian restaurant called the Georgian Table. It was an unlikely guest in the basement of an ultra-Communist era hotel whom God only knows frequented. Beneath this stone colossus was an oasis of (non Russian techno) music, food, and drink that made you forget the harshness of the outside world. It isn’t surprising that Georgian food is revered in the former USSR. I’ve looked forward to going back to something like this for years, and today, it happened. As I entered the smoke filled room, my ears were pierced by unbelievably loud, live Georgian music sung by four men in dark suits, the smells of BBQ meats, red wine, damp wood, and cigarette smoke invading every inch of my body.

Within minutes I was mesmerized. I didn’t think about what was going on outside. I forgot about my latent existential crisis…my curiosity about my summer and fall jobs, my future, and my life. I was hypnotized by the music, the smoke, the smells, and the camaraderie. It was ambrosia. Piping hot Khatchupuri, the Georgian cheese bread, descended on our table within seconds. Slabs of shashlyk, spiced BBQ’d kebobs of lamb, pork, beef, and fish, covered our table shortly thereafter. Mountains of salads and breads put the empty spaces on our table to shame, and, within minutes, we had copious amounts of Georgian Saparavi wine--and case after case of Borjomi spring water flooding our table. I was near tears. Many of my readers will wonder why…it isn’t something I can describe. The people who know me best, those who shared the trials and tribulations of Central Asia, who, in their moment of greatest sin, their greatest sacrifice, their greatest pain, their greatest triumph, blinked and carried on…only you understand the happiness, the consolation, and the joy that I felt this night. Others will laugh, shrug, confuse, and mock…but you cannot possibly understand. I’m sorry I cannot fully share this moment with you. There are not words to explain.

On day two, mildly hung-over from the debaucherous feast of the night before, we set out for Gori, Stalin’s birthplace. I guess Stalin’s house is as good a place as any to be hung-over. At first I was surprised that this monster has a shrine, and that people go visit, and that I was among them. But, then I remembered where I was, sighed, and set out for Gori amidst an appropriately grey sky and falling temperatures. We had possibly the world’s most useless map and yet somehow came to the conclusion that we should find the river and turn left. Naturally it worked, despite our trying to follow pieces of aluminum masquerading as highway signs, and after driving through an obstacle course of open pits, unmarked dead-ends, stalled cars, and merging, intersecting roads with no stop signs…we were again out in the Caucasian countryside. The rural areas are infinitely poorer, and signs of desperation are everywhere. I’m almost glad the windows fogged up. Sometimes it’s too much to seriously consider. The differences between these people’s lives and my own are, astounding.

The town of Gori is exactly what one who has ever visited the former USSR would imagine a Soviet town to be. Carefully laid out streets in hopeless disrepair, shattered glass on the pavement, broken down Volga’s, hoods up with their owner-mechanics pulling and gerrymandering God knows what to spark them to life again. Perfectly rectangular Communist-bloc apartment buildings, their windows lined with lacquered wood or filled with red bricks, clothes lines zigzagging everywhere; dark, dank, ominous entrances opening to each section, ragged dogs running here and there in the building’s shadow, and beneath a mess of hastily affixed satellite dishes…

Amidst the daily happenings of this otherwise nondescript Soviet town is a giant statue of Stalin standing proudly, almost as though he was still in power, in front of a government building. There is an elaborate museum, replete with his personal railcar adjacent to his boyhood home, which is protected by a stained glass roof and sculpted wood. For a small fee you can go inside, as we did, and see his accomplishments, although there is no mention of his atrocities. I sat on his bed, flushed his opulent rail-car toilet, and walked out of this museum somewhat disgusted but at least glad I saw this piece of history.

Back in Tbilisi, I met up with some friends, new and old, in a remarkably Soviet restaurant serving mediocre beef stroganoff and stale beer, smoke wafting everywhere. The usual mix of talking heads, idealist NGO workers, wandering existential basket-cases, and clueless yet brilliant exiled academics shared the table and pouted in their collective misery and yet reveled in their superiority in being in such a crazy place. I wanted to mock, but I remember well being in a similar place. Instead I listened, smiled, but said very little. I’m glad I’m there no longer.

Later the group dissipated and we met a Georgian fellow who spent most of his formative years abroad with his Soviet diplomatic family. He described the changes he saw as the USSR disintegrated and tried to explain why Stalin was still revered in these parts. He didn’t meet sympathetic ears to this argument, but nonetheless was still very interesting to speak to. He was nationalist, but not in a pejorative way—the sort of person who absolutely loves his country but because of economics, typically flees these places, never to return, leaving only the old and the poor, the uneducated to fester in their shadow. He showed us his favorite nightspots, walked us through dimly lit cobblestone alleyways, and relayed to us the history of this and that. He offered us a bottle of vodka to end the night in the most polite, un-confrontational way I’ve ever seen in the former USSR, but of course there was still no polite way to refuse. We danced, smoked, and drank the night away. The next day I remembered why I left all this, but, do I regret it? No, not this time. Georgia has always had an almost irrational mystique to me, and I’m glad I visited. I hope President Saakashvilli still has the unbridled optimism and faith in his country that he did in that Toyota van where I met him in on Connecticut Ave., NW on that humid summer day nearly 4 years ago. I hope his citizens feel his vision. I hope he succeeds. At least now I finally believe him that he will be president!

It was eventually time to return to Armenia, and we backtracked along the rural, winding roads through the Caucuses Mountains. The weather was decidedly worse now, colder, and those heavy, wet raindrops that tell you snow is moments away were slapping against the windshield. We were all tired, pleased with our trip, and very ready to get home. The mood wasn’t quite as jovial, but we had bonded in that way only possible when you are back in the USSR. We listed to classic American rock and roll, watched the beads of water dance and fly off the vehicle, and accepted Nature’s dominance. The mountains looked particularly spectacular covered in snow, hidden in parts by thick grey clouds so that you could see the lightly frosted green hills disappear into blackness…and then jut spectacularly, now snow-covered, above the clouds, reaching for the sky. Hardened farmers crouched under the weather, seemingly oblivious to the hardship, and watched their animals graze. The usual chaotic stream of cars raced by and often directly toward us. I reverted to my old custom of watching them come at me, the two of us now at a combined speed in excess of 200kph, and my heart didn’t even jump knowing that somehow we would miss each other. What a life.

The border was now a bit more crowded, and as the only non-Yerevan resident in the car I had to get another visa. We told the border guard that I needed a visa and his response was, in all seriousness, “What, you want me to buy him his visa?” He could have just directed me across the way to the other booth. Cars were everywhere but we avoided the mess with our diplomatic plates and came to a standstill under a protected area. I got out and filled out the paperwork, feeling exposed to the weather and not caring. The airline confiscated my shaving cream a week before and I didn’t bother getting more because it would just be taken again. And so now, here I was, with a week old beard, dirty, wrinkled clothes inappropriate for the sudden re-emergence of winter, standing at this dilapidated, rusted out remote border post in the heart of the Caucuses Mountains. I looked around at the teeming masses on either side, the skinny immigration dude in the same Soviet-era uniform they all wear, the sleet running down my glasses, my feet sinking into the muddy road….and I just shook my head, ears freezing from the piercing cold winds, marveling at the world in which we live. I felt alive in ways I hadn’t for years—not good, not bad—just, mildly and temporarily defeated, but, alive.

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Photos

Stalin is still popular enough...
He has a street named after him!!