Blogs from Georgia, Asia - page 40

HOLA A TODOS/AS!! Escribo estas lineas primero para informaros ( a los que aun no lo sepais) que la segunda novela de Marc ya esta en el mercado ( Corte Ingles, Fnac, Casa del Libro etc,.......) asi que si no sabeis que libro regalar para sant Jordi pues aqui teneis un buen ejemplo! Titulo: "Caucaso, entre leyendas y Kalashnikov" ( Editorial Flor del Viento): "Allí donde acaban las fronteras naturales de Europa y oriente se funde con occidente se alzan las oscuras montañas del Cáucaso, una tierra rodeada de leyendas y profundas tradiciones, de altas montañas y remotos pueblos, de venganzas ancestrales y guerras fraticidas, donde el pasado se resiste a desaparecer. A pesar de que la Unión Soviética consiguió apaciguar esta belicosa región, la caída del Imperio significó el renacer del rebelde espíritu caucásico, ... read more

Thursday March 22. I had a good nights sleep and this morning tried briefly to turn on my side. It was very painful so I took a tablet and got out of bed. The town has lots of gambling joints and groups of young men in black leather jackets hanging around occasionally jumping into or out of Mercedes cars. All around is terrible poverty especially among the old or the very young. This is capitalism Georgian style, arrogance, a Mercedes car and large quantities of vodka in the men only restaurants. The faces of the young are racked by poverty and the old by vodka. Friday March 23. I left Batumi on the coast road which is fairly hilly and in poor condition so at Kobuleti I decided to cut across rather than go onto ... read more

Yes, that's right. Everyone has a little piece of cloth to wipe their brow/neck/top lip of that constant stream of sweat. It's still hot and according to all reports, the hottest August on record in Georgia. Great! And I'm cycling in this. At least I have a hanky too... It was nice to get out of Batumi and in particular Hotel Bebo and start on the road. However, it was a bit of a shaky start trying to find the right road out of town but I did get out. Eventually. By which stage I was already soaking wet with sweat and ready for another shower. It was only 10am. Once out of Batumi and Kobuleti, the two main beach resorts, the cycling was very pleasant, mostly alongside a river. I met a lovely French family ... read more

Foerst og fremst, beklager at det ikke kommer bilder i dag. Jeg faar ikke lastet dem over paa maskina, og saa klager de som jobber her paa kabelen vaar. Siden forrige gang har vi holdt oss i Tbilisi. Det ble ikke tur til Kazbegi, det til tross for at vi har funnet ut at Kazbegi ikke ligger i Soer-Ossetia, bare ganske naert. Derfor valgte vi en kortere og lettere utflukt paa onsdag, nemlig til Davit Gareja. Davit Gareja er et omraade med hele 19 gamle kloster som ligger helt paa grensa til Aserbajdsjan, bare noen mil unna Tbilisi. Vi var ikke forberedt i det hele tatt, for det viste seg at for aa se ene klosteret maatte vi gaa over en liten topp i foerti minutt. Og der kom vi, i lette sandaler og med tre ... read more

Like Armenia, Georgia is a blank spot in my mental ethnography. For too long it was swallowed up in that huge amorphous blob called the Soviet Union. But Georgia occupies a very special place in the Russian romantic imagination. Georgian legends filled with mystical knights, slashing tusks, and leaping stags fueled 19th-century Russian poets. Today Georgia is a fragile country. Since independence in 1991 a military coup replaced one president and a popular uprising replaced another. Bandits and kidnappers prowl some areas, Russian troops and Chechen rebels are fighting in the Pankisi Gorge, the Abkhazians have effectively seceded, taking prime Black Sea real estate with them, the Ossetians are trying to secede, and you need your passport to get into Adjara, the other province on the Black Sea, because it's ruled by some random unofficial dictator ... read more