Golden Fleece on The Black Sea

"Most of the people buying the Soviet paraphernalia were Americans and West Europeans. The lesson could not have been clearer: while the symbol of one mass murder fills us with horror, the symbol of another mass murder makes us laugh."



A dawnlight farewell to Sophia Loren (and the mysterious photo of Peter O' Toole near the air-conditioning unit) and a planned detour; our bags were packed for the seaside town of Batumi. The plan was to take an early taxi to the vagsal, snag a vag, and ride in style to the inky shores of The Black Sea.

Despite the constant struggles with taxis otherwise, we had at last mastered how to get to train stations. Sara noted that the "chugga chugga" sound was key. I had been focused on the "choo choo," but I was coming off like a "quittin' time!" whistle or an asthmatic. Preceding the choo choo with a chugga chugga worked 100% of the time. And, thus, our early-morning ride was drama-free. And familiar. We had previously been in the Tbilisi vagsal, having arrived there on the midnight train from Ganja. 

We had intended to take the ten-fifteen, but we happened to be there on time for the earlier train, so Sara ran upstairs for hard-boiled eggs, I got us the tickets, and moments later we were off. It could not have been less like that hilariously grim Ganja train. Quiet, smooth ride during which I napped, enjoyed more of Bread and Ashes and, crucially, again reached that place of productive peace while writing.

It was almost like that morning in Sheki. It felt so good, like I was fulfilling my purpose, completely non-physical. Six hours melted away like mountain mist.

The first glimpses of the sea as we pulled into Batumi were very beautiful. We had completed one fantasy goal, to travel from the shores of the Caspian to the shores of the Black. From sea to shining sea.



Batumi, if it's known, is known in popular culture for several things, chief of which is the statue of Ali and Nino, a pair of slotted metal figures who start apart but slowly approach one another on a moving platform and "embrace" as their slots merge. It's a beautiful concept and well executed. We were keen to see it, having enjoyed several videos months before the trip.

As well, Batumi claims to be geographically close to the place in classical mythology the Greeks called Colchis, which is where Jason went to get the Golden Fleece. I mentioned this to Joe back in Tbilisi, and he was dismissive. "It is not true!" he said, "It is not the place!" And it probably isn't, BUT, it's the narrative Batumi pushes: Jason and the Argonauts slept here.

It's an affordable seaside resort for folks from Georgia, Russia, Iran, etc. Poland, of course. Our cab (tourist town, so no problem!) took us along a nice little coastal road past weird, weird buildings and into the busy little urban area where our apartment was waiting. Bakeries and boutiques lined the avenue.

Our host met us at the gate and took us past some crazy-high security (gate! another gate! electronic lock! auto-locking door! motion detectors!) into a skinny elevator and up to our little room. It had a marvelous balcony with a cute view of the charmingly sloppy lived-in looking Spring Break town. The air was rain-gravid, heavy and cool.

There was a clothesline, which promised laundry. Sara found the bouncer who ran the place and he showed us they indeed had a washing machine! Glory! Tbilisi does all of its washing in the Mt'k'vari River, and three days there had bestank my shirts. Into the laundry chute, flyboy.

While our shirts and socks were serviced, we poked around on a map and discovered we were quite near a statue of Medea.



She was, of course, the wizard who helped Jason steal the fleece from her dad, chopped up her own brother and wrapped Jason's fiance up in a flaming poncho, et-vengeance-cetera. Sweet butter. Hung the laundry on the line, like people!, and went out for a bite and to poke around a little bit. Maybe we would find the statue.

Over the last few years, there's been a lot of investment in Batumi, and it's not far from Sochi (where the Winter Olympics were in 2014), so its profile has picked up, so there are a lot of bizarre buildings under construction. One looked like a nutty gumball machine, one was a skyscraper with a ferris wheel built into it. All manner of karaoke bars clustered around their bases like remora.

We ended up at a kind of Russian comfort-food place, almost a milk bar, where we loaded up on pelmeni and khachapuri. Sara drank an Argo beer! More myth marketing. They had a cute little anchor logo on the label.

Afterward, it started to rain, but we liked it, because it had been so hot in Baku and so warm in Tbilisi, but then we stopped liking it, so Sara bought a poncho. But not one of Medea's flaming ones. We passed a park advertising some sort of big-deal international chess tournament. It all gave the sense of an active little town with plenty of leisure and art and activity. Kind of like a culture-rich Daytona Beach.

We found a little coffee place but not the statue. We figured out where the action was, but I was getting pretty soaked so I headed back. There was a project I wanted to work on.



For some time, I've been carrying around a patch with an image of a slice of pizza being stabbed with a switchblade. What does it mean? Why do I have it? Why did I want to sew it onto my day-bag? I just did. A rainy day in a seaside resort seemed like the ideal time to try it out.

So, Sara and I walked into a sort of Georgian bodega and I asked to buy needle and thread. The well-meaning lady had no idea what I was saying, so I kind of pinched my thumb and forefinger together and made my hand move like a drunken goldfish.

She got it! Pushed aside some onions and gummi colas and tape measures to reveal a little envelope with about twelve sewing needles. I made encouraging noises, and she handed it over. I only needed one, but it was too complicated to explain.

She went back to the register, but I still had to have thread, so I was like, "Thread?" but she didn't get it. So, I made a Chef Boy-R-Dee gesture and mimed a long string of thread being pulled through the air.

She got it! Pushed aside some leeks and gardening gloves and snack cakes to reveal a huge plastic clutch with spools of thread in a dozen colors. It was too difficult to explain that I only needed one, but I tried pointing at just the black spool.

She rolled her eyes and broke up the set. The twelve needles and the industrial supply of dark thread came to about forty-one cents.

Dodged the drops, made it home, and sat by the window sewing. I made every mistake possible, had to relearn the basic mechanics of sewing, and did everything wrong but sew the messenger bag to my shorts.

Got the job done, though. It's sloppy and ridiculous, but so is the patch.

                                                 

Our clothes were dry on the line by now and the rain had stopped. Sara had gone out exploring and poncho-testing while I was being a punk-domestic, and when she came back I showed her my handiwork, she was very encouraging, told me what she had seen, and we cleaned up for dinner.

She had researched a cute little art-diner set up in an old house. Eclectic mismatched furniture and shabby-chic benches. We were served salmon by a dancer and wine by a Spaniard. It was a good night to recline, eat a slow meal and talk about our hopes for when we got back home. I made the mistake of letting work-thoughts enter the conversation. Gauche!

This may have caused the dancer to "read" me as a corporate creep and not a fellow artist, because he got kind of.. mean. I sensed a kind of.. oppositional energy. He was like, "How do you like Georgian cuisine?" and I was like, "Haha, we sure love khinkali," and he threw shade. "God," he said, "not khinkali." We left under a cloud of His Disdain. I think he felt sorry for Sara and not at all impressed by my pizza patch. If only he'd known I was a cool DIY tailor.



Wet walk home, the rain had started again. Red lights lit the foggy window of a bakery. A sidewalk panel came loose like in a cartoon graveyard and water poured into my shoe. Soaked sock! The stormy clouds chased, everyone from the place, and my fingers slipped on the keypad as I tried to get through the retina-scan required to get us into this over-secure apartment.

Upstairs we dried off, did some reading and planned our assault on Medea in the morning. I wasn't going to miss her. Those fleece seemed pretty warm.