Our room in Tbilisi was in, we soon discovered, an anomalous neighborhood. It was all dolled up with string lights and hookah bars and mini-skirted hostesses popping up out of wicker chairs to say "Hello, Georgian food!" Two party-blocks like nowhere else in the city, zoned to appeal to stag-dos and hen parties. It's the sort of strip usually found in Polish towns which have otherwise given up. A strange start for us, but Tbilisi is such that it breaks the rule about not getting a second chance at a first impression.
Our room was enormous and in a quirky old art-deco building with real charm. There was a strange 60s-Icons-of-Italian-Cinema theme to the decor, cute pictures of Sophia Loren and one of Peter O'Toole for some reason. Dumped our bags off, and though very sleepy, we were energized by being in a new place and went out for a bite.
A few steps past the Eurotrash district, I was in terrible pain. Earlier this summer, I suffered from a fungal infection on my inner thigh. Red, fleshy, swollen fire in the joint crease. The doctor called it "jock itch," so that what it is, I reckon. Heat and sweat inflame it, and I reckon it came back. I'm glad it hadn't flared up in front of Sophia Loren.
So, there was the amusing situation of limping around in an ancient European city, grimacing on the cobblestones and trying to find a pharmacy. I hadn't packed my "crease cream" since it hasn't been a problem for a long time, and I thought it wouldn't come back. We headed for a storefront with a big green cross in front of it. At home that means a pot dispensary, but here it just meant medicine.
The pharmacist didn't speak English, and I didn't want to mime a crotch-fire, so I drew a foot instead with an arrow pointing between two of the toes. The ingredients in athlete's foot cream serve just as well. The picture worked. She laughed and got a tube of what I needed. Outside, Sara bargained with an old book seller and bought some weird old Soviet magazines.
We stopped to eat at a touristy place at the entrance to The Dry Bridge, and we ordered way too many khinkali, which are those marvelous dumplings with the little button-handle on them. Super delicious, AND I got my adjika at last. Tasting it once more had been one of the prime incentives of the trip. And here it was. The smoky, spicy, savory taste defies easy description. I was very happy.
I used the restaurant's two-wallet to apply my crease cream, and that problem went away, and then I was even happier. We made our way to the Dry Bridge Market and were immediately (and pleasantly) overwhelmed by the magnificently organized chaos of the whole thing. It was like the flea markets of my youth, men and women with blankets with the contents of their kitchen drawers dumped out in a pile.
Tweezers, juice glasses, Donny Osmond records, brass shrimp, doilies, broken hammers, spy cameras, reel-to-reel tape players, hairless dolls, soviet kitsch. Total sensory overwhelm. We stumbled back to the room and crashed, fully intending to go back out for dinner, but... well the marshrutkas and the market, and the mountain of khinkali meant it was all zees.
At some point, around 2am, the sound of thunder woke us, a low roar of bass stumbling down from the surrounding hills.
In the morning, I was scheduled to meet with Joe, a local boy who Meg had met on her previous trips. She e-troduced us, and he invited us to join he and his girlfriend on a trip to Signagi, a quiet little town in Eastern Georgia's wine country. Sara politely decided to try to spend at least one day without piling into a van and racing to yet another red-roofed UNESCO site, but I took the opportunity.
Sara and I agreed to meet again for dinner, and she went back to sleep.
Did some writing, packed my bag, and headed out to Rustaveli Square. Gorgeous, quiet little walk along the bank of the Mtkvari River, the city not quite ready to come to life. It was all so different from the perceived sterility of Baku. Here, the new and the old (and the once-new) seem to integrate in a much more natural way.
There was a kind of "Asiatic" wildness in Baku, but it seemed state-sponsored. Tbilisi, even in the friscalating dawnlight, had a low pulse of opportunity and potential. Like, anyone who wanted to could rise up and do as they liked. Make some money, or eat some figs and go back to sleep. No giant towers to tell you you're small. There was ONE goofy glass structure that stood out like a cocaine fingernail but it neither intimidated nor inspired. It looked like something that fell out from between a Capitalist giant's teeth.
Rustaveli Square was a fun little Metro roundabout presided over by a statue of the country's favorite poet. He was depicted in a jaunty, feathered cap and holding a book. Both here and in Baku, to this point, every statue showed a poet, author, or kindly landscaper. I had not seen a single dude on a horse or dude with a sword. It gave every impression the arts were, you know, appreciated here.
I sat on a bench and people-watched. Slow beginnings at this hour. Old men in knit caps and immaculate white beards begged on the stairs. Old women sold hazelnuts and figs. A bookseller transformed the wall around a fountain into his storefront. Marvelous and inscrutable (to me) old books with magnificent covers. Oh, the possibilities within. A purple deer floating in a Cyrillic sea. A mountain with one blazing Georgian letter on a door in its side.
I read about Rustaveli on my phone. He was like Sir Francis Drake, but with poems instead of battleships. Hung out with Queen Tamar and wrote a courtly love epic called The Knight in the Tiger's Skin. As I was reading a debate over whether or not the title should be panther's skin or tiger's skin, Joe appeared.
Kind eyes and immediate warmth. We'd never met but felt like old friends. No pressure to be or do anything but relax and enjoy the day ahead. I asked him where a guy could get coffee in this city, and he helped me find a place. His girlfriend and cousin were on their way, so it worked out ok that the coffee place's opening hours were more suggestive than actual. This proved a theme throughout. The time a place "opens" meant the time one of the employees got there to set up for the morning.
Coffee in hand, we met up with the girls, an affable pair of Russian cousins who spoke little English. Onto the subway, where Joe and I bonded over this conversation.
Me: This subway sure is deep.
Joe: Yes, though it is nothing compared to the metro in Kyiv.
Me: I know! It's so deep!
Joe: The deepest in the world! I was amazed!
Me: No, I was amazed!
Joe: I enjoyed Kyiv.
Me: Me too!
We got to a little marshrutka holding pen and Joe took advantage of his native language skills to find one with space for four. It was a bit of a mess, and there was zero chance I would have successfully navigated it by myself. Additionally, there was a complication that would have only revealed itself later. As will soon be told, this marshrutka ride had a sting in its tail!
Off we went. I read from Bread and Ashes, an absolutely marvelous travelogue about a British dude exploring the Caucasian mountains. It was the first thing I had brought to read on this trip that I loved unreservedly. Poetic and informative, loose, historical, and often very funny. Highly recommended. Joe nuzzled with Dacia, Yakira rated photos on her phone. It was about two hours to Signagi with little to report along the way. Low land, fertile-seeming. Orchards and sheep. A smooth (by comparison) ride.
Upon arrival, a woman who reminded me of the nyet-slinging train guide got out and entered a little woman-sized booth. Joe asked us to wait for a moment while he went over to it. I used a public restroom. It was 50 cents, I paid with a 5, and got an absurd handful of change in return.
The money here is called the Lari, which made me laugh on account of the rampant vowel switching 'round these parts. Ten other countries have the lira, but the a and i showed up in different order on Georgian Money Naming Day. I suppose it could have been "liar." In any case, five lari got me fifteen pounds of coins. When we were all assembled again, I spent them on the first magnet I could find.
Wonderful little cobblestone-lined town with charming elevations and shady parks. We made our way to a museum right away, since it featured the works of Pirosmani. He's the most famous and beloved Georgian "primitivist" whose bio reads like a mash-up of every suffering Belle-Epoque Frenchman you've ever heard of. The classic, unappreciated in life, died under the stairs, celebrated as a national hero after death scenario.
I enjoyed it, and there were some cool, weirdo weapons and skulls in there as well. The four of us explored at our own pace and responded to different works. The museum had a beautiful balcony commanding a view of a gorgeous mossy ruin of a church tower.
From a little observation deck/cafe, Joe took an hundred photos of Dacia for her Instagram. Yakira made comments on the poses, and I snapped the church tower. A pretty sad-seeming dude with a pair of binoculars came up to see if we wanted to give him money to use them. It was pretty heartbreaking. Joe and I were obviously using high-powered zoom lenses on our cameras, and it felt like someone trying to sell a windbreaker to someone in a greatcoat. You never know, you might want LESS protection from the cold.
I couldn't get the guy out of my mind. Like, he had a kind of wall-eyed dignity about him, and when we (kindly) turned him down he went off to pull weeds from a corner of the cafe. That particular gesture is what got me. Like.. "I have value, despite your not needing my binoculars." It was very moving to me that he still had that spark in him; it fired up all my empathy neurons.
We moved on to take a long walk along the still-existing wall fortifications surrounding the city. Marvelously preserved stone guard towers and defenses with views of the valley. Very fun to imagine Tamerlane's hordes approaching and our running to light a fire to warn the rest of the city. Exciting to think about firing and dodging arrows, heating and pouring hot oil onto armored heathens.
Nobody got hurt, and we retired to a natural spring to refill our water bottles.
Onward to lunch, back down the stony paths and past the women selling honey and the women selling walnut syrup, and the women selling watermelon rind syrup, and the women selling handmade socks. I bought a tiny plush donkey for Amber's daughter back home. It was made of mountain wool by a sweet old lady. We tried to get into a famous place called The Pheasant's Tears, but they said they wouldn't have food for another day or so and wouldn't we prefer to eat somewhere else anyway?
So, we got mushrooms and cheese in a little courtyard and Joe took an hundred photos of Dacia on a swing and under a pear tree. We returned then to Pheasant's Tears for wine. That showed them! It was good, rich and earthy, fermented in a clay pot in the very earth! Loamy and deep red!
I also tried chacha, which is kind of like the bologna or head cheese of the wine world, a monstrous squeezing of grape stems and peels and seeds that gives you an icepick hangover without the luxury of making you drunk first. It's like something made in secret in a gulag toilet. The label should read: "All of the penalty with none of the reward!"
But I kind of liked it in the way one salutes one's attempted assassin.
And then it was time to head back home. A long, pleasant afternoon in the extreme warmth of wine country was nearing its end. Culture and Cuisine! Photos and Pheasants! A wild scene awaited us back at marshutkastan. The booth woman had, several hours ago, been selling tickets in advance for the last rides out of town. As you know, reader, these things normally load on a first-come/first-serve basis, but the rules are different in Signagi. Joe had been tipped off, which is why he had gone a'boothin' several hours ago. So, we had a ticket. Or did we?
The woman had TRIPLE-SOLD the last ride, and there was a huge crowd of people trying to force their way into an already packed mini-van. It probably held 15 people, and there were at least forty waiting to get in. And that was just the ones who had tickets. A Russian couple did not, and they were losing their got-danged minds. Joe translated in my ear while the woman in the couple unloaded on the driver.
"What the FUCK is this? You never said you had to buy tickets in advance! I have never heard of this shit ANYWHERE. We came to this piece of shit, backward country on a DARE, and boy did we get FUCKED. You're basically cavemen! You will never amount to SHIT if you continue to run things this way. It was a FUCKING MISTAKE to come to this stupid, stupid place!"
As you might imagine, the locals took offense. Georgian randos in the crowd were yelling back at her. There's a lot of tension, of course. Russia dominated this place for over seventy years (and with the exception of a two-year window after WWI, another seventy before that). They, Russians, kind of walk around the place like Americans used to everywhere else. A kind of haughty, "well isn't this cute. You know we could have it again if we wanted it. My grandfather owned your grandfather." kind of attitude.
It was tense. They were eventually encouraged to take a(n expensive) taxi back to Sochi or wherever.
The ticket lady did a funny thing and asked the driver to see if he could find any more seats in the van, "because you are long and can see better around corners." There were, of course, no more seats. The van drove off leaving us there.
But word soon circulated that two local vans had been convinced to make the trip, so not very long after the "last" one left, two more rolled up, and we were on our way.
It was a nice place, if you don't drink the chacha.
Back in Tbilisi, we made our good-buys with pledges of eternal friendship and the promise to meet again soon. I took the metro back and emerged to find the city a bustling wild place with all manner of kissing and commerce in the bright streets. It's kind of like a cold Spain, this place. Slow start to the days made up with wild action deep into the night!
I met up with Sara, who had had a wonderful day of exploration and discovery. She seemed quite content, and we had an hilarious dinner at a Spongebob Squarepants-themed restaurant run by an Iranian family. We ate our krabby patties while the owners son, Faroud, showed us how his Minecraft world was progressing.
Some things are the same all over the world.
The Pheasant’s Tears. I think I shall die there.
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