Mtskheta, Golden Brandy, and the Hottest Ticket in Town

“What of it? If I die, I die. It will be no great loss to the world, and I am thoroughly bored with life. I am like a man yawning at a ball; the only reason he does not go home to bed is that his carriage has not arrived yet.”

 

Our host was Mari, and she lived in Vake (pronounced "Vocka"), which was a tony Tbilisi neighborhood north of the action. The apartment was just off of a charming circular park surrounded by bakeries and boutiques. Charming as all hell. 

Mari had a long silver braid, a friendly fat retriever named Max (pronounced "Mocks") and a little tabby cat with no name. "Why name him," she said, "He just eats here and sleeps here." We were also just eating and sleeping there, but we took no offense. Tabby had a little cardboard box to curl up in on the porch.

Our equivalent was a sweet little combination of rooms with a perfect compact kitchen and a comfortable bed. We dumped our stuff off, washed our faces and went right back out. The trip was winding down, and this was an opportunity to max (pronounced mocks) out the last few days. Plan was to take a long walk from Vake to the column of St. George and see whether or not we could book a tour to Mtskheta (unpronounceable) for the following day

It also felt like one of the last opportunities to pick up magnets. And, so back down that oyster-shell-paved hill we went. 

Some nice cafes and coffee "to take away." Sara popped into a little clothing store where the shopkeep asked where she was from. When she answered, he said, "There is a fifty percent discount for Seattle residents today." What luck! Finally, some respect!

Further down, we were charmed by a few "basement bakeries," which were store windows at knee level, that you had to bend over to order bread from. A woman in a white apron would get on her tip-toes to take your money, then stretch to raise some lavash up for you to grab by the heel. We loved this innovative, great-smelling street.

The front areas of several homes were covered with grapes and vines. I called these "porchards" and thought myself most clever. I loved my innovative great-smelling self. Fading spiral staircases threatened and beckoned in equal measure. The distinct, thrusting balconies were well represented.

At the base of the hill was familiarbynow Rustaveli Square with its metro and its fountain. We got coffee near where they sell the tiny hats. I fell in love with a little painting that showed the whole city stacked on top of itself. It was tall and skinny and would be annoying to frame, but the heart wants the paintings it wants. I did not buy it....yet.

A nice walk on a street we had both been down separately and together, past the women selling plums and the men selling walnuts. Past the Georgiafied Wendy's and the booksellers and the bookstores, the museums with their wilting bronze eagles, the pomegranates and the underground passages full of music, the toy dogs that yap and leap, the ray guns and salt shakers.

We located the place that would take us to Mtskheta.

And though it would be incredibly fun to say we were taking a marshrutka to Mtskheta, we chose a comfortable bus. But that was for the morning! Tonight's activity was to take the subway to the wrong station on purpose to see if we could find our way back to Vake. That is what we like to do. Judge tenderly, reader.

And thus, we went down into the Liberty Square station and purposefully overshot the station closest to where we lived and got out to behold... an entirely new part of the city. An epic walk, sometimes backtracing past universities and down long arcades and past commerce of all kinds. This was a more "contemporary" part of Tbilisi with large chain stores and markets. Wide avenues. Traffic and families.

The shops ended and the road opened up to an enormous cloverleaf highway, we made our way along the edges of it. It grew dark, but the lanterns from a Chinese restaurant bobbed on wires nearby, and from a park with children's rides laughter rose up like a lavash from a basement bakery.  Then we were under the cloverleaf, pausing only to marvel at a large abstract monument and a glittery real-estate billboard. Further on we pressed into a dark little neighborhood.

It was time to consult the phone-map which swore up and down that a little black ribbon of an alley was definitely where we needed to go, no question. We weren't sure, but the phone said! So, we rolled our shoulders and took the plunge.

It led to a quiet street with a choppy sidewalk. A grocery store promised eggs, so we went to see if it would keep that promise. It did. As well, it sold strange bootleg legos which let you build riot police in a moon lander.

We bought eggs and laughed in the dairy aisle remembering the time in Kyiv when we had eaten a container of sour cream thinking it yogurt. Smetana is the word. We knew it this time and shall forever. Go away, Smetana.

Back home, we put the food in the fridge and crashed the crash of those who overshoot their stations on purpose.

And then it was a Mtskheta morning. Amusingly, though Mtskheta was the name of the village we were going to, it was also the name of the street we were staying on. Fate!

It's pronounced a little like "bruschetta" and a lot like eating a bony piece of fish. People mostly knew what we meant when we said "Mush-Ketta" but I'm sure inwardly it was like hearing someone call Pittsburgh "Pitesbork." There is a fifty-percent discount for Pitesbork residents today.

Max wanted to play fetch, but he didn't want to let go of the stick. I found a second stick, and it was game on. He was like, "But... how can you have the stick in your hand if the stick is in my mouth?!!"

We took the long walk down the hill again, because it was a nice day and we like our legs. Got coffee at an ice cream place that opens at 8am for some reason. Then down down past all the taxi-men and the government buildings and the casino drunks and the closed H + M and the movie theater to the bus place. 

They had two seats, and I went ahead and bought a ticket for a trip to the mountains for the next day. Gotta mocks it out. We sat on a wall to wait for the bus, but a bookseller shooed us away. This public space is my storefront, guys. Then the big red bus hauled us off. There were about thirty people on board. One of them called out to us in English as we boarded. "Hey, Tulane! Hey, Pan-Am!" 

He was reading our t-shirts, you see. I waved to be polite, and he was like, "Hey hey!" I noticed he was sitting alone. 

Just at the Tbilisi outskirts, we saw a Brutalist building Sara had been looking out for. She was very excited to have found it. The locals call it the "Domino Building," but it looked to me like an angry game of Soviet Jenga. 

Mush Kettle isn't really very far out of town, so they lard the trip with a visit to a sack of churches and an "opportunity to learn about Georgian wines." Exit through the gift shop. But the mush was first, so about twenty magical mountain minutes later, there we stood. Very peaceful church set high above a distinctive horseshoeish confluence of rivers and a tender village. It was an easy climb from the parking lot to the holy place, and we greatly enjoyed the view and the cool breeze. It's the easiest of all day trips from Tbilisi and very rewarding. 

I heard the cries of "Tulane! Tulane!" again, but this time it was an elderly couple who were retired professors from that university. You never know who you're going to meet when you travel to the Caucasus in a t-shirt from a school you didn't go to.

Fooled around at a little ring-stand looking for treasure and got back on the bus. Next stop... Svetitskhoveli Cathedral. A really glorious place surrounded by those hilarious droopy crosses they have here, the Georgian cross. Legend has it, St. Nino crawled to Georgia to bring them the miracle of Christianity, and she fashioned a cross out of grape branches and her own hair. That sort of construction doesn't hold its shape very well. It kind of looks like the devil done grabbed it mid-exorcism.

The building was marvelous with a truly wonderful peeling fresco with a Byzantine Jesus straight out of central casting. Outside I met up the bus guy. He was from LA, and I entertained for a few moments that he might be a famous producer! And I could pitch him my idea to make a movie about Munch's Muse! The one who died in Tbilisi! But, he wasn't a producer. He was just a guy who was annoying Sara by continuing to call her "Pan-Am." So we left him to get some merlot-flavored soft-serve ice cream. 

Then it was off to Samtavro Monastery, a place of worship chosen chiefly for its proximity to The Chamber of Wine, which was a clip-joint for thirsty tourists. There were some very cool icons there, long-limbed saints in harlequin outfits. I was charmed, but the ones I liked weren't on any postcards. So, we had no choice but to attend the "wine tasting." 

At the Chamber of Wine (that really is its name), a wineista told us that Georgian wine is made by shoving everything fermentable into a clay jar and burying that jar as deep as The Big Bopper. Then, they dig it up, and it's sip sip, sell sell. 

She repeated this in English and Russian, and if you didn't speak the language she was currently using, you pushed past her to get a free glass of wine. The Not Producer was very engaged with her speech, and when she said, "You can tell the quality of wine from the way it clings to the glass when you swirl it. In Georgia, we call this Angel's Tears. In America, they call it legs," he yelled out, "What do they call it in Germany?! How about Korea!?"

I thought this was exceptionally funny, but I had already had a glass and my judgment was suspect. It was then further impaired when I asked to try the Georgian Brandy. 

This was a fulfillment of a promise to my father, who told me before I left of this trip that every spy in every spy novel he'd ever read went on and on about Georgian Brandy and how heavenly it was. I was afraid it might be like chacha, but... 

I held my nose, I closed my eyes... I took a drink.  

It was, as they say, fucking delicious, and I bought a bottle of it. In my mind, four complete stage plays and the script to Munch's Muse lay at the bottom. O' t' g'ld'n dreams I had as we floated back to the bus. I napped a little, and then we were back in Mr. Tibbs. 

We walked over to a nearby little Russian restaurant called Keep Calm and Tbilisi On, which was a soooper dumb name, but they had something called "pelmeni in a pot" that was a lot like a chicken pot pie filled with dumplings and was one of the best dumb comfort foods I ever et. Pan Am reminds me that I fell asleep at the table while we waited for it to be served. Twas that golden cordial from an hour before. 

Georgian Brandy was a fine girl, what a good wife she would be. But my life, my love, and my lady was pelmeni. 

Then home to sleep it off and score tickets to the adult puppet show. They have a pretty famous, thriving theater in the Old Town that puts on serious plays with marionettes. I was a little skeptical, but the plots of that evening's shows convinced me it would be interesting. 

But first, more frustrating taxi nonsense. A driver tried to take us back to Mtskheta (!) because the goddamn street we lived on in Vake was called Mtskheta Street (!!). That means when I mentioned it before, it was foreshadowing (!!!)  It's like when I used to live off of Manhattan Ave in Brooklyn, and drivers tried to take me to the Empire State Building instead of my own home!  

By the time we figured it out, we were halfway out of town. We made him pull over and we got another cab. But the new guy was even worse, so we just asked him to drop us off at the Rustaveli statue and we walked. Walked! I had sweated the brandy out by now. 

Max wanted to play one-sided fetch again, and I obliged. The puppet theater wanted you to email for tickets, so we did, and we asked for three because we invited Joe, and he said he would join us! A quick shower, some hard boiled eggs, a quick nap, and it was back down.

That walk again! The basement bakeries were more fragrant than ever at this hour. We saw children with their mothers buying many strange loaves. 

Walking walking walking, past the plums, past the pomegranates, past the political headquarters, past the jewelers, and the vintners, and the cobblers, and the cardigan crows. Back to the old town, through the sidewalk fisheries and over to the theater. Where, we discovered, it had been sold out for weeks. We had been naive to think tickets were available. Fools, almost. The email we sent meant nothing. 

"Hello, I hear you are showing a new musical by name of Hamilton. Two tickets, please. In the loge, if you will. Please respond to this email within the hour." 

Joe rolled up, his beard glistening with oil, his clothes magnificent as he strode across the stone streets he owned. When we told him the show was sold out, he tossed back his head, his obsidian curls dancing merrily, and he roared out a mighty laugh. 

"It was too good to be true," he smiled. "These tickets are impossible, and when you offered me one, I though perhaps a miracle had occurred, and I," and here he paused majestically, "have made my foremost occupation the pursuit of miracles." 

We went to shop for rugs instead, and he made fun of us, (this saddle bag would look beautiful in the home of someone's grandmother) so we went to a tea place instead and had some tremendous tea. 

We shared many tales, for he holds many tales inside him. I had suggested earlier he convert them to Ghost Stories and run a Tbilisi After Midnight Haunted Tour. He considered it, and to encourage him I added "and some say you can still hear the howling on a clear night," to the end of every story he told. He bore it patiently.

He had no sympathy for our taxi troubles. We had offered them up as our own haunted tales, but he was disgusted that we weren't using the app he had suggested over a week ago. Ashamedly, Sara downloaded it right there and then.

We paid and made our final farewell to Joe outside an all-glass police station. Tight hugs. He was a good man, and a wonderful raconteur, and I wish him all the best.

And then we used the app to get home (Joe had to come back and help, but still, we used it).
It worked! There was no trouble at all. The driver was like, "I'll take you right there, fam."

And then I played unfetch with Max, and then I got right in the goddamn bed to make sure I had energy for the mountains tomorrow. Sara took a shower.

And some say you can still hear the howling on a clear night.