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Between Seasons
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Author: By Tony Hanmer
It’s taken me a while to realize it, but this is the first spring I have spent in Tbilisi in a few years.
In view of this, I want to cherish this season. What I do remember is that, after long white Svaneti winters, and before long, baking brown Tbilisi summers, there IS a short time when the city is actually green. When flowers bloom and give the promise of fruit to come later. Before the flies have started getting annoying (Note to self: beat them this year with screens on the windows!). The air conditioners haven’t yet begun dripping from every shop and apartment that can afford them. Our fan is in storage, dismantled (I haven’t broken down and bought a conditioner myself) - its time will come.
We still have blankets on our bed, albeit thin ones; we’re not down to plain sheets yet. A light sweater is just right in the evenings, either at home or when my wife and I go for a walk in the cool air. Before then, I like to watch the swallows catch as many insects as they can from our 7th-floor apartment window. Then, as twilight falls, they give way to what look like clumsier fliers, but they’ve simply got differently engineered wings, and radar to boot: the silent non-gliders, the bats.
Frequent rains mean that our neighbourhood hasn’t yet had the chance to degenerate into the all too common night fights and inconsiderate 2 a.m. car stereos at full blare which signal summer.
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Supranapping: when hospitality has no limits
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Author: By Inga Popovaite
Georgian hospitality is known all around the world. But sometimes it reaches the extremes – so called supranapping (the word comes from “to kidnapp” and “supra”) can lead to painful hangover the next morning and new friends calling you weeks and weeks after.
A couple of weeks ago my friends and I went to Lagodekhi and tried to hike up to the Ninoskhevi waterfall. It should have been a nice Sunday hike: fresh air, beautiful nature and a bit of a work out. But it turned out different than we planned. First of all, there were no bridges and we had to cross the overflowing river barefooted. Although that was still lots of fun, a few hours later we found ourselves at the very end of the marked path looking at the roaring river and the rocks on both banks.
And then the rain started. Not just a drizzle – a proper rainstorm with hail, lightning and thunder. To say that we got wet is to say nothing – there were literally no dry spot left on our bodies, water was covering us from head to toe as if we were just rescued from a shipwreck.
So five of us came out of the forest soaked in rain and misery dreaming about a change of clothes in Sighnaghi and maybe a nice bowl of hot soup. And then we saw a man – let’s call him Giorgi, standing next to the ranger cabin. He also spotted us and insisted on us coming over and at least wringing our clothes and pouring water out of the shoes.
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Six Black Sea countries join efforts to increase economic impact of cultural tourism
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Author: By Ia Natsvlishvili
With the goal of creating an inter-state cooperation network among the Black Sea countries and to help develop cultural tourism, the European Union has begun implementing a two-year project entitled OLKAS: From the Aegean to the Black Sea-Medieval Ports in the Maritime Routes of the East.
The project will cover the medieval ports and important monuments within the region that are related to them, as a modern cultural route between the Black and Caspian Seas. The efforts will focus on increasing the economic effect of cultural tourism in the region.
Six Black Sea region countries including Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Georgia will be participants in this project. The partner organization in Georgia is the George Chubinashvili National Research Centre for Georgian Art History and Heritage Preservation.
“The first phase of this project aims to create a network and then a touring route will be offered to tour agencies,” said Irina Mania, a Secretarial Support/Administrative Assistant at the project’s Georgian branch.
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