This has become a tradition: summers in Svaneti, winters in Tbilisi. I never wanted to be “one of those people.” My my wife’s and my life is double anyway. Her family are in Kakheti or this city, as are our churches and so many friends. Wintering up there meant we had so little time to see them all, particularly Lali’s mother, now in her eighties, with growing frailty. We’ve already had to travel from there to first Canada and then eastern Georgia, for the funerals of our fathers. So we need to make full use of this remaining time.
Plus, our Svaneti guest house was getting so few visitors in winter anyway. This fact, plus the arrival of a Spar shop in our village to tide people over through winter, made it so much more reasonable to migrate south-east for the winters. The final factor is winter’s worse electricity and water freeze troubles in Svaneti. So, here we are, not feeling guilty. Recharging for the busy summer. Catching up on family, friendships, city arts culture, and more.
I take a long photographic walk through our Dighomi neighborhood to see what has changed since we left in May. One thing is the planting of a set of new signs forbidding fires and the dumping of household or industrial garbage. Our seemingly tireless eco-warrior friend, Anna, who started the Dighomi Meadows NGO to address these and other issues, is responsible for the signs. But the garbage remains, and there is plenty of new dumping in evidence as well. I suppose that there must come some proof, such as on video cameras, of who is making this disastrous mess; and then some hefty fines. The nature here is spectacular: ponds, flora and fauna, forests. But you have to ignore the encroaching environmental ruin to appreciate it.
Woodpeckers. Magpies. Corvids. Otters, even, apparently; certainly their cousins, nutria. Flowers of many kinds, and blackberries. Rushes edging the ponds. Not worth saving?
Anna is also tackling the woefully inadequate local public transport with City Hall. There is a single minivan-bus serving between us on Bob Walsh Street and metro Sarajishvili.
The presence of many sports facilities on our road is welcome: soccer fields, a swimming pool, gymnastics arena and, latest, an ice palace to open soon. But they bring so many youth to the street that that single minivan is always over-full. Also, new high rises going up in the area with their increasing local population will further burden this meager transport. We NEED a bus line too.
Our first two winters back in Tbilisi were in Saburtalo. There, too, we enjoyed the local parks. But here, really on the edge of the city, we are minutes’ walk away from real, proper nature. But you could never call it unspoiled, sadly. Seems that if the dumping isn’t expressly forbidden and punished, it will be done. Then, once you do start outlawing and cracking down on it, the habit is there. I get it: we need SOMEWHERE to put our trash. But in the wilderness? Really? Greed trumps shame, buries it in rubble and chemical poisons. Chokes it.
I have participated in one local garbage cleanup day, along with my neighbors, organized by Anna. But the garbage returns: more correctly, people continue bringing it. This can be most disheartening. But we continue, telling ourselves it’s worth it.
The wildlife will try to cling and flourish. It was here first, anyway. We must allow it to exist here, for both its sake and ours. Or is there no right and wrong? Who, really, believes THAT?
The postscript to this story is that, while I was out taking photos for it, some plainclothes police drove up in an unmarked car and asked to see the photos on my phone. They did identify themselves with badges when I asked them to. Then, some questions about who I am, what I was shooting (which apparently did not interest them), and we parted. What were they actually looking for?
Blog by Tony Hanmer
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer and photographer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 2000 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri: www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
