The New Year is almost here. It is time to look back, to refresh our minds about what the world has gone through in the departing year, and what Georgia’s part in all that has been. Frankly, looking back is a little scary, because these were twelve months of conflicts all over the world, the Russian-Ukrainian one being among the worst and fiercest of them. The incumbent American president claims to have resolved as many as eight of those conflicts, the rest of the world kind of doubting it, but biblically speaking, blessed are the believers. The Ukrainian conflict seems to be the harshest curse humanity has known since the Second World War. And there is no end to it in the foreseeable future, though peace-loving giants like Donald Trump would not desist from believing that peace in Ukraine is possible.
What does Sakartvelo have to do with that bloody conflict? Nothing much! The only reasonable comment one could afford in this regard is this: there are politicians who would blame Georgia for refusing to get involved in the confrontation, for not opening a second front, but there are probably just as many, even more, who would validate Georgia’s abstention from war, justifying this by the current peaceful life in the republic, providing happiness, unity, prosperity, and the fulfillment of dreams.
Any mekvle (the first visitor in the New Year) would first of all wish peace to any household in Georgia, stepping over the threshold, and would add to it hope for a bright European future, especially for the youth. The most frequently used word on New Year’s Day is going to be Gaumarjos!, which is a single-word cheering toast, approximately meaning: let’s drink to life and happiness! And of course, Gilotsav Akhal Tsels! — Happy New Year!
The typical Georgian Tamada (toastmaster) will not miss definite enthusiastic and high-flown toasts, nurturing national accord in the country, bringing togetherness and an end to all kinds of conflicts, whether international or internecine, certainly with special feelings for people in occupied Georgian lands, if the Tamada wants to be politically correct. Next, a good Tamada will toast the younger generation and wish them to thrive and promote a national demographic boom; if they are abroad, inspiring them to return home and start building the motherland’s future here, in Sakartvelo, not remotely from abroad, to bring progress to this beautiful land and introduce new Western standards if they are well versed in them.
The next toast will probably be dedicated to general welfare, wishing that the upcoming year be full of triumphs, good fortune, a felicitous future, and the tripling of the nation’s potential to build a better life for its sons and daughters. The proud Tamada, a genuine patriot of his or her country, will not miss a good, wordy toast praising the culture of Georgia, its traditions and hospitality, and celebrating love for the traditional family. The Tamada who knows what he or she is doing will never miss a toast commemorating our dead, especially the war heroes who succumbed to the attacks of Georgia’s enemies. In the end, the Gilotsav Akhal Tsels toast will sound again as the finale of the solemn get-together.
That is the way Sakartvelo will see the New Year in — half happy and half depressed. Happy because the hope for a good, peaceful life is still alive, and depressed because in our time of belligerency and warmongering, anything could be expected to happen. Yet none of us wants to believe that the current hot conflict in the middle of Europe may someday extend to Georgia and shatter our valuable and painstakingly maintained serenity, affluence, and success.
I don’t know how much a prayer helps, but the habitual Georgian practice of toast-making is another way to pray and ask the Almighty to take care of us, although we all know very well that God only helps those who help themselves. This popular proverb, emphasizing self-reliance and personal effort, originates from Aesop’s Fables of ancient Greece, but wherever it comes from, it fits our social, political, and economic reality so precisely that we can hardly wish for anything more accurate or wiser to optimally organize our lives. Let us turn it into our most practicable New Year resolution. Truly Western, isn’t it?
Blog by Nugzar B. Ruhadze
