There are many truly agreeable things going on in Sakartvelo that our public may unfortunately not be aware of. One example that I recently saw totally blew my mind: There is a big old estate in Okrokana, above Tbilisi, which is literally packed full of astounding antiques and an astonishing variety of exhibits that belong in the faraway past. Kakhaber (Kakha) Kakabadze, 51, one of the dwellers of that impressive domain, has been diligently collecting and storing with care a mountain of valuable pieces of our history- more than enough to launch and run several museums to the delight of our people, especially the young, who truly need to every once in a while concentrate on the motherland’s past rather than spending hours, even days and weeks, with their noses ceaselessly stuck in their cellphones in search for goodness knows what, wasting their valuable time and losing a chance to receive their due education. Indeed, in that Okrokana goldmine, in that one-man antique show, our past is sitting at our fingertips and waiting for good men and women to delve into. It truly deserves to be turned into a museum, allowing access to the thousands of interested visitors that are sure to want to come and enjoy, enhance their knowledge of history, and have fun by throwing themselves into this fancy world of antiquity.
But there is a funny issue with the whole thing. Those thousands of endlessly priceless pieces, including old artifacts, clothes, books, carpets, caricatures, paintings, household utensils, musical instruments, weaponry, pottery and crockery, and what not, have never been catalogued. And Kakha Kakabadze, a genuine antique-guru, has a reason for this: Time has always hung heavy on his hands, because in the last quarter of a century, he has been extensively travelling the world, and, of course, within the boundaries of his own Georgia, so as to acquire all that he has brought home. Yet he now finds he can no longer accommodate the huge number of museum pieces which we saw there with our own eyes.
We, a small initiative group (call it an Action Team if you wish) came to have a look, and didn’t want to leave. It was simply fascinating. The place definitely has to be given to the public. Otherwise, people, especially passionate museum-goers, will lose a perfect chance to better understand the Caucasus in general, and Sakartvelo in particular.
Kakha Kakabadze also happens to be a talented poet. His magnanimously radiated poems are likely what helped him to create the fairy-tale environment in his parents’ old manor all by himself. On top of that, his quick mind and skillful hands are capable of working with wood and metal with surprising dexterity. Kakabadze is a typical loner, one who knows exactly what he wants and what he wants to pursue. The ever-growing Action Team that we have put together is enthused to appreciate his perseverance and professional lore of the antique, and to help him turn the amassed treasure into an emerging historical institution, calling it, for instance, the Georgia-Caucasus Museum. Specifying the name of the future museum by labelling it either “ethnographic” or “historical,” or even “folk-arts,” will be conducive to limiting its profile, because the profile it potentially has goes beyond just one direction of museum business. The main concept of the museum might help to solve the problem: In our minds, the museum, if the Intelligent Designer has a plan for it to come about, is going to be a museum with live action- with a fire burning in the exotic fireplace, national food being cooked in the presence of the visitors, a potter shaping up clay artifacts, young men and women walking around in national dress, and more.
The Action Team has to create a clear concept for its future action, starting by taking a detailed stock of the exhibits and creating a dedicated computer file with all possible information that can help to organize the fortune into a computerized log-book. Kakabadze knows literally by-heart every little piece of his fantastic realm, but that’s not enough: The Team will have to fund some volunteering professionals who can help complete the job.
There should also be a special documentary created that features this curious place in the life of this nation. As a matter of fact, the famous Georgian cinematographer and pedagogue Grigol (Grisha) Chigogidze, and his student and assistant Kato Chavchanidze, have already started shooting one. The Kakabadze “house of antiquity” has been visited by many prominences, including academicians of the field, but all have so far ended with big words and no deeds. Understandably, nothing can fly without material support, but starting with what we are doing makes a good beginning, and it might possibly make a good ending too.
Blog by Nugzar B. Ruhadze
