Returning from tropical Phuket, paradise island of Thailand, was more of a shock than leaving winter for the beach. Although the Turkish Airlines pilot had described “clear skies” for Tbilisi, that had obviously changed by the time we touched down at about 4pm on Christmas Eve. Sleet slapped us in the face as we waited for our taxi home.
Resulting in me catching cold… nothing too serious, but the temperature and weather changes must simply have been too much. Not even all those fresh mangoes and other exotic fruit were enough to bolster my immune system sufficiently, I suppose. I medicated myself and stayed in our warm apartment.
My next trip, however, was supposed to be into full-on winter, visiting our village home in high Svaneti. I had recovered, and bought a train ticket from Tbilisi to Zugdidi for January 1, intending then to catch anything going up into the mountains from there.
At least I had news in time before leaving that the Svaneti road had just closed. On New Year’s eve, a house-sized rock fell and that was that: nothing in or out for at least a couple of days, said the report. The only other road into or out of Svaneti, north from Kutaisi through Lentekhi to Ushguli and then down, is always closed for winter anyway, so no go there. I got a refund on my train ticket and resigned myself to not trudging back into meter-high snow. Oh well, it was not to be for that time. A bit later, maybe.
A friend invited us to a New Year’s Eve party in his house on Mtatsminda, which would potentially give good views of all the fireworks. Last year I had borrowed a friend’s tripod, hoping to end up with a set of layers of all the bursts going off one after the other. But I left my setup too late, and barely managed to get anything useable. This year I had my own tripod, and was practiced in using it. So I walked up higher to a clear spot overlooking part of the city, and then took shot after shot of about 1 second each, to show each firework ascending and then exploding as a stream of light. 45-odd stacked layers later, it looks as though there are more “salutes” than buildings… Sorry indeed for the pets who might be traumatized by all the banging, though, I must say.
Lali and I also decided to take in the Christmas/New Year’s festival atmosphere on and near Rustaveli Avenue. Hundreds of kiosks were selling all manner of souvenirs and holiday food, and friends had told us that there was some really good aged Georgian mountain cheese on offer on Orbeliani Square. We found it, among the mulled wine, coffee, decorations and other delights. Although about 10 months old and delicious indeed, it will have to come down in price to compete with the much cheaper imported foreign cheeses available all over Tbilisi. The same for the newly available Tushetian blue cheese at the Railway Station market: wonderful stuff, but quite a bit pricier than its Danish or German equivalents. I hope it can survive: I would much rather buy Georgian and support local markets!
At least for a resident of either Canada or high Svaneti the cold season in Tbilisi is quite mild. Yesterday as I write this (January 10) we drove east to Sartichal to visit friends… and were greeted by enough snow there to whiten the ground. It hardly touched the capital, though, as we discovered when returning. Last night was the first time we bothered to turn on the central heating radiator in our bedroom, although the rest of the apartment is toasty. I still hope to return downtown alone in the evening to catch the Christmas lights with my camera before they are dismantled.
Scandals of icons featuring Stalin notwithstanding, it’s good to be safe in a peaceful city for the midwinter holidays. I can only hope and pray that elsewhere in the world where it is not so, normality will return; although I am not very optimistic going into 2024. Peace, please…
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.svaneti2
