This year, 2024, sees me celebrating a quarter century since I first visited Georgia! Yes, in July it will be the 25th anniversary of that trip; and on December 1, the same anniversary of my moving here. In light of this, here I present some first or greatest things ever in my life which happened to me in this country.
Living longer than anywhere else: The next competitor for me is Canada (about 15 years), followed by Russia (7 years) and Zimbabwe (6). In descending order, the others are the UK (1.5), Austria (0.75) and Azerbaijan (0.5).
Meeting a head of state: This was president Mikheil Saakashvili, twice. He initiated the Teach and Learn with Georgia (TLG) program to invite volunteers here to teach English in 2010, primarily in village schools. Having lived here for 10 years already when the program began, I joined in Group 1. The president invited us and Group 2 for lunch on the Batumi Boulevard. I met him again to receive a medal for Civic Sacrifice in 2013, after having been the subject of Imedi TV channel’s Heroes of Hope weekly program; all the year’s subjects were similarly be-medalled at the same occasion, at the Presidential Palace in Tbilisi.
Meeting ambassadors: Those of the UK (several), USA and Hungary to Georgia; and of Canada to Turkey. Also, the Consul of Canada to Georgia.
Meeting Chechens: Many of whom were refugees from the 1999 war of independence from Russia. President Shevardnadze opened Georgia’s border for them to flee across and take up with their old cousins, the Kists.
Getting mugged and robbed: In the dark, dangerous Tbilisi of Shevardnadze’s time, in 2000. It was a wake-up call to become more street-smart. Getting knocked out by a blow to the back of the head also robbed me of a few minutes’ memory prior to and since the blow, meaning I have no psychological trauma, so I got off pretty lightly. The thief didn’t even bother with my 35mm camera equipment, which survived by being in a plastic shopping bag and thus perhaps not being obvious. Though I went to the police, this was never solved; not that I was expecting it to be, this being pre-Rose Revolution.
Becoming blood brother to a Svan who was cousin of the Aprasidze clan which ruled Upper Svaneti post-communism until Saakashvili had them “dealt with”. There’s a whole book there, I suppose; now that my blood brother is dead a year, I may be allowed to tell it. (He was also one of two best men at my wedding).
Georgia also saw me become old enough to be older than a sitting head of state for the first time; this was also Saakashvili, nearly a year younger than I am.
Here, I started learning my first non-European language and the first one with not a single letter in common with English. This is, of course, Georgian. (I’ve also studied Russian, which remains my strongest non-native tongue; and French).
First time being accused of being a spy and a separatist, for championing the 4000-year-old language of Svaneti.
First and only time getting married, to Lali Skhirtladze, in May 2009! Still going strong!
First time living in the highest village of a continent: Winters 2007-9, in Ushguli, about 2200m above sea level. (This status is hotly contested by a village in Tusheti which IS higher but has only one permanent inhabitant, and another in Azerbaijan, about which—is it Europe or not?) This also led to…
First time sleeping in a room getting to below freezing temperatures. I had the best sleeps of my life there, though. Ushguli was allowed one electric heater per house as the village’s electrical supply couldn’t handle more. I was fine! Never sick!
First time writing regularly for a periodical publication: Weekly for Georgia Today since March 2011. (I had written a few irregular articles for the Reporter newspaper of Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada, as I set out in summer 1989 intending to bike around the world nice and slowly. This series ended in 1991). May we have many more years together! And I’ll be continuing this series of firsts next issue…
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
