Etseri, my home village in Svaneti for the last 13-odd years, has a new arrival in its commercial section: The opening of a branch of international brand SPAR this week.
Our friend and neighbor Lasha Kantsliani is the force behind this bold initiative. A few years ago, he swapped some land with another villager to get the piece he wanted, which is at the start of the main road going up through the village, right on the road from Zugdidi to Ushguli. The deal also required him to build a cabin for the other party, which he did. When we asked him what he was building on his new piece, he said it would be a bakery. But somewhere along the way, this grew into the arrival of SPAR. I went down to interview Lasha soon after the opening.
“I built this with my own hands, along with my brother and others,” he said. “Every part of it is our own work.” No small endeavor, I can attest, having participated in some building of my own here. Foundation, walls, interior, roof, ceiling, drainage outside, finishing inside, plumbing, electricity, signage… then the installation of company shelving, stocking with goods, video cameras… interviews, selection and training of staff… connecting with SPAR’s computerized financial system. Lasha’s own training in the company’s culture, in Tbilisi. He is rather stressed out and lacking sleep at the moment, not having been able to imagine how difficult this all would be. But it’s happening.
Location, location, location: The three main ingredients for the success of a business. In this, Lasha’s shop is ideal. Here, where Etseri’s main bus stop is, local people wait for transport down towards Zugdidi or up to Mestia. All this transport can stop here in any case, whether there are passengers to join it or not. All the local villagers can buy here as well, if they don’t feel like walking up to us; prices are quite reasonable. As for comparison with our own shop, there are a couple of main differences: The aforementioned location (we’re 1km above); selling of alcoholic drinks; and a much larger selection of food products, which are the great majority of what SPAR sells. I hope those drinks won’t come back to be a problem for the village; time will tell. And you can’t buy anything on credit either: It’s all cash or card sales.
We don’t see SPAR as a competitor to us; on the contrary, we’re delighted with what Lasha has achieved. He wants life here to be made more comfortable for everyone, but recognizes that this won’t happen on its own: We must make it happen! He is employing local staff in two shifts for a 16-hour daily opening time, and providing a vital service for the village and surroundings.
Before I ever arrived in Svaneti, 25 years ago this month, Etseri’s heyday had come and gone. Any existing shops had vanished; infrastructure had fallen apart; the road was pathetic, and risks of armed robbery were high in the power vacuum. The very landlines for fixed-location home telephone calls (remember them?) had been stolen for their valuable wires. So people who are old enough to remember those relatively prosperous and stable days look back on them, even though the system was communist, with a certain amount of nostalgia. Or they hear about it from their parents, and have to try to imagine how successful everything was and the terror and misery of losing it all.
Given all of what was here and was lost, we desperately hope that this endeavor will succeed. It represents the return of infrastructure support from Tbilisi, a hallmark of the late Soviet period, for all its attendant faults. We, too, cheer Lasha on, wish him success and wish more new businesses to come here. A petrol station? Restaurant(s)? Other shops and services? The sky’s the limit, if we let it, and make it, be. SPAR on!
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
