Back up to Svaneti at last, for a dip into long-missed proper winter! Tbilisi’s two mild frosts so far have given me some wonderful ice detail photos in puddles… but no snow at as of yet. The mountains, of course, are buried in the stuff.
I got to Samtredia (which means “three doves”) by train, then checked into a guest house pre-arranged by a couple of my Dutch friends, who flew into Kutaisi with another couple of their countryfolk and met me there. Next morning, a driver was found to take us as far as Zugdidi… but we negotiated with him to continue as far as our door in Etseri, meaning that our considerable baggage had one less change to make.
Additional shopping in Zugdidi, for a few days’ fruit and vegetables, then onward and upward. The road into Svaneti was completely clear of ice of snow for most of the 90 or so km we had to take, only adding a bit near our village. But the last 1 km, from the highway up to our house, was a different story, almost all ice from tire-compacted snow. Insufficient show plowing has led to this. And if, at the usual couple of points, there are cows meditating on the road and you have to stop, you may not be able to re-start your ascent on such a surface and angle. For us, however, on tires far from winter-certified, even the cows were unnecessary to slow us to a stop on the ice.
We unloaded the car; I helped him turn around, with getting stuck as part of the process and local men shoveling him out of that. Then I heard that the four Dutch people had been given a lift right to our house by a kind neighbor in a better car, with all of the gear, so that made things immensely easier. The driver from Samtredia was only too eager to get back down and home, so off he went, and I walked up to the house to open the door. Shoveling of snow was already happening in the yard.
I had asked a friend in Tbilisi to make me a couple of very special snow shovels, which we brought up for this trip, to help neighbors on their roofs (ours is nice and snow-slippery). And now, as I write this, it’s the beginning of two days’ forecast snow, so I hope we will get to use the new shovels. Eight more people from ‘Youth with a Purpose’ will join us in a few days, and then is Lamproba, the holiday with burning torches, in which we are all here to participate.
Because each male who can walk needs his own birch torch, we need eight of them from my house and guests. This year is the first time that I arranged to cut these myself, and all four Duchies joined me yesterday on this expedition, armed with a battery circular saw, handsaw and ax.
The trudge of roughly 5 km was mostly in snow which was mostly too soft at sunny midday to support us, making progress slow. But we had footsteps to walk in and guide us to where we had been told to go. Near the top, high above the abandoned hamlet of Ughvali, I surged on ahead to scout out the birches and give the two couples a chance to rest in case we were astray. Not having seen any white trunks thus far, I was most relieved to soon find three of them, which was plenty. The others joined me for cutting.
One of the men and I climbed a tree each, to reach straight branches of the proper diameter. I had the circular saw, he the hand one, and soon we had all eight needed limbs off the trees, leaving plenty to spare and survive. The ladies dragged them to the other man, who looped off all extraneous smaller branches and twigs with the axe. Then back down towards home, by a shorter route via the main road.
At our village’s SPAR shop, we stopped for drinks and a food stock-up, and a neighbor generously drove us and all our wood up home, we five all standing in the back of his little Japanese pickup truck: a great help indeed. We reached home “dirty, tired and happy”. Now the birch branches are drying out near the big Svan stove, in preparation for the 9th. We’ll be ready; more details of that event next article.
All photos by the Dutch people this time. I was shooting video mostly.
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
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