A week with Andro

A week with Andro
03-28-05

My brother came to Tbilisi for his UVM spring break, being the best March birthday present I have ever received! How to show my most loved person in the world an entire country, an entire culture, in seven days?! In retrospect, we did a hell of a job of it. Here are some highlights:

Nariqala Fortress:
After Andrew, quickly dubbed ‘Andro’ by the Georgians, had slept off some jetlag, we took a marshutka ride down to the Old City and climbed up the alleyways to the old fifth century fortress that used to protect Tbilisi. From the promontory, we were buffeted by chilly winds as clouds raced overhead, and shafts of sunlight moved rapidly over the city below and hills around. We followed them with our eyes, and I pointed out all the landmarks within view: Sameba Cathedral, Sioni Cathedral, Freedom Square formerly Lenin Square, the Mtkvari River along with a quick Georgian pronunciation lesson, Rustaveli Prospekt, the distant concrete suburbs...

Birthday Supra:
We met up with a bunch of my friends, and took a marshutka to a restaurant in Mtskheta, a half hour distant, where Luarsab presided over a great feast of fasting-foods and hooligan singers. Andro was formally introduced to the art of the Georgian supra. Five people from the foreigner’s choir showed up to sing some of our songs, and about twenty of my Georgian singing buddies came to sing too. Unbelievable times.

There were a trio of women singing with a chonguri, the traditional instrument from the Black Sea coast. We were so many chanters, that chants needed to be sung three times with three different small choirs taking turns showing off their ornamentation. I could imagine grand old feasts in feudal Georgian times having this atmosphere as the bishop’s choir duelled with the noble’s choir....

Kutaisi:
We traveled by Niva jeep to the western Georgian capital city, Kutaisi, once the capital of the Colchian kingdom in pre-Christian times. We visited the great Gelati Monastery, where Ekvtime Kereselidze (whose biography I’m studying) organized all his scattered chant notes into five massive books.

We visited Motsameta Monastery, where Luarsab and his fellow church history researcher interviewed the oldest living monk in Georgia, a great white bearded man with enormous hands and a strong oak voice. While he told his life story to Luarsab and my minidisc recorder, Andro and I took a moonlit night-hike down the cliffs to a hidden pasture by a bend in the gorge river.

Motsameta sits on a peninsula five hundred feet above a river which makes a horseshoe shape around the monastery, cliffs closing in on all sides. What a gorgeous place. Twelfth century monastery. We skipped rocks and discussed college life in the moonlight.

Later we stayed at a priest’s house, where we had supra number two. In the morning, we were greeted with supra number three for breakfast, and on our way to the famous ruin of the ruling Bagrati palace and cathedral, we had supra number four with about five more priest friends.

One priest loved his wine so much he kept exclaiming to Andro, ‘bolomde, bicho!’ literally ‘bottoms up, boy!’ Luarsab intervened to save relative sobriety. Meanwhile this particular priest indulged to the healthiest degree, check out the pictures in the March album.

On the way to Bagrati cathedral again, we had to stop at another church, where Luarsab was again delayed at supra for three hours. This time, Andro and I took matters into our own hands, skipped the supra and walked across the city, over the bridge, and up the hill to the ruin.

What a beautiful place! Whereas many practicing cathedrals have a somewhat dim, musty air to them, a cathedral in ruins attests to a history far more complex, while sunlight on a nave floor adds an element of grandeur mixed with tragedy. Such was the feeling in Bagrati Cathedral, it’s elegant transcept half domes still intact in their perfect masonry, while the roof and south walls lay in ruin.

In all directions the two meter thick palace walls defended the royal family from Turks, Persians, and Highlanders, to name just a few of the attendance list of adversaries who fought in Georgia through the centuries.

We finally found Luarsab at another priest’s house, where interviews may only be conducted over the supra table. So again we were treated to beans, bread, salads, and wine, before we drove the four hours all the way back over the central valley mountains to Tbilisi, in hot debate over the Abkhazian conflict and other such issues which are of curiousity to Andro for his course on development and demography.

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Sighnaghi:
I’m almost tiring myself out just rethinking this weeks non-stop adventuring! What times. But one can’t really describe Georgia, it must be shown. Don’t expect a similar tour for each and every one of you as you get your flight tickets ready to come over here, I’m plain wore out!

We slept in after the trip, then ate vegetarian food at the only cafe of that speciality in the city, took the scary underground to the bus station, and ‘marsh’d’ it for Sighnaghi (traveling by marshutka minibus), most beautiful of Georgian villages. We were greeted by friends, homecooked potato dumplings, and lots of singing! No electricity or running water in Sighnaghi and it was cold cold!

Thursday, we went with Shergil, Shmagi, and two buddies down to some village schools where we performed two concerts for the kids. Andro had learned Aghdgomasa Shensa on the drive out to Kutaisi, so he performed with us in front of all the kids, they loved seeing the foreigners sing!

Before the concert, I schooled the local bullies at basketball, and taught everyone else how to pass to win, because they obviously haven’t seen Hoosiers over here recently. Four passes before the shot. Funnily enough, all the bullies showed up at the concert later and winked at Andro and I as if to say, ‘you’re cool, I’m cool, we understand each other.’ I hate bullies. I’ll school you guys again if I get the chance, and don’t count on any favors from this foreigner. :)

We threw another birthday supra for Shergil and I, both Pisces boys, at the grandview restaurant, where our view was a moonlit nothingness over the expanse of the Alezani far below. You’ve all seen my pictures of Sighnaghi and know it is in the hills high above the valley.... my present to Shergil were copies of twenty Easter chants, which he is drooling over all the time now, such beautiful chants no one has ever heard before!

Back around the woodstove, the girls wanted to play games, so we played games like saying a verse in Georgian after which one person would name a number. Then we would count up to that number, each person around the circle saying the next number. At the final number, if you were next in line and your hand was slapped, you were out! This game was particularly amusing because I didn’t get it, and while Andro did get it, he couldn’t count in Georgian and didn’t know how high to count anyway.

The next game involved blindfolding one person, dancing around them in a circle singing songs, then allowing them to try and tag someone who would become the next blindfolded person. I kept wondering if I was in kindergarten, since that is the last time I played games like this, but here we were, a bunch of 18+ers, dancing and laughing away. I think the girls just wanted to flirt with Andro, who after all isn’t that bad looking a kid, and maybe the best way for girls to flirt here is through kindergarten games. Dating is not quite the scene here shall I note....

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Tbilisi:
Back to Tbilisi in the wee morning hours when normal foreigners work and normal Georgians sleep, because I had to sing the Vespers service at 1pm. Andro came along and lasted for about an hour and half before wandering off to find Russian cigarettes for friends, a map and a flag.

The flag came in handy because, after a quick bite to eat, we were off to watch the Georgian National soccer team take on defending European Cup champions Greece! The game was madness, great fun, high energy. Georgia scored first to the ecstacy of thousands, but proceeded to lose three to one, oh well. The singing guys we went with weren’t contented with the evening, so we partied with folk singing back at my apartment until wee hours, complete with black wine and guitar.

Divine Liturgy in the morning, a grand hooligan basketball extravaganza in the afternoon, then wandering and shopping in Tbilisi, a crewcut for Andro’s college mop, then to supra at Luarsab’s house where we had great fun playing with two year old Elene. The night was too young at 10:30 so we visited my chess buddy John to play a few games and discuss politics. Quickly home, and then we drove Andro to the airport at 2am.

Bro, what times we’ve had this week! I hope the Georgia of these days stays in memory and inspires new energy for life back at school.