Back in Sighnaghi

Back from the demonstration. On the way back, we had a scare as five attack helicopters suddenly appeared over the hill just as we were approaching a bridge. On the way into into the demonstration, Jonathan, Sergo, and I had discussed ways in which an enemy would seriously take over Georgia, and we had mentioned the likelihood of cutting off various regions from one another by bombing key bridges. Georgia, as everyone knows, is mostly a mountainous country with many winding and difficult roads that are the only access points to individual pockets of populated valleys. It would be easy to control movement by targeting certain roads. So we were extremely edgy until we realized the helicopters were Georgian, and they were flying east.

Back in Sighnaghi, I took a break from Television Vigilance to play with Jonathan's two Georgian kids. Naturally, both of them, Lazo age 6, Gvantsa almost 4, had completely picked up on the stress of the adults and were extra punchy as a result. In between being pummeled with boxing gloves and jumped on by banchee look-alike Gvantsa, Lazo confided in a sober tone, "when I grow up I'm going be a soldier and kill the Russian President." I had to admit, my first thought was, Georgia needs more vazhkatsebi like you Lazo (patriots). But then I thought, sometimes six year old ideas stick for a long time, so I said, "Lazo, we don't know who are enemies are going to be, sometimes Russians, sometimes other people. The best thing is to get ready to defend our homes no matter who comes." He thought about this for awhile, and then said, in english, "I'm going to become a bomber, and bomb the Russians."

The rally was jubilant, angry, sorrowful, and nervous. Jubilant in extreme patriotism, with language being drawn from medieval poetry and folksongs to express the 'we will never die' mentality of this nation. Angry in that the Russians would AGAIN try to conquer the Caucasus, seemingly a never-ending imperliast preoccupation since 1801. Sorrowful because so many soldiers and civilians have died; and nervous because the Russian army is so powerful and it's leaders so unpredictably vindictive. Beyond the civil wars of 1990 and 1993, for which most admit both sides carry blame, all too many Georgians remember the protests of 1989 which were suppressed by Soviet special forces by brutally gassing and hacking more than 15 protesters to death with camping shovels on the steps of Parliament. Protestors also didn't fail to mention the invasions of Chechleslovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, and the Baltic States.

The President spoke, and then invited everyone to Sameba cathedral to pray together in a moment of religio-political symbiosis. Literally three thousand people walked half an hour across the city to the cathedral, where the Patriarch served a memorial service to those who have died, and chant was broadcast outdoors for the many hundreds of us who couldn't physically enter the building.