The road to Vladikavkaz, capital of the Russian Republic of North Ossetia, from Kazbegi, Republic of Georgia. From EarthPhotos.com.
Visit these two compelling sites from photojournalists covering the Russia/Georgia war:
War in the Republic of Georgia, by Chris Hondros
A Georgian Diary, by Thomas Dworzak
The 14th Century Trinity Church in the Georgian Caucasus mountains, from EarthPhotos.com.
Georgia is just a beautiful country. Robert Kaplan says so in one of a number of articles on the Caucasus for the Atlantic. Paul Theroux writes of his recent trip to Tbilisi in his latest, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star. Here is a short excerpt from the eventual book, Common Sense and Whiskey, about our trip to the Caucasus, in summer 2006:
*****
Georgian toasts are famous, arduous and daunting, and there is a well-developed ritual. Zaza ordered a remarkably large glass pitcher of red wine with our beers (Zviadi, the driver, was stoic with his coffee). We’re never gonna down that thing, I thought, but we did.
Zaza’s toasts were masterful little journeys backward to where you wanted to be. He started out with “Now I would like to toast to one man…” and ended up with a salute to the traveling spirit.
“Even little things have a beauty,” he began again, and did a little riff on “be here now.”
In between toasts and shovelfuls of plate after plate of food, Zaza hit on the current political war between his country and its huge northern neighbor, which has soured so badly that, gasp, Russia has banned Georgian wine.
“All people know in Russia,” this was a simple declaration of fact, “Georgian wine is better. It is only politics.”
The Georgian toast, meanwhile, is a genuine circumlocutionary skill:
“All good history is continuous” evolves into a toast to friendship.
A really poignant toast, I thought, started out “Every moment is the present” and ended up being to “people who are at home worrying about us.”
It may be the savior of the Georgian soul, or at least its work ethic, that Georgian wine is mild, and doesn’t object to being gulped. We drank and he toasted and he toasted and we drank and ate, until lunch hit the two hour mark and we were scarcely outside Tbilisi, the Georgian Military Highway was still a theory, and we’d reached mid-afternoon.
Still the toasts as we lingered, and finally, with a lofty start, Zaza began the parting toast “To safe journey,” which ended sometime later more earthily, with a smile and the assurance that once we’re in Kazbegi, “… then again we can drink.”
In the spring before our visit, President Putin banned Georgia wine, bottled water and produce from Russia on the pretense that they didn’t meet basic health standards. It was a political irritant for Georgia, nothing more, but I should say this particular Georgian wine left us feeling considerably more healthy as we got up to leave.
*****
Find photos from Georgia, the other independent Caucasus states of Armenia and Azerbaijan, & Russia on EarthPhotos.com.
More excerpts from Common Sense and Whiskey:
Chillin' in Greenland
Crossing Lake Baikal
Blazing through Tibet with Noodle Boy
Everlasting: Malawi
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