Anna Buxton

Georgia on my mind

• by anna
• 9 November, 2015

We spent altogether a week in Georgia, the first two days of which we were in Tbilisi, where we had arrived.  After that, we traveled extensively round the country.

The Georgians initially called their country ”the place of Kartveli People”.   Later, the Greeks gave it the name Georgia – from the Greek geo – land.  Another theory was that the name comes from St George.  The Persian name of Georgians – vrkān – means “land of the wolves”.

The southwestern part of to-day’s Georgia became the Kingdom of Iberia, peopled by Kartvelians, while the northeastern part on the Black Sea coast was the Kingdom of Colchis, also peopled by Kartvelians.  It was the kingdom of Medea and the Golden Fleece from Greco-Roman mythology – the destination of the Argonauts.  We all remember  the stories from our childhood about those heroes, led by Jason, who traveled to Colchis before the eruption of the Trojan War (round 1300 BC?).  Colchis was independent until 164 BC, when it was united with Iberia.

Georgia is a country, with only 13% of flat territory – the rest of the terrain is all mountainous.  The views everywhere we went were spectacular and almost surreal.  We went to the Jvari monastery (Monastery of the Cross) and looked at the old capital Mtskheta, where the Russian poet Lermontov was exiled and wrote a famous poem about two rivers’ confluence, comparing them to two sisters.

Georgia was Christianised by St Nino.  Nino was born in Cappadocia, of Greek parentage.  She is known as a relation of St George’s.  She had a dream that she should go and bring Christianity to Georgia and traveled to the country.  However, arriving there, she realised she did not have a cross.  Being a resourceful woman, she made a cross from some bits of wood she found and bound them with vine branches – the official Georgian cross is still depicted interwoven with wine branches.

Getting known for her healing powers, she was soon taken to visit the Iberian (Georgian) Queen Nana, who was very sick.   She cured Nana, who in gratitude took Christianity, alongside her pagan husband, King Mirian.  Eventually, in 327 AD he declared Christianity the official religion of Iberia.  Nino, later sainted, continued her mission to preach to the Georgians until the end of her days.

We were on our way to Svetitskoveli – the Partiarchal Temple, when our guide was explaining why there were no anti-Semitic feelings in Georgia.  She told us the story of a Jewish girl – Sidona, whose brother was in Jerusalem during the Crucifixion of Christ and knowing about her strong Christian beliefs, he brought back for her as a present part of Christ’s tunic.  She fainted, when it was given to her and then died, with the cloth in her hands.

 

Sidona was buried with Christ’s tunic, and later St Nino built a wooden church over the place.  Her tomb is now painted with murals.  Later, the wooden church was replaced with a stone one, by the creator of Tbilisi – King Vahtag Gorgasali and called Svetitskoveli.  During the Russian occupation, the Russian Patriarch of Georgia ordered that all the murals in the church should be whitewashed!  They were uncovered when communism fell.

We traveled with the bus to more monasteries, castles by lakes, dams, we went to the town of Kazbegi (1500 m high) and settled in a nice, environmentally built hotel, called Rooms some 15 km from the Russian border, full of tourists, many of them rich Russians.  We enjoyed a drink of Cognac in the evening on the vast terrace of the hotel, looking directly at the Gergety Trinity Church and Mt Kazbeg.

From the town of Kazbegi, we were taken by jeeps to the Gergety Trinity Church, which is just under Mount Kazbek (5047 m high).  One needs to mention the fact, that women cannot enter Georgian churches with bare heads – a scarf or a hat is a must.  Also, trousers for women are not acceptable in church– you are given an additional skirt or scarf to   cover your bottom.  Georgians are generally very religious – when they pass by a church, they cross themselves three times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw a tiled monument of Georgian/Russian friendship, done in communist times and still not damaged – possible because it was so far away from civilisation.  Georgia was put under Russian protection against Muslim invasions in 1783, when they signed a treaty with Catherine the Great.  The 19 century was called the period of Russification of Georgia – they built roads, railways, buildings and opened schools, etc.  So they had two centuries of Russian domination, followed by 70 years of communist rule!

Our tour included a stop in Gori – the birthplace of Stalin.  I refused to enter his museum, but Chris went to see it.  He was amazed by the monotonous delivery, given  by the museum guide, who in the first section of the museum was describing Stalin very positively, then with the same flat tone of voice, she spoke of the number of people killed on his order.  They took the group to the childhood house of Stalin.  Our guide, who sat on a bench with me outside, said that this was not the original house, but an updated variant.

Otherwise, Gori is a very pleasant and prosperous town with an excellent fortress on top of a hill, right in the centre of town, which of course we did not have time to visit – the bus just stopped for a quick picture.

We passed by the best ski resort, which did not impress; saw large flocks of sheep, coming back for the winter on the roads, went to a limestone and iron waterfall, and visited a cave town from 1 c BC.  We learned there were two more cave towns in Georgia.

We traveled to the semi-desert to the Lavra Monastery, a cave monastery, where one of the six Syrian Christians, who helped spread Christianity in Georgia – David Gareja settled.  Unfortunately, some of the best parts were used privately by the monks.  The state gave the Church all its properties back after communism fell and now the Church stops access to whatever it wants – it appears.  Our guide was very crossed about this.  At some time, this monastery housed 1,600 monks.  On the way there and back, we saw dried salt lakes and an abandoned (when communism fell) town for immigrants, with unused houses.

On our travels, we saw many towns with container-made houses, made for immigrants from  and Abkhazia and Ossetia – all looking very smart, clean and pretty.  But they were in an area, where nothing was growing – we wondered what they lived from.

We were also taken to a winery for wine tasting in Sighnaghi – an old town with impressive, well-preserved inner and outer walls form the 12^th century.  There we also saw a commemoration wall with the names of all the men, who died from this town and the area in the Second World War.  It appears that 400,000 Georgians died in the SWW – the largest number from all the other republics.

The wine was made with traditional (clay) technology: We tried a good dry white – Kartziteli, Rose, Red- Saperavi and the magnificent thick and heavy, almost desert wine – Kindzmaurali.  We also tried the whisky equivalent and their cognac.  We had tried the local cognac in Tbilisi, too – it is good!

Generally speaking, looking at provincial towns and villages, Georgia appeared much more affluent, than Armenia.  This may have to do with the fact that they are more open to the West than Armenia is.

We feel that we had a good look at former Iberia, we now need to travel and explore former Colchis – the land of the Golden Fleece.  We were told that the practice to put a sheep’s fleece at the bottom of the river to “catch” gold nuggets still survives in Georgia to this day.  May be we should try our luck!?