Old Town Studios

A Grassroots Art Gallery opens in Sighnaghi

Sighnaghi, usually a sleepy town, is currently one big construction zone. An army of construction vehicles has shattered both the pristine quiet and cobblestone streets of this fortified hill-town. Workers from all over the region commute into Sighnaghi. They are taking the city apart to put it back together – new sewage and waterways, electrical and phone lines are being laid, town center buildings are being gutted and rebuilt, and multiple main streets are being restored to an ideal vision of Sighnaghi’s antiquated self.

On one of the streets presently under heavy renovation, a different kind of cultural restoration project is underway. A collective of Sighnaghi-based artists have joined forces to open Old Town Studios, a sort of grassroots art gallery. The gallery aims to provide a place where visitors can view some of the artwork produced by Sighnaghi’s ever-growing community of artists, which in recent years has come to include artisan wood-carvers, painters, musicians, carpet- and kilim-weavers, and winemakers.

At the moment, the pitch of Baratashvili Street is a slurry of mud. A trench deep enough to swallow a man runs the length of the street. At 18 Baratashvili Street, the trench is spanned by a narrow footbridge, which leads the visitor through a white metal gate and into the courtyard of Old Town Studios.

Spearheading the collaborative effort is American painter John Henry Wurdeman, who has lived and painted in Sighnaghi for the past decade. He speaks engagingly, and his blue eyes sparkle with enthusiasm. He is wearing a pair of fuzzy brown slippers to spare the carpets and freshly-scrubbed floors. As he describes the genesis of Old Town Studios, he sits by a fire in one of the gallery hearths and pokes at burning logs with a pair of iron tongs.

During his time in Sighnaghi, Wurdeman has befriended numerous artists and musicians, many of whom found reasons to move to Sighnaghi over the years. Among the transplants to Sighnaghi are carpet-weaver David Beraia, who moved from Tbilisi, and artisan wood-carver Shergil Pirtskhelani, originally of Svaneti. Both established their own studios in Sighnaghi.

“The whole idea of the place happened very organically,” Wurdeman says. The three men were all friends, and one of the things that connected them was their shared interest in Georgia’s traditional arts. When friends came to town, they often would want to see Wurdeman’s paintings, Beraia’s carpets, Pirtskhelani’s instruments and furniture. And while their works have all been on display or for sale, at one time or another, in Tbilisi, there was nowhere in their adopted hometown where they could show and share their work.

Old Town Studios was built by the participating artists and their friends. There are plans for a finished courtyard outdoors, but for now the main attractions are all indoors, in the two finished gallery spaces, painting and weaving studios, and wine cellar.

The painting gallery displays a teasingly small array of works clearly meant to arouse, not overwhelm, the visual palette. The selection of paintings currently on display are all bound for exhibits in the United States, but those interested in rooting around for paintings to purchase can visit Wurdeman’s painting studio itself, with its much larger collection paintings, on the second floor.

Wurdeman’s painting pedigree is unusual—after enrolling at the Maryland Institute College of Art, he transferred to the Surikov Institute of Art in Moscow, where he studied under Vyacheslav Nikolaivic Zabelin. His painting career eventually led him to Sighnaghi, Georgia, where he fell in love with the landscape and culture, as well as with his future wife, musician Ketevan Mindorashvili.

The room where Wurdeman’s paintings hang is a pleasant wash of summer after the mud and snow outside. The cream-colored walls are hung with evocative impressionistic landscapes, portraits and still-lifes painted in Sighnaghi. The paintings bloom with the greens and yellows of a landscape in full flower. There are panoramas of the gardens at Bodbe monastery under a wide sky, thick canopies of trees pierced by steeples, the sunny streets and wooden balconies of Sighnaghi’s town center.

The room adjoining the painting gallery has exposed brick walls, and is hung with vivid Georgian carpets. A few representative pieces of carved wooden furniture are also on display.

The furniture is chiefly by Shergil Pirtskhelani, originally of Latali, Svaneti. Pirtskhelani is from a family of musicians and wood-carvers – he and his six brothers and one sister were all taught by their father, Romeo Pirtskhelani, who has been recognized by Georgian Orthodox Church and the Georgian government for his cultural contributions.

At the age of 17, Shergil Pirtskhelani moved to Tbilisi, where he studied art history, painting, and Georgian folk art. During an exhibition of the Pirtskhelani family’s woodwork in Tbilisi (the whole family is renowned for their wood-carving and signing), he met the John Wurdeman and Ketevan Mindorashvili, who recruited him (as well as his sister Teah and brother Shmagi) to sing in Mindorashvili’s chorus, Zedashe Ensemble. In 2002, after a US-tour with Zedashe, Pirtskhelani moved to Sighnaghi, where he has since continued to sing and make artisan furniture and traditional instruments such as chongi and chuniri. His brothers, who are wood-carvers in their own rights, often collaborate with him in his studio.

There is not a lot of woodwork on display at the moment – each piece takes a lot of time to produce, and Pirtskhelani works largely on commission. But there is an ornamented makhvshi’s throne, as well as a large, caramel-colored bed-frame with a linear ornamental design carved into it. At the center of headboard is a disc carved with sunflower-like lines curving in one direction from its heart. This disc motif—variously thought to represent the sun, the galaxy, or kindness – is an emblem common in Svanetian wood ornaments.

The traditional arts room of Old Town Studios is decidedly dominated by carpets, which represent the tip of an enormous enterprise directed by David Beraia.

Beraia worked for years as a carpet- and kilim-dealer. In recent years, he has dedicated himself to researching and reviving traditional carpet-weaving in Georgia. Beraia employs about 30 women of all ages in the greater Sighnaghi area who now make carpets in the traditional style, and he is helping to establish a center for carpet-weaving at Shuamta (near Telavi).

Beraia, a middle-aged man with a dark beard, warm expression, and intense brown eyes, describes his work with great seriousness. Resurrecting traditional carpet weaving, and reestablishing the preeminence of Georgian carpet-weaving is Beraia’s own expression of patriotism.

Georgian carpets have long been considered among the finest in the world. After World War I, many Georgian carpets came to be labeled Armenian or Azeri. “Everyone wants to claim the best as their own,” Beraia says. He adds that, while carpet-weaving was certainly a trans-caucasian phenomenon, “Georgian carpets are very different from Azeri or Armenian carpets.”

Beraia traveled to Iran, Armenia, Turkey, and around Central Asia to gather information—and carpets. And while there may be others in Georgia with a collection to rival his (though surely, he says, not many), he knows of no one else documenting the history and working on the revival of authentically Georgian carpet-weaving.

The carpets on display at Old Town Studios are vivid and bright, and Beraia’s extensive knowledge of the history and origins of his carpets make the experience of carpet-shopping pleasant and interesting for a novice. He patiently deconstructs one large carpet in Old Town Studios, pointing out how the seemingly abstract geometric shapes describe boats, the passage of time, and an elaborate sheep-skin – telling, in effect, the story of Jason and the Argonauts. Another, smaller carpet has a blood-red heart, against which background a small white hen has laid a small white egg. Before marriage, Beraia explains, a bride-to-be would make one of these small “demo” carpets in order to demonstrate her handiness, dedication, and integrity. (The hen-and-egg pattern proclaims her fertility.)

All of the carpets from Beraia’s weaving school are made using traditional materials, and all of the yarn (which mostly comes from Tusheti) is dyed using traditional methods and materials, and cost USD $300-$1,500, depending on materials, complexity and size.

Visitors to Old Town Studios may purchase one of the carpets on display or commission a carpet woven with their own choice of patterns and colors. Those interested can also arrange to take weaving lessons.

In addition to the paintings, carpets, and furniture on display, Old Town Studios has renovated the 250-year-old marani (wine cellar) beneath the gallery space. Visitors can taste Saperavi and Rikatsiteli wine from this past fall that has been made by traditional Georgian methods. The white wine has been fermented with the grape stems and skins, (rather than stripped of these tannin-producing elements as European white wines are), which yields a distinctively dark honey-colored white wine.

Gela Patalishvili, a vintner and farmer from Bodbis khevi, is the architect of Old Town Studio’s marani. He hopes to establish a solid reputation for excellent local wine, and to eventually offer agricultural tours for people interested in traditional Georgian wine-making.

The New Tourism

For many years, Sighnaghi has been something of a backpacker’s destination. Though the town, when not under heavy construction, was already picturesque and rich in history, it was lacking more upscale accommodations and places to eat. After the massive renovation project, the town will likely attract broader array of tourists – both those roughing it, and those who prefer down pillows under their heads.

And Old Town Studios is not the only bettor on Sighnaghi’s future as a tourism and cultural center. MGroup is opening the Hotel Sighnaghi in the former digs of the Intourist Hotel. In addition to khinkali and kababi cafes, Sighnaghi has two nice restaurants – Pancho Villa (Mexican - 8255 3 15 11 or 899 19 23 56) on Queen Tamar street, and an excellent Georgian restaurant overlooking the Alazani Valley (name unknown, but it’s just through the archway in the city wall on the road downhill to Tsnori), and a five-star restaurant is reportedly in the works.

“We’re taking a risk in doing this,” Wurdeman says of the grassroots art gallery, “but five years ago, we would have been insane.”

Old Town Studios will open March 3 2007.

Old Town Studios is located at 18 Baratashvili Street in Sighnaghi.
Call John Wurdeman (899 53 44 84) or Shergil Pirtskhelani (899 79 53 60). English, Georgian, and Russian spoken.

When to Visit

Old Town Studio’s inaugural weekend is March 3-4, 2007, and the studio will be open both days from 12 pm – 5 pm. There will be wine-tasting, and the artists will be on hand to talk about their work and offer studio tours.

After their opening weekend, Old Town Studios is open Fridays and Saturdays 11 am – 5 pm, and Sundays 1 pm – 5 pm, and by appointment. Large parties or those wishing to ensure a studio tours should call ahead. Call John Wurdeman (899 53 44 84) or Shergil Pirtskhelani (899 79 53 60). Both speak English and Georgian, and Wurdeman speaks Russian as well.

How to Get there

Marshrutkas run between Tbilisi and Sighnaghi several times a day. Tbilisi-Sighnaghi Marshrutkas leave from the Samgori metro station parking lot at: 9:00; 11:00; 1:00; 3:00; 6:00. Sighnaghi-Tbilisi leave from in front of the Sighnaghi post office at: 7:00; 9:00; 11:00; 1:00; 4:00; 6:00. In Sighnaghi, buy your ticket at the ticket window (inside the red brick building that abuts the parking lot) or in the parking-lot if the ticket-window is still under construction. The trips cost 5 GEL each way. Arrive early – marshrutkas leave as soon as they are full.

Sighnaghi may be on its way to having well-paved roads and broad sidewalks, but for now the streets are muddy and dominated by construction vehicles. Sturdy footwear recommended.

Where to Stay

Until the new hotel is finally open (latest reports say it will start receiving guests in April), visitors may also arrange to stay at Nana’s Family Hotel, which is located at 2 Saradjishvili Street in Sighnaghi’s city center. Call Nana Kokiashvili at 8255 3 18 29 (hotel) or 899 79 50 93 (mobile), or email her at Kkshvl@yahoo.com. Nana speaks some English, and the hotel (run from her home) is spacious, with hot water and clean, modern bathroom facilities. She can also arrange excursions to local sites of interest, including Bodbe Monastery (where St. Nino is buried) and Davit Gareji.

Published in Georgia Today, 23 Feb 2007.

a-smile-ation

I never embraced the idea of American exceptionalism. And many ways I still don’t. But living in Georgia, and thinking and writing about what's going on here as best as I can, I’ve noticed that there are, actually, some major ways in which the New World is different from the Old.

Time and again, I find myself explaining how, in spite of the fact that my father was born in Japan, I myself (born and raised in the States) am American, not Japanese. And that actually my father naturalized a few years ago, and is now American, too. (I'm not so naive as to think that no one in America would contest my American-ness, but I don't take them very seriously, and America's most optimistic view of itself is still as melting-pot/tossed salad. And so.)

But then, in spite of my painstaking and painful Georgian elucidation of this simple construct, my conversation partner, who is perhaps selling cabbages, turns to his friend and says. "See, she's Japanese. I told you so!"

For my part, I struggle to understand how people of Georgian descent who have been living in Iran for 400 years can still consider themselves Georgians. (They've been petitioning for assistance in returning to Georgia for quite some time now). The seeming aversion to—or impossibility of—cultural assimilation here is jarring. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around it. Is it even so?

That is all.

Tbilisi Laundry Ban

I'm copy-editing The Georgian Times. It's Sunday morning. I'm still in my pajamas, but I would like to bring the following article to your attention:

Tbilisi residents prohibited from hanging laundry on balconies
Tbilisi residents who hang laundry out on balconies overlooking central streets will now face a $285 fine, the Tbilisi city hall told the Novosti Georgia agency on Friday.

A law to that effect came into force February 15.

Fines must be paid within 20 days, and will be tripled for repeat violations. Tbilisi's city hall said it will distribute drying boards to poor families whose balconies overlook central streets. All others will have to pay for their own.

Guys, I make $250 a month, and that is decent chunk of change here. It lets us pay our electricity, gas, and water bills, with a lot left over for bottles of wine and dinners out.

People who dry their laundry on their balconies don't have driers. (Heck, we don't have one either). Clothes take a long time to dry indoors away from the light and the stir of air outdoors. I've been kind of happy about the downtown beautification project -- many of the old buildings are having their rotting facades re-plastered, and it's nice to see this pretty city get off its knees and apply some fresh makeup or whatever. But barring people from using what's theirs to do something as necessary as drying their laundry - purely in the interest of what? making passers-by forget that there are people without driers in the world? - seems petty and ridiculous.

And just what the heck is a drying board, anyway?

Sakhinklis Riqe: more than meats the eye

Update: 30 April 2007 This restaurant - as well as its neighbors - no longer exists, having been bulldozed as part of the Georgian government's nationalization project. Read more about it here: Rike Falls to the Bulldozer in Controversial New Privatization Flurry.

From the street, Sakhinklis Riqe looks like nothing so much as a storage shed for the much larger restaurant that stands beside it, but this unassuming little eatery serves what may be the best kababi in town.

Sakhinklis Riqe is located in Riqe Place, amidst a cluster of other restaurants on the left embankment of the Mtkvari River (between the Metekhi and Baratashvili bridges, but closer to the latter). Don’t be confused by the bright lights and comely exteriors of the big restaurants - look for the squat white structure with no windows sitting cheek-by-jowl beside the restaurant with red “Sameba” letters on its roof.

Inside, you’ll find a surprisingly spacious dining area. The air might be a bit hazy with cigarette smoke, but the warm wooden shine of the large tables and chairs - the owners are clearly privy to the bochka/beer barrel aesthetic – and the friendly demeanor of the wait staff make this a cozy place to dine.

Sakhinklis Riqe doesn’t have a printed menu, but it doesn’t need one - you can count their offerings on one hand. They serve kababi, khinkali, mtsvadi and kombosto mzhave - the house pickled cabbage.

Of all of the items on the menu, the best is unquestionably the kababi.

For the most part, kababi in Tbilisi tend to be pretty predictable - heavy, spiced sausages in flatbread - without a great deal of variation from restaurant to restaurant. But the kababi at Sakhinklis Riqe, like the restaurant itself, is more than “meats” the eye.

Served without fanfare in sheets of thin lavash flatbread, the kababi are of average length and girth. An exploratory poke with a fork reveals lightly sautéed onions and cilantro with a subtle red pepper paste sprinkled beneath the lavash. But it is only upon digging in that one properly appreciates this kababi’s best qualities: the meat is moist and yielding, almost melting in your mouth, and is subtly spiced with minced onion, garlic and herbs.

If you need to round out your meal, the khinkali and mtsvadi will do. The khinkali are pedestrian - just your basic buttoned meat dumpling - but tasty, and the grilled pork mtsvadi likewise is flavorful, if a little on the dry side.

The kombosto mzhave, while simple, is quite excellent. The fermented red cabbage is a pleasing bright fuchsia, and is pickled with red pepper, which lends the dish a little kick. Be sure to order the kombosto if you’re going all-out with the meat menu. The lactic acid in the fermented cabbage will give your digestive system a much-needed boost, and the dish is also a refreshing change of pace for your taste buds.

There’s Kazbegi beer on tap, and Gomi vodka and other standard beverages (Borjomi, Limonati, etc) are also available.

In our reverie of meat, beer, and pickled cabbage my party never learned how much each item cost, but we ordered some of everything, left barely able to walk, and spent about GEL 10 each.

Georgian and Russian spoken. No English, but none is needed, so long as you master the following vocabulary: Kababi, kombosto, ludi (beer).

Sakhinklis Riqe: Riqe Place, 747020
Published in Georgia Today, 16 Feb 07

No Starbucks in Tbilisi?

It’s true that, for better and for worse, there are no Starbucks in Tbilisi. Yet. But those who long for a coffee-and-pastry pick-me-up on the way to work, or for a comfortable cafe in which to mega-dose espresso and type their novel, need not despair. At Coffee and Donut and the Donut Stop your pre-caffeinated self will swear – if you only squint a little – that you’re at a South Caucasian Starbucks/Krispy Kreme joint venture.

A variety of fresh pastries are available at both donut depots for GEL 0.20, 1.10 and 1.20. Plump sugar-dusted jelly-filled confections and crispy chocolate-glazed cream-filled morsels jostle for primacy at the counter. It doesn’t really seem possible to be able to go wrong with any of these – deep-fried dough and sugar can’t help but nail a hole-in-one – but I will say that the chocolate-icing crust is tooth-achingly familiar, and the fruit-jelly-filled pastries are especially worth a try; the fruit filling has a tart kick to it that makes these a much more toothsome treat than their overwhelmingly saccharine state-side jelly-bellied counterparts.

The GEL 2.50-and-under coffee menu at both donut shops includes various members of the -ccino family (cappuccino, mochaccino) as well as regular coffees. Authentic Starbucks blends (Yukon Blend, Breakfast Blend, etc) of questionable provenance (which country have they been smuggled in from?) while not on-tap at the time of writing, are intermittently available as well.

The Donut Stop on Kekelidze Street is best suited for those who prefer their coffee and pastry to go. A few years ago, when trademark anarchy reigned supreme, patrons of the Donut Stop might have been lured into the shop by a Starbucks logo painted on the wall outside the café. No longer. Whether due to the need for a new splash of paint, or in provident response to the proliferation of trademark lawsuits against blatant knock-offs in countries where Starbucks is expanding (which now include India, Egypt, Brazil and Russia), the mermaid has been covered up, somewhat diminishing the Donut Stop’s genuine faux-Starbucks aspirations.

Which is not to say it doesn’t try to evoke some atmosphere. The shelves behind the counter boast a number of namdvili (if purely decorative) Starbucks coffee bags, while Starbucks stickers adorn the front counter. The walls of the café display a waist-high band of that distinct ‘Starbucks Green’ paint, and are festooned with green-painted pictures – some of which include the word “Starbucks” swirling around in the pigment. There are a handful of tables should you choose to eat-in, but the atmosphere is a little on the silent-and-deadly side.

On Abashidze Street, Donut and Coffee provides all the ambiance of a neighborhood Starbucks without the “wannabe” vibe of its first location (although its sign – a green circle around the Donut and Coffee logo – does distantly resemble the insignia of its Seattle-based spiritual mentor). Inside, the cafe is spacious and bright. Large windows look out onto the street. Tables for four are set discretely apart from one another, evoking the ambiance of a street café and a feeling of privacy. Patrons have the rare luxury of being able to choose between discrete smoking and non-smoking sections, and one room has a stack of periodicals for your perusal. Come early however if you want to enjoy peace, quiet and fresh air as the dining room fills up with cigarette smoking students in the afternoon.

If nursing a -ccino and nibbling a donut for hours isn’t satisfactory, Donut and Coffee also offers more substantial fare, including salads (GEL 4-8), pasta (GEL 7-9), sandwiches (GEL 3-5), and the strange and misguided “flat burger,” – a hole-less donut with odd fillings such as crab salad (GEL 3).

Donut and Coffee: 10/12 Abashidze Street, Tel: (32) 25 14 66
The Donut Stop: 16 Kekelidze Street, Tel: (32) 25 39 85
Menus in Georgian and English.

Published in Georgia Today, 9 Feb 2007.

We could be assholes...

...just for one day, though.

Tuesday, C received a sudden flurry of email and phone-call from the US Embassy in Tbilisi.

My heart soared. Were our passports, which we'd submitted for visa processing WAY back before Christmas ("real" Christmas), finally ready? Might we finally take our long-anticipated holiday to Istanbul or Yerevan to catch some quick respite from Tbilisi? Were we, at long last, going to be able to flaunt our citizenship and multiple-entry-capabilities to underpaid border-guards at each cardinal crossing?

Alas, no.

Instead, we'd been offered up to a TV Station seeking Americans willing to participate in a short segment of Imedi TV's weekly "Droebea" ('the times'), one of the country's most popular TV programs. Okay! We thought. Cool. Critical to the pitch, though, was the notion that this was a "One Day Event." And where would we be heading? Where else? Gori - best known for it's apples, and Stalin!

We arranged to meet the journalist and his crew at 12, which ended up being 12:45. No problem. We crammed into a Niva and rocketed across town to the TV station. We made some small-talk.

• Had we brought a map?
• Of Gori?
• Yes, of course!
• Um, no.

And so on.

We changed cars at the TV station, then burned rubber to Gori, where the programmers were anticipating a bristly, less-than hospitable from the locals -- apparently not renowned for their big-heartedness. (This impression might be partly due to the hyper-proliferation of Stalin memorabilia -- towering statues, streets, temples, museums -- that dominate the otherwise modest city.)

C was miced, and after getting out of the car, and getting out of the car again, and again, and one more time please get out of the car, but this time don't look at the camera please, we set to work hassling the unsuspecting pedestrians of Gori for directions to museums, churches, and cheap eateries.

Everyone was disappointingly (for the purposes of the program) friendly. One older lady patted my cheek and called me "dearie" when she heard we were visiting Gori from the United States. Virtually everyone we approached offered to walk us to the museum/church/eatery we so desperately sought, which was awkward for us, because we weren't actually supposed to go anywhere.

When we shifted gears and started haranguing people in their own homes, the reception was likewise warm. We approached a cluster of men overseeing some illegal rewiring of TV cable-wires in the street, and the promising crowd all-but-vanished by the time we got there. One man in his 70's or 80's walking with a severe limp and a cane was still there, though, and when we asked where we might find water to drink he immediately waved us inside his home. He made his slow, shuffling way to a small kitchen, produced a clean glass, filled it with water, and gave it to us. We drank it as he beamed at us.

We left his home thanking him profusely over our shoulders, and practically ran into the TV car, which had driven right up the the front door. We got in the car and drove away. As he watched us leave, his face clouded over with a perplexed and suspicious expression. I felt dirty and kind of ashamed, as did C. We were both relieved when the next people we approached waved us towards a watering hole near the old church, and all we had left to do for the day was to be fed. (In the interest of further research for my food column, I'd been dropping leaden hints that I wanted to try some good Kartlian food).

The TV guys took us out to dinner at a restaurant with a modest canal-and-willow garden and etchings of Venice on the walls. The dining area was a high-ceilinged ski-lodgey wood-beamed hall. The restaurant served traditional Kartlian fare (which it turns out we were familiar with -- good old meat-on-a-stick and local red wine), and was called "Venetsia" ("Venice") ((of course)).

Somewhere along the way, the TV crew made it clear that they were expecting us to make a repeat performance the following day -- only this time, we were heading to Telavi, 2 hours east of Tbilisi. Now, it's not like C and I have a great many commitments that we absolutely have to meet day-to-day. But we are -- how shall I say? -- extremely jealous of our time, clutching our unstructured days to our collective bosom with clammy, fretful hands.

The trip to Gori, 45 minutes from Tbilisi, had taken about 8 hours. Telavi, with the two-hour-each-way commute, plus the expectation of more elaborate hospitality, promised to gobble up another fair day that might otherwise be spent more fruitfully (translating poems, writing about donuts, blogging, yada yada). This morning we both woke up grumpy and reluctant to participate any further in the inadequately prenegotiated TV thingy.

Thankfully, I received in my email a reminder about an Idealist.org meeting that I'd signed up for. I legitimately don't want to miss it -- it's part of a larger world-wide initiative that I think I will want to write about here -- and there's no way that we'd be back from Telavi in time for me to attend. So C called the TV people, and while they made "O dear" noises, we promised to be available tomorrow if they need us, and that will have to be good enough for everyone.

And now, I must go investigate the quality of donuts at a local pastry shop. (It's easy to pooh-pooh "where's the water?" programming, but I'm unkindly blowing that off in order to write about fried dough and international grassroots social organizing. Wait... that's kind of cool, though -- isn't it?).

Chinese Commodities

Our friend Shane H, a Peace Corps Volunteer based in Gurjaani, Georgia, knows where to find the good food and the cool things. He's a former chef. He has shot many hoofed creatures, and once had much of the skin on his face replaced after an accident with an explosive toy rocket. He shares a love of burning Christmas trees, fast internets, and good cheap food.

Last he was in Tbilisi, he mentioned a new indoor shopping mall—one entirely comprised of stores selling stuff Made in China. One afternoon, in Shane's hardy company, we struck out to find said China Mall.

It was, in the end, hard to miss. Directly across from the big central food bazaar, there is a brand-new, cinder-block-and-cement behemoth building with a used-car-lot's worth of flags gracing its grim elephant-gray exterior.

Tbilisi has many "China Shops" throughout its variously winding and cobbled streets. They are places where one can buy the kind of affordable and sometimes poorly-made miscellany that has "Made in China" stamped on it -- everything from knock-off Adidas sneakers and women's scarfs to alarm clocks and steak knives. These shops seem to be staffed by multilingual Chinese and Georgians, and the shops are pretty popular. Many of the things for sale are of poor quality, but they're priced accordingly.

Anyway, some unknown power had this very substantial, hastily assembled (and still being finished) building erected opposite the food bazaar near Vagzlis Moedani. And they had it filled with "China Shops," where you can now get *all* of your Made In China-ware for (so Shane says) less than the street-side China shops are selling (the exact same stuff) for.

And so: direct from the sweatshops of China -- mops! flatware! forks! aprons! women's underwear! clock radios! irons! minor household appliances! and many more things!

There's also a casino (if you want to give your money to management directly without burdening yourself with material goods), and a very cheap Georgian & Chinese buffet-style fast-food joint, where, as in the rest of the mall, you get what you pay for.

Off the (B)eaten Path: Left Bank (possibly Armenian) Grilled Goodies

“Chilikas Bichis Dukani,” in the old Armenian neighborhood near the Isani metro station, is a good place to go if you are experiencing a hankering for grilled food in a low-key setting.

I was directed to the restaurant by a vegetarian friend who had waxed rhapsodic about their grilled mushrooms (sokos mtsvadi) and sulguni cheese khinkhali. “It’s a no-frills kind of place,” he added. “No lacy tablecloths or anything.”

Indeed, the restaurant really has no frills whatsoever, even an external indicator – like a sign – that it exists.

Finding the place, while uncomplicated, takes some elaborate directions in the absence of discernable area street signs. Chilikas Bichis Dukani (“Chilika’s sons’ café”) is located uphill, behind the Isani Metro station (on Ketevan Tsamebuli Avenue). If one is facing the metro station with Ketevan Tsamebuli Street to one’s back, walk up the street to the right of the metro station, towards the highway. At the end of a long block of money exchange windows, clothing stalls, and khatchapuri windows, take your first left. There is a gas station on the left, and across from that, on the right side of the street is a beige building with a long red Coca-Cola awning and two chimneys. A small sign reading “khinkhali, kababi, mtsvadi,” marks the entrance-point to Chilikas Bichis Dukani.

Once inside, there are nine tables, each seating four people or so. The décor is sparse and a little shabby – only a few token light bulbs work – but the tables and flatware are spotless. There are no printed menus, but a dry-erase board on the wall lists some of the more popular items. There is also a glass case where one can peruse the many kinds of grillable foodstuff – vegetables, meat, sausage – on long metal skewers.

Grilled things are definitely the way to go here. The meat mtsvadi, which comes in a variety of styles and shapes – including sausage with lemon on a stick – ranges from 6 to 10 lari (the latter are quite large), and is quite good. Also good are the grilled potatoes – sliced into medallions and roasted over coals – which are 2 lari per potato (about 5 medallions). Be sure to order at least one skewer of the sumptuous grilled mushrooms (sokos mtsvadi). They come 5 to a skewer, and cost 6 lari. A skewer of whole grilled badrijani, pepper and tomato costs 3 lari, and is pleasantly smoky, though wanting a little in the way of additional seasoning. The kababi, which come wrapped in a paper-thin lavash with onion and chopped chives, is average – which is to say, very tasty if you like that sort of thing.

Throughout the lunch hour, waitresses delivered platters of steaming khinkhali to the tables around us. Khinkhali are clearly another strong suit of Chilikas Bichis Dukani. Regular meat khinkhali are 50 tetri a piece; the sulguni khinkhali are 1 lari per. These latter are definitely worth trying; when the khinkhali are eaten hot, the melted sulguni cheese filling drips in gooey, buttery, mozzarella-like strands.

Given the location of the restaurant, and its reputation as an Armenian restaurant, we decided to try some kyufta. We had the option of ordering it fried or in some other fashion (we didn’t quite understand, speaking very limited Georgian and no Russian) and opted for the more mysterious process. This was perhaps a mistake. The kyufta arrived soft and gray – blanched, steamed or boiled –in a pool of melting butter. It was not bad – warm, buttery, and folded discretely in a paper-thin lavash – but was sufficiently mysterious as to be a little off-putting.

It’s not the cheapest dinner in town, but it’s a nice change of pace for a pretty low cost. Sharing food among three people on two occasions, my fellow foodies and I dropped about 10 GEL per person and left pleasantly full. The wait staff is very friendly. No English spoken, though, so be ready to make your way in Georgian or Russian.

Chilikas Bichis Dukani, adgilze mitanit. Tel: 899 53 74 36

Published 2 Feb 07 at Georgia Today

An Unexpected Travel Lesson

“Well,” my husband said. “If Tbilisi is ever overrun by zombies, the man with the semi-automatic pistol will protect us.”

I looked at him blankly. What man? (The other question—what Tbilisi zombies?—seemed beside the point.)

My husband looked at me in disbelief. “You didn’t see him? He walked right past us!”

Apparently, a man bearing a gun and a large canvas sack of cash had just left Vulkani—one of Tbilisi’s numerous casinos—and passed us on the sidewalk. He had put the cash sack into an armored car—also on the sidewalk—and driven away. All this happened without my noticing, though I’d been a scant three feet away.

My husband and I have been living in Tbilisi, a city of approximately 1.5 million people (estimates vary, and no solid census seems to be available) in the Republic of Georgia for four months. This has been the longest period of time I’ve spent in a foreign country. And now, at the four-month mark, prompted by the gun-toting zombie-killer, I’m newly aware of an unfamiliar travel-hazard: ennui. Unlike the other challenges of living here (communication challenges, intestinal woes), this is not something that I can laugh about or regale friends with, and it threatens to drain my remaining time here of color.

The first few weeks of living in Georgia seemed saturated with interesting experiences, and my memories are accordingly vivid. I remember my hands rough and sticky, chapped and juice-stained from harvesting grapes in a muddy vineyard; a quiet hour of walking along a mountain valley road near the Chechen border, how the air smelled of autumn leaves baking in the sunshine, and how my walking companion produced a bar of dark chocolate that we ate atop a blue heap of shale while watching some skinny cows graze on a riverbank; the surreality of waking up one morning to discover a rain of sewage-soaked concrete pattering onto our kitchen countertop from the floor above.

Now I’m suddenly aware of how often I shrug at Tbilisi’s idiosyncrasies, of the stretches of time I spend staring into the middle-distance, at the cat in heat, at the dishes in the sink. I worry about not seeing the zombie-killer, and wonder what else have I missed because my eyes were tired of looking.

***

I like how traveling gives you a bigger sense of the world; how, wherever you head, you bring back a brain enlarged with landscapes, people, food, traditions, that weren’t part of your awareness before. Traveling beyond the perimeters of what you know—into a new country, culture, context—is in many ways a trip to perimeters of yourself. When the basic requirements of living—food, communication, shelter—require renegotiated in a foreign tongue and under different rules, your needs, limitations, and capabilities acquire an urgency and palpability that they don’t have when the living is easy—which is to say familiar.

But living in a foreign country is different than traveling. Where traveling in bursts contains its own kind of momentum—you have your itinerary, your return ticket, your list of sites to see, an end date for your experience—living abroad is less propulsive.

At first, your new environment is stimulating, it gives you something to brace yourself against, to lean on and lean into. There’s the intoxication of making your way through an exotic landscape. (This is how people shop/travel/eat/drink/dress here? My, my, my.)

But then you adjust; the difficulty of mere negotiation in a new world lessens. After a few months, your life has the same routine quality as it did in, say, Ohio, even if the routines are different. There is the corner store in old town where you buy rdze (milk), fresh matsone (yoghurt) and Pringles. There is the bus (number 71) that you ride to your Georgian lesson. There is the cup of coffee that you drink in the morning and the shit you take shortly thereafter. And you discover that it is possible to lose patience with the rhythms of life here: the way no one waits their turn (the melee in the subway car, the grocery checkout counter, the ATM); the chatty strangers who marvel at your inept Georgian (how well you speak!), their litany of questions – Are you Chinese? (No). Are you married? (Yes). To a Georgian man? (No.) Do you have children? (No); the stale smells of unwashed bodies on the bus and the heaviness of your hair from showering in hard water.

Eventually, time and experiences lose their urgency—spill over the edges of the horizon like loose papers on a desk – scattered, unsorted, careless. You wonder how you can possibly be bored with so much at your fingertips. You wonder how you can afford to let waste the luxury of boundless time in a foreign city. You are learning that here, as elsewhere, you need to figure out how to make today, and the next day, meaningful, and to relearn how to look at things as if they are interesting to make them so.

***

Before moving to the Republic of Georgia, I lived for two years in a sleepy small town in southwestern Ohio. I worked as a web-developer and a managing editor while my husband got his master’s degree. I moved to the Midwest unintentionally, and from the get-go didn’t get involved in anything that would challenge my assumption that there was nothing of interest for me there. I cultivated disinterest in my surroundings; a studied boredom that I now realize didn’t actually improve my quality of life at all. But after two years of this, a year in the Republic of Georgia glimmered on the horizon, promising oases of novel and challenging experiences that would make me worldly and well-traveled, and a culture that would continuously pique my interest: the antithesis of the previous two years.

At first, this was true—but less because of the quintessentially exotic character of the Georgian cultural landscape than because of how I initially viewed my time here. As long as I was actively noticing and seeking out experiences—trekking to the mountains or plunging into supras—my life here was, well, lively.

Allow yourself to stop being curious about your environment, and even Tbilisi becomes drab in no time. What makes the difference is not where you, but how. How difficult or character-building your life has less to do with where experiences occur, and more to do with how you live wherever you are.

It’s difficult, once routine has settled on your life, to remember how much you don’t know yet, how much should still startle and surprise. But I’m trying, now, to break the habit of being bored. It’s easier by far to shrug off the world than to look at it with active interest. This is one lesson I didn’t expect to learn through travel, but unlike the other, Tbilisi-specific skills I’ve acquired—how to order food at a restaurant, how to negotiate a good deal for mandarins at the bazaar—this is one that will help me make sense, and meaning, out of anywhere.

Published 1 Feb 07 at Lost Writers