With English-speaking guests come stories and a translator

For the past two days there have been English-speaking guests staying chez nous. Eka is in Tbilisi for business, and I wanted to stay around the house in case Maguala needed help. What’s actually happened is that I’ve learned a lot from both talking with these women and from listening to their tour guide translate Maguala’s stories. Last night, for example, I learned that in the 2008 bombing of this area, a large bomb was dropped into Oni but luckily it didn’t detonate. The bombing damage I’ve seen is from the smaller bombs that went off…smaller being big enough to break the glass in the windows at Maguala and Eka’s house. Apparently one of the ruined buildings down the street was an old military communications center. Because the Russians built all these towns, they knew where this and other buildings like it were from their old maps…and for some reason they decided it was important to destroy them.

Tonight, I ate with the guests. Aside from relearning that the homemade mixed and black wines I’ve gotten used to are better than any bottled wines, I also had a chance to hear stories from the group’s Georgian tour guide. She talked about watching dubbed Latin American soap operas, now and in the soviet years. She told stories about the patriarch who famously quoted to his soon-to-be torturers: “My heart belongs to my mother and my mind belongs to my God. Do as you will with the rest of me.” She also told a story about a priest in Kutaisi who was approached one day by a ‘Young Soviets League’ boy. The boy said, “Look at what we are doing? If God really exists, why aren’t we being punished?” The priest answered, “You’re already being punished. You’ve gone mad.” These anecdotes book-ended many others about the absurdities of the Stalin Museum, the histories of different Georgian artists, soviet statues and sculptures, and Georgian food. I also learned that NYU may open an abroad site in Tbilisi, that the source of the Rioni river is a glacier within a day’s journey from Oni, that some of the abandoned ‘hotel’ buildings in Tbilisi had private owners who were evicted when the government decided to sell the buildings to international hotels (which then moved out), and that there are Stalin busts tucked into corners of shops around Georgia if you look for them.

One of the women is an American expat who currently lives in Tbilisi. She said that there are many 5-star hotels standing vacant in the city and many high end boutiques that theoretically shouldn’t be able to stay in business. She was explaining how the rich Georgians would rather go to affordable places in Turkey or central Europe than pay absurd amounts for a weekend in Batumi or Tbilisi. Similarly, they would rather shop abroad than in the boutiques in these cities. Her case was that Tbilisi is trying to become Paris, but that they’ve made all the prices too high and so they drive away potential tourists. From the little I saw of the city, I would agree. The cities that are destinations in Europe for many of the people I’ve met are cities like Berlin, Budapest, Zagreb…comparatively cheap places known for their character more than their luxury establishments. Considering that Georgia’s old reputation (when it was the resort destination for Russian oligarchs) was as the Italy of the East, it would make sense for their tourist department to spend time and resources investing in inter-region transportation, emphasizing their beautiful landscapes, playing up their ancient history and their language and their music and their food…essentially all the things that make them Georgia. Instead they built 5-star hotels and have now decided that the solution is to encourage investors to build 3-star hotels.

At school today, I played music for my students and taught them to play ‘ninja.’ Of course I also taught them future simple tense and can/could/would.

Now I’m admiring Sura Melashvili on TV. “Mela-shvili” means “fox-child.” Maguala tried to teach me one of his songs, but I keep laughing. I’m glad she’s so patient with me. I never posted Matsatso’s “90% of a pizza” recipe so I’ll do that before calling it a night. Ready?

In a round shallow pan, layer the following: sliced potato rounds, salt, pieces of meat (beef or ham), salt and pepper, tomatoes, salt, crumbled cheese (the salty almost-feta kind), mayonnaise (the European kind that has enough flavor to go on french fries), pepper and spices…then bake in a bright orange CCCP electric oven. I would leave out some of the salt, personally, but it was delicious. We also had pickled tomatoes with lobiani on that day, and it was a good combination.

Now then, I’m off to bed.