Edik, Taxi driver in Tbilisi

Below is a short post about our experiences with Edik, our taxi driver who took us to various interesting places while we stayed in Tbilisi. Taxi drivers are a wealth of information regardless of whether you’re wanting to go play bingo or looking for somewhere to have a fantastic meal, and Edik certainly served us well in this regard. He was quite a character, and if you read on you should come to the same conclusion.

We parked our car and took a day off from driving. Our taxi driver Edik, Armenian 71, family from the Artvin area of present day northeast Turkey – obsessively sought out the shade when he looked for parking. He’d rather park further, walk longer, if the car was a little shadier.

He wiped his brow and talked about shade obsessively, as he did about many other things. When we would get out at one destination or another, and then we’d look for him, we’d have to look around for places of shade, where he might likely be.

Edik had a theory about where and how to honk. When we were driving against traffic on a one way street, he let out a long one. “This is because…

Photo Studio, Batumi, Georgia

I popped into a Photo studio for some visa pictures. The three guys who ran the shop were Armenian and eagerly recounted the histry of their families, which lived in what is now northeastern Turkey (where we had just come from) before the “Armenian Genocide” (something I have to learn more about having heard so many conflicting accounts. They sat around, solved crosswords, drank coffee, brewed us a tasty batch, and when they got wind of our journey, pulled out an old Soviet Atlas, pointed at things and recounted stories of their service in the Soviet Army that took them places where we were going to go. A sailor came in and introduced himself as a “semen” (seaman) and when I took a picture of him, suggested I not post it since he travels to the US frequently, and doesn’t want to be listed in the rolodex of the CIA (to which I was presumably contributing.) We encountered this kind of Soviet relic paranoia in several instances, particularly Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan so far.

Mini Abortion, Georgia

I saw peculiar sign in Russian, advetising “Mini Abortion”:

There was an older couple vending ice creams beside the sign and I figured, I’d ask them for clarifications and also learn something from the charecter of their response. While handing me some old Soviet style ‘Plombir’ ice cream, they eagerly told me the details of how such an proceedure works. Mini refers to the first trimester, whereas later abortions are at a clinic around the corner and not mini. Abortion is the most prominent method of contraception in the ex- Soviet Republics, and I recalled how it struck me how many girls I met on a trip to Moscow in 2003 that had and spoke freely about multiple abortions (at which point, I conceived the term ‘pentabort’.)

The guy vending ice cream had several tatoos on his arms, all from his days in the Soviet army. “Raya, that is the name of a of a special girl,” and also translates to “paradise”.

I barely resisted asking whether Raya, well, you know …

Opportunistic vs. Hospitable

Vivid image on the way to Lagodekhi

I have a vivid image ingraned on retina, sadly without a photo to back it up.  It reminded me of another such moment from my travels in the American South, probably also in a Georgia. While driving, I caught a glimpse of a large African American man seated on a magnificant white horse, backlit majestically by the sun, all in a lush green grove.

On the way to Lagodekhi, I saw an old carriage with a load of hay, an older driver with rags accompanied by a younger child with a goat by his side. A large horse was yolked, but there was a lot of young farm animals leashed and walking beside it. A colt, a donkey, and a calf. They road at us thorugh a shady grove and were illuminated from behind by a bright sun with the view of the rising snow capped Caucus mountains in the distance.

This scene is not as majestic, but has the same fairy tale feel:

Geogrian Hospitality – Tbilisi

We drove into Tbilisi under the cover of night and pulled over for directions. The gentleman I asked immediately dropped what he was doing and made our priorities his priorities.

“Has the driver drank?”

“No.”

“Is the driver drunk?”

“No.”

He walked over to make sure. Somewhat surprised, he said, “Well then, this is what we will do. We will call the police. Please do not be worried. This is a little bit unusual for us as well, but given that it is the way it is, I really want to demonstrate it. You see, over the past four years, the Police have become — like dog shall we say — a true friend of man. They are not here to bother you, but to help you. They will take you to your lodgings.”

When the police arrived a few minutes later, he kissed me on the cheek, called us his “dears” and invited us for dinner. “The political situation in Georgia (with regards to Russia) may be complicated,” he said, “but the situation of guest in Georgia is always good.”

“You are my dears,” he said when the police arrived and kissed my three times on the cheeks good bye. “We shall meet…

Georgia on my mind

08/19/09, 10 am in the morning, Luka’s place, Tbilisi

I was going to write about the border experience at the Georgia/Turkey crossing, and the value of videotaping in order to convince guards with M16s to leave you alone, but PP did such a good job describing that experience that I’ll instead focus on my current environ, and my initial, cursory impressions of Georgia.

I’m writing this from an apartment we found on CouchSurfing, on the eastern side of Tbilisi (there is a river that runs through the city). The apartment is large, with several huge, high-ceilinged rooms. Walls are a white, peeling plaster, covered with paintings, Georgian maps, and inscriptions in marker or colored pencil that are etched onto the walls themselves. The place is not the cleanest – floor is dusty, the old comfortable chair that I’m writing this from has soaked up god-knows-what, the toilet flush is broken (requiring us to fill a large basin with water to physically force our excreta down the plumbing), and the shower is temperemental – while giving up hot water, it occasionally shuts off mid-stream. The apartment is located on the 3rd floor of a decaying building, and the first floor is redolent with…

Georgia Border Crossing, 8/17/09

Our last day in Turkey started in an place which will soon be wiped off the map to be replaced by a swath of blue, submerged by the lake waters of large dam system in the valley of the Kashgar mountains – Yusufeli. The construction work was underway to replace the valley highway we were on with a larger highway snaking along the surrounding mountain tops. Huge tractors were carving up the mountain face dumping large boulders onto our path. There were signs warning us of falling rocks along our way, and soon there actually were falling rocks — intermittent avalanches — denting the already pot-hole rich surface upon impact and occasionally making it completely impassible. When this happened, the road was blocked to make way for tractors to push the mountain debris into the river itself, and we would stop and make conversation with others in the same situation.

One of the people turned out to be an geological engineer from Ankara coming to make inspections of an already existing damn upstream and he told us about the geological formations of the region and the progress of construction.

A truck driver with a load of cantelopes picked some choice specimens,…

Batumi – Georgia’s Black Sea Resort – 8/17-18/09

The driving in Turkey required substantial adaptation. The driving in Georgia required substantial rewiring of the brain. Cows, pigs, geece, donkeys constantly wandered onto the road. If in Turkey you occasionally needed to swerve onto oncoming traffic to pass a slow car, driving on the opposite side of the road indefinitely and inexplicably is common practice in Georgia.

All of the street signs in Georgia, when they exist, are written in a cryptic Georgian script and Google Maps are absent for the entire country. Our navigation system switched to one of word of mouth, and I would frequently lean out or hop out of the car to ask the locals for directions. Even more so than the Balkans my Russian came in handy, and the people I asked were among the friendliest I have met. They responded eagerly, even so much as walking several blocks out of their way to point out the corner alley of the hotel where we would be staying. Moreover, their conversation was delightfully laced with humor.

Draft beer for sale in various containers, from recycled soda bottles to plastic bags, whatever is more convenient for you to carry, and lots of delicious looking smoked or dried fish.

The…