Mission Pizza

The mission for our Sunday off was simple: find American-style pizza and eat it. We accomplished this goal, and much more.

*WARNING, the following is what happens when you eat a diet of nothing but oily potatoes, beans, and bread for weeks*

This whole week, all of us in our cluster have been reminiscing about food we miss: Indian food, Thai food, Mexican food, Chipotle, and Pizza were all discussed at length. However, the only feasible option in the vicinity of our village was pizza. It is also important to note that pizza with mayonnaise on it is a thing here...yeah. So we were resolute on finding pizza without mayonnaise, or, as the Georgians would say, გარეშე მაიონეზი (gareshe mauonezi).

Today, we went to Gori and found an excellent cafe with excellent pizza. We MAY have ordered 5 pizzas...The restaurant staff made us all take their business cards and promise to tell all our friends lol. If you are ever in Gori and want good pizza, go to "Cake House" (ნამცხვარის სახლი / namtskhvaris sakhli) on Stalin Avenue.

After eating the pizza, we were the literal incarnations of this dog:

Some other things that happened besides the pizza expedition:

As we were wandering around Gori, we came across this mural. It is a picture of Georgia being bombed by Russian planes, and reads "the Price of Independence". This mural is painted over a wall riddled with bullet holes from the 2008 Russian Invasion, when Gori was bombed and occupied.

We also came across a car show/race being held in front of the EU building in the center. How they got permission for this was beyond us, but it was interesting to watch. All the cars were pretty busted up from racing.

We walked around in a riverside park that had great views:

It also had a creepy mostly-abandoned Soviet-era theme park in the middle of it. This ferris wheel looked ready to fall down at any moment. Also, fun fact, apparently in Russian ferris wheel is "Satan's Mill", which seemed appropriate for this particular one.

Lastly, we went to a soccer game at the local team's stadium. Gori's ream, Dila, is apparently 3rd in the country's professional league! The game was very exciting -- in the first half alone, the opposing team's goalie got called for 2 penalties (resulting in penalty kicks for Dila), and then got sent off with a red card for punching one of Dila's players! 

The stadium had great views of the fortress and the weird white building that I haven't quite figured out what it is yet

Orthodox Easter!

Two weekends ago was a big one for Georgians. Orthodox Easter (Aghdgoma) falls about a month after our Easter, and it is a huge holiday here. The celebrations begin on Thursday and last through Monday...Georgians love to party. Luckily, we had all these days off to take part in the traditions.

The three big events that I took part in were the Easter church service, the Easter supra, and the Easter visits to ancestor's graves.

Here is a really interesting video that explains a lot of the traditions that are celebrated in Georgia during Easter, including the egg painting, supra, and church:

Here is a good article that gives a run-down of the easter festivities with some really good pictures: http://agenda.ge/article/953/eng


The Georgian Orthodox Church is very different from what I am used to. Firstly, women cover their heads and wear long skirts to church. Secondly, there are no chairs or pews in the churches, everyone stands (except for a few chairs along the side for older people/pregnant women). Thirdly, there is no organ or music. Instead, in many churches there are singers who sing in a special Georgian style called polyphonic singing.

Here are some examples of this amazing traditional style of singing:

The service I saw was in a small church in my village, so there was only a small group of singers, but it still created a very surreal atmosphere. The singing I saw was actually mostly done by women and was mostly chanting. I hope to see the other styles as well!

The Easter service begins Saturday night at 11 and lasts till 5 or 6 am! And, like I said before, there are no chairs, so everyone stands this whole time! Georgians are a tough people. I went with my host sister and her cousin to the evening service. We got there at 9:30 to get a good spot (and I was given a chair as a "special guest", which I was not going to pass up as it was going to be a long night). We lit some candles and then waited for the service to begin. Throughout the evening leading up to the service, there were readings of passages from the bible. As the evening wore on, the church filled up until it was packed shoulder to shoulder. There were so many people, that many were outside the church, unable to get in! I saw then why we had gotten there so early. The service started with the singing/chanting, and the priest walking in. We stayed for a long time and I enjoyed observing the people and the different religious practices! During one part of the service, we all went outside and processed around the church several times. By this time it was midnight, so I decided to head home (but my host sister and cousin ended up staying till about 3 am!).

The next morning, I awoke to find the traditional red eggs and easter cake on the table. The easter cake, called paska, is a traditional food in all Georgian households at this time of the year, as are the red eggs, which are dyed red to symbolize Christ. Here is a picture of my table Easter morning:

The traditional Easter greeting (for Sunday and the week after) is the following:

Kriste aghdga! (Christ has risen!)

Cheshmaritad aghdga! (Indeed he has risen!)


Sunday was mostly made up of relaxing in the morning (recovering from the late night at church), and then feasting in the afternoon/evening. In Georgia, feasts are a huge part of the culture, and are in many ways a backbone of socializing. They are called supras, and are used to celebrate anything from birthdays to religious holidays, to national holidays. You can read a bit about supras here:
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/04/27/georgia.feasts.trademarks/
http://theculturetrip.com/europe/georgia/articles/how-to-eat-like-a-georgian-exploring-the-supra-feast/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10576928
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supra_(feast)

Basically, supras are huge meals celebrated with family and friends. There is always a toastmaster (tamada), who is a man chosen by the attendees or the host. A successful tamada must possess good oratorial skills and be able to consume copious amounts of alcohol (both homemade wine and tcha tcha (a home liquor)) without showing signs of drunkenness. The toasts are constant, and cover toasts to mothers, to Georgia, God, ancestors, and many others. Drinking alcohol in Georgia is a very masculine event, and women generally don't drink, except for the occasional sip for toasts involving them. Women also generally do not perform toasts. Here is a picture of a supra to give you an idea of the huge amounts of food that are present (and yes there really is always that much food):

The Easter supra at my house was extra special because it was also my host grandfather's birthday! A lot of his friends came and there was generally a lot of toasts to him. My host mom and I left when the toasting got crazy, and decided to leave the celebrating to the men. We went out to the uncle's car and hung out (along with my host sister). While we were there, we found some medical gloves and decided to make a surprise for him...so we blew up the gloves into balloons and drew faces on them. We had some good laughs during this and it was actually a great bonding experience (especially because it bridged the language barrier):

The next day was what I describe as the Georgian equivalent of day of the dead. It is the day where Georgians visit their ancestor's graves and have feasts on them, to celebrate with them and remember them. The graves have benches an tables built in next to them for this exact purpose, and it is customary to pour out drinks and leave food for the ancestors. We went to two different graveyards in my village to honor the ancestors. One of my favorite parts of the experience were the gravestones: Georgians carve very realistic likenesses of their loved ones on the graves. I really like the idea of celebrating people even after they die, and going to dine with them and spend time remembering them. People in the west are afraid of graveyards, and see them as places of sadness, whereas Georgians seem to see them as places to remember and spend time with loved ones. 

I did not take any pictures of this event (I thought it would be disrespectful), but here are some from google that give you an idea:

Since we are close to the Russian separatist territory, we were warned to check if the graveyard our family would be visiting was in the 5km buffer zone or even in the separatist region. Luckily, mine wasn't! I was reading an interesting article about the problems that Georgians whose relatives' graves are in South Ossetia have in going back to honor them. This year, the South Ossetian government refused to allow Georgians to travel to their ancestral graves unless they had a special issued permission card: http://agenda.ge/news/56478/eng

Lastly, throughout the days, we were cracking eggs. In Georgia, it is traditional to challenge each other by hitting 2 of the dyed red eggs together. Whoever's egg breaks is the loser, and gives their broken egg to the winner. The person who ends the day with the most eggs is the overall champion. I can't say I was a champion, but I did win some of those contests.