Discovering Batumi

Peace Corps Volunteers in the East of the country all have Tbilisi as their "big city". However, us Western Volunteers are 5 + hours from Tbilisi....so we have Batumi! Batumi is a city in the southwest of Georgia along the Black Sea coast and close to the border with Turkey. It is about 2 hours by marshutka away from my site, and goes through some beautiful countryside on the way!

The first thing you notice about Batumi as you come in is that it is a port city. Here is the view of the port from the boulevard:

It also has some really unique architecture. It has an "old town", but since 2004 has also been built up with modern architecture in an attempt to modernize and attract tourism. The result is a intriguing mix of old and new:

The boulevard along the coast is where all the summer visitors flock. Along the beach, there are many rides and attractions, as well as some very cool new architecture. Our first stop was the ferris wheel, because of its great views of the city and harbor:

"Alphabet Tower", so named for the letters of the Georgian alphabet that decorate the building.

Further along the boardwalk, we came upon some....interesting "rides" to say the least. This one was my particular favorite: trampolines hung up with twine. I named it the death trap.

Further down you come to the pier, which has some great views as well:

The day we were there it was EXTREMELY hot, humid, and sunny. We had been noticing people selling drinks by the cup out of barrels, and we were hot enough not to care what they were. However, as we drank them, we talked to the lady selling them. She told us that it was made from bread. The Russian name for it, as we found out, was Kvass, a beverage popular in Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Estonia, and Poland, as well as in Georgia, Armenia, and Kazakhstan! It is called burakhi (ბურახი) in Georgian. It is basically a fermented drink made from black or rye bread, and sometimes flavored with fruit. It is naturally carbonated and was very delicious! I didn't get a picture, but here is one I found online:

To learn more about Kvass, click here!

Batumi also has a cool art and sculpture scene. Here are some photos I took of the art we saw:

Mural that reads "I wouldn't be next to him if it wasn't for Batumi"

Graffiti advertising being vegetarian, something virtually unheard of in Georgia

Love Statue

A painted piano on the boardwalk

"Me, You, and Batumi" sculpture

I had to...

old books for sale...mostly in Russian

The last amazing thing about Batumi is Batumi Pizza. The owners are a South Asian who lived in the US for many years, then moved to Batumi and opened an American pizza restaurant. It was really delicious, and even gives you ranch dressing and Tabasco sauce with your pizza! There were writings from past diners all over the walls, and I found one from a previous TLG volunteer from one of the Carolinas! I felt right at home!

"Carolina Approved Pizza!! TLG '14-'15"

08.08.08, or when sports become political

Yesterday marked the 8 year anniversary of the start of the Russian - Georgian war of 2008, and it played out again in an unexpected arena: the Olympics.

To give some background on the subject, it is necessary to understand the history of Russia and Georgia. Georgia was a part of the Soviet Union, but declared independence in 1991 as the USSR was collapsing. The tensions in S Ossetia and Abkhazia were present then in conflicts between Russian-backed separatists and Georgia. In these regions, ethnic Georgians and Ossetian/Abkhazian people both lived, and this resulted in ethnic tensions as well.

Following Putin's election, and a pro-West government election in Georgia, relations between the two countries further deteriorated, reaching crisis by 2008. In August 2008, Ossetian separatists began shelling Georgian villages, and  on August 7, Georgian forces entered Ossetia to respond. Russia took this as an act of aggression, and launched an invasion of Georgia proper on August 8. Georgian towns and cities were occupied, and bombs dropped, killing many civilians. This is a famous picture I have seen many times here in Georgia of a woman sitting in the rubble of her bombed apartment in Gori:

In Ossetia, Georgian and Ossetian people began fighting, and there were incidence of alleged ethnic cleansing against Georgians. They were forced to flee the violence into Georgia. 192,000 people were displaced from their homes, and around 224 civilians were killed in Georgia, and abut 162 in South Ossetia. Russia finally fully withdrew troops, and formally recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia, meaning that Georgia lost these regions and many refugees who had fled their homes now cannot return.

What was crazy was that on the very anniversary of this war, Russia and Georgia faced off in the Olympics. Politics are often played out in sports, and this continued yesterday. On the 8th anniversary of the war, Georgian and Russian judo Olympians faced off in Rio. The end result was a victory for the Georgian athlete, Lasha, who is from Gori which was bombed and occupied by Russian troops in 2008. His gestures after the win, pointing at the Georgian flag on his uniform, then down at his opponent were clearly political. It was a powerful reminder of the tensions that still exist and the wounds that still have not been healed.

I have hopes that one day, this conflict will be resolved, and the thousands of internally displaced people who fled from their homes will be able to return.

Georgian Number System

Hi all, back with Georgian language time. Today, I will be covering the number system. Numbers are one the things I have struggled with the most here, a struggle which during training led me to accidentally announce to a class that I am 43 instead of 23. You will see why in a minute.

In English, the number system is base 10, meaning that you count by 10's - that is 21 is twenty-one, 31 is thirty-one, 41 is forty-one, and so on. Basically, after we hit 30, 40, 50 and so on, we use that term + the digit 1-9 (so 59 = fifty-nine). Makes sense, right?

Well, in Georgian, things are different because the system is base 20, making it a vigesimal system. It is in the company of other languages such as Yoruba, Mayan, Aztec, Gaelic, and Albanian (among others)! 

In Georgia, everything up through 29, everything is the same as in English, However, once you hit 30, things get weird.

For the numbers 20, 40, 60, and 80, it is relatively straightforward. You just use multiples:

So, for 20, 40, 60, 80, you just use multiples. So:

20 = twenty (otsi)
40 = two twenties (ormotsi)
60 = three twenties (samotsi)
80 = four twenties (otkhmotsi)

**Note: I am using Latin letters to write out the Georgian phonetically as most of you reading cannot read the Georgian alphabet. But for example, it would actually look something like this:
40 = ორმოცდაათი
60 =  სამოცდაათი
80 = ოტხმოცდაათ

Therefore, for numbers like 45, you would say "two twenties and five", or for 86 you would say "four twenties and six". A little confusing, but manageable.

However, the part that really trips me up is what to do about 30, 50, 70, and 90. For these, we have to think in their relation to the multiples of 20 above.

30 = "twenty and 10" (otsdaati)
50 = "two twenties and 10" (ormotsdaati)
70 = "three twenties and 10" (samotsdaati)
90 = "four twenties and 10" (otkhmotsdaati)

Then, what really really really gets me is when you have a number like 58 or 72. I am not good at math, and this really gets my brain in a knot. 

58 = "two twenties and seventeen" (20+ 20 = 40 + 17 = 58) (ormotsdatvrameti)
72 = "three twenties and twelve" (20 + 20+ 20 = 60 + 12 = 72) (samotsdatormeti)

The effect of this on my end is a lot of pausing, counting in my head/fingers, and stumbling over words. And getting things wrong a lot, which brings me back to my original story about accidentally telling a class I was 43 instead of 23. They sound very similar: ormotsdasami vs. otmotsdasami. 

Hope you learned something today, and I will be back with an even more confusing part of the Georgian language soon: telling time!

Magnetic Beaches

The other day, I finally made it out to the Black Sea! Despite living only about 30 minutes away by bus, I had not managed to make it there yet!

The closes beach to where I live is Ureki. Luckily, there are marshrutkas that go there all the time during the summer, and it is very accessible! Ureki is a special beach. First of all, unlike most of the Black Sea beaches in Georgia, it is a sand beach instead of a rock beach. Secondly, the sand is black and magnetic. Georgians believe that it has healing properties, for problems from cardiovascular diseases to joint pain. Whether or not that has any truth to it, I don't know, but the sand is very beautiful to look at!

The sea itself was very warm and shallow - you could walk out very far and skill touch the bottom! And there were very small waves that didn't even crest, although I have been told that after a storm, waves can get very high.

There were guys walking up and down the beach renting beach equipment and toys. We had rented chairs and umbrellas (one of which tried to make a getaway in a gust of wind!), and also rented this awesome paddle boat with a slide down the back! We paddled out away from people and had a great time sliding down it - the only problem being it didn't really have a mechanism to get back on, so you had to resort to a combination of a helping hand and wiggling yourself back on - highly amusing.