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.

Georgian language time: Georgian alphabet

Hello all! I figure some of you may be curious about just what the Georgian language is like. I will be writing some blog posts about that occasionally, in a series called"Georgian language time".


Ever since I began studying Georgian, people at home always ask, "So it's like Russian, right?'. Whie that makes sense, given that Georgia borders Russia and was a part of the Soviet Union, the two languages are actually totally unrelated. In fact, Georgian is not really related to any other language in the world, and its origins are still a linguistic mystery...

The Georgian language is called qartuli (ქართული), and the alphabet contains 33 letters. There are no capital or lower case letters (which is a relief for us trying to learn it!). Although the Georgian language is very old  (as in dating back to BC), the Georgian alphabet dates back to somewhere between the 4th and 5th centuries, and is tied to the conversion of the country to Christianity under kings. The oldest example of the written Georgian alphabet are the Bir el Qutt inscriptions, located near Jerusalem and Bethlehem. They date back to 430 AD.

Here are some more inscriptions, these from 494 AD in Bolnisi Georgia in a cathedral:

Over the ensuing years, the alphabet has gone through some changes. The modern Georgian that is used today looks like this:

In handwriting and every day writing, however, many of these letters take on different forms. Here is another example of how to write the letters. Take note of the t', ch' j, and compare them to the ones above. Yeah...pretty different.

Another confusing feature of the language is that there are several letters that have multiple sounds. For example, there are 3 "k" sounds, 2 "t" sounds, and 2 "p" sounds, each with its own distinct letter. To the untrained American ear, they all sound pretty similar, but they are all in fact distinct.

Texts from Georgia: July 2016

I have decided to start a series called "Texts from Georgia", which is a collection of random/funny things that happen to me in Georgia. I had a list of these on my phone, just for my own entertainment, but I figured other people may find them funny too! It will include things like cultural misunderstandings, cultural quirks, outhouse struggles, and things that make you go, "Only in Georgia". Here is the first installment for the month of July:

July 9, 11:30 pm - Sharing this outhouse with a nice big green slug

July 10 - Our marshrutka (bus) stopped to pick up keys from 1 police station in the middle of nowhere and delivered them to another police station...

July 11, 5:45 pm - It's raining so hard that the restaurant I'm in is flooding and they just got out the bucket

July 26, 8:22 pm - my host mom and aunt are currently watching Better Call Saul dubbed in Georgian and illegally downloaded. Apparently my aunt is a huge Breaking Bad fan and keeps explaining the plot to my host mom. Unexpected.

July 27, 5:19 pm - The conversation on the marsh (bus) today hit the Georgian highlights: what my religion is, what my salary is, and who I am voting for. Only missed whether I am married and if I want a Georgian husband.

July 28, 9:55 am - A lady got on the marsh (bus) with a bag full of chickens and they are VERY unhappy at this treatment and are loudly making it known.

Stepantsminda Whirlwind Adventure

**This is a catch-up post, as it is about a trip I took during training, but honestly it was so incredible I couldn't not share the photos!**

During PST, trainees are given the weekend to organize a cultural trip to any location in Georgia! The idea is to get you to practice traveling, navigating transport, and arranging lodging.  My group decided to go to Stepantsminda, a high mountain town in Kazbegi. We actually had to get special permission to travel there, as it is very close to the Russian border, and the route to travel there goes within the restricted 5km buffer zone around the border of South Ossetia (the Russian-controlled breakaway reagion). However, we got permission and set off!

The ride up into the mountains was absolutely breathtaking! There were also cool monuments and constructions that we got to see:

some sort of monument in the middle of nowhere

a cool tunnel built into the side of the mountains!

When we arrived, we were starving so we went to a nearby restaurant, in which we encountered the strangest menu I have seen yet in Georgia...

errors in translation

Stepantsminda was named after a Georgian Orthodox monk named Stepan.

It also lies along the Georgian Military Highway, which is a major route through the Caucuses that connects Georgia and Armenia to Russia. Along the road outside of the town, there were hundreds of semi-trucks lined up, waiting to be allowed to go to the border crossing.

A main attraction of the town is Gergeti Trinity Church, a church located at 2,170 meters! The church was built in the 14th century. During the Soviet times when religious services were banned, the church remained a tourist destination. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it has now resumed as an active religious establishment. When we visited, many Georgians were trekking up to the church for a religious holiday.

The townis overlooked by Mount Kazbek, just south of the Russian border. The mountain lies at an elevation of 5,047 meters or 16,558 feet! Mount Kazbek is associated in Georgian folklore with Amirani, the Georgian version of Prometheus, who was chained on the mountain as punishment for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humans. For more on this myth, read here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amirani

 The cave where he was imprisoned later became an Orthodox hermitage called 'Betlemi' (Bethlehem) located at about 4,000 meters. According to legends, this cave is believed by the Orthodox to have housed many sacred relics, including Abraham's tent and the manger of Jesus.

We hiked up to the Gergeti Trinity Church the next morning, and although the trail was EXTREMELY steep, the views at the top make it totally worth it!

medieval defense tower

the group minus Susan who was exploring the church

the whole group!

Down the hill from the church itself is a small shrine. We explored the shrine, and then had a picnic in the field, just taking in the great views of the church and surrounding mountains. We also made a dog friend.

the shrine and the church in the background

dog friend!

Unfortunately we had to be back to our sites by 7pm that evening, so we did not get to spend any more time in Stepantsminda, but I am definitely planning on returning to explore more!