![]() Some miles due west of Tbilisi the road roller-coasts through a shock of leafy, lime-green tunnels to the winelands of Kakheti - home to a hefty lump of the 500 Georgian cultivars and a semi-sweet red called Kidzmarauli - the favourite of one Loseb Jughashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin, who was born some 150km to the west in Gori.Īt Baghrati wine estate the erubescent liquids are still hoarded in massive subterranean earthenware amphora ( kvevri ) in a 7km-long labyrinth etched into a wooded mount. But it also indicates how seriously Georgians take their wine, which they have apparently been producing for more than 8,000 years before the birth of Christ (a statement backing the claim that the world’s first wines were made in Georgia). In a certain sense, it is an apt euphemism for the paradoxical nature of the Georgian experience. In one hand she holds a sword to ward off enemies, in the other, a clay bowl full of wine to offer guests. It suddenly seemed very important to be in the company of familiar beverages.Īnyone who has spent some time in Tbilisi would be well aware of the 20m-high effigy of Kartlis Deda (Mother of Georgia) watching over the city beside Narikala fortress. I needed to head off to Kakheti province - Georgia’s Bordeaux, the Stellenbosch of the Caucasus. One hour later, in fluent Georgian, I explained not only the general secrets of the universe to my new friends, but for the first time since I could remember, I knew exactly what to do with my life. “Yes, you take,” Lolo demands making a drinking gesture. This, it turns out, is cha-cha, a local witblits concocted mainly from sugarcane or grapes and which constitutes much, much more than some excitable Latin jitterbug. I’m led to a ramshackle table with several paper-cup towers and two long, unlabelled bottles of clear liquid. When my vision finally calibrates with the dank vault, the bright, gleaming colours of stacked fruit and vegetables cascade into view. Here, in his present-day domain, the current monarch of Metekhi Street, King Lolo, lifts himself from his street throne with a sigh and beckons me down to a cavernous cellar. ![]() Persians refer to Georgia as gurjistan (Turkish gürcistan). Some linguistic experts maintain that the pre-Christian origin of the name Georgia is derived from the Persian term for wolf: gurg. The Kartvelian wolf tribes were in the habit of unleashing wild packs of the canines - an avant guard of wolf shock troops if you will - on the enemy. The great conquistador of the Kartvelian wolf-totem tribes of eastern Anatolia, Lydian King Myrsilus, took the name Candualus: Wolf-Slayer.Īnd there was certainly some slaying to be done by the Canis lupi at hand. Mamberi - Lord of Wolves - in Georgian mythology, is still worshipped in Svaneti today. ![]() The ancient Kartvelians (Georgians refer to themselves as Kartvelebi to this day) were adherents of pagan wolf cults. The capital was moved from nearby Mtskheta to its present position in 337 AD by King Vakhtang “The Wolf” Gorgasali. ![]() Image: Nino Gakhokia for Unsplash The ancient Kartvelians were adherents of pagan wolf cults To my right, an ancient church loomed over the chocolatey churning of the Mtkvari River coiling through the ancient metropolis.īy nightfall, the lit-up layers of knackered, candy-coloured wooden balustrades leading up to Narikala fortress (established in the 4th century as Shuris-tsikhe or “Invidious Fort”) that dominates Tbilisi’s southwestern skyline, resembles an Arabian Nights set saturated in 1950s Hollywood Technicolor. Within direct vision, a series of wooden bannisters bent by age barely sustained a kaleidoscope of skewed balconies that cooled patches of the burning road. And at that moment, the curious gesticulations that covered the gaps in his speech were as captivating as my surroundings.īehind me, a truck rattling over the cobbled pathway dislodged another few grains of debris from a 1,000-year-old ruin. Compulsory until the final year of secondary education, English is relatively well understood and spoken by most under-40s, with a vague grasp of it prevalent among older folk like Lolo. The undulating script is also unrelated to any other except perhaps that of Middle Earth. Verbal communication, for instance, occurs in one of the oldest existing original languages on Earth - one of only 17, they say - and is possessed of its own 33-letter, 2,000-odd-year-old alphabet. And by a passing look at things, it falls somewhere beyond the pale. There must be a way to do things in Georgia. In telling me off, I reckoned, Lolo was referring to the fact that I couldn’t simply shout greetings willy-nilly in his town, on his turf.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |