Road Rules: Zugdidi, Samegrelo
BLOG
Another sign that Georgia is “on the road” to Europeanizing its standards: periodic vehicle inspection, abandoned in 2004 as a corrupt scam, has come back, much better than before.
The idea is to only allow inspection-passed vehicles on Georgia’s roads. These have been accepted, after official examination of their various parts and systems, as being reasonably roadworthy and safe to operate. My car’s time had come, so I drove the 110 km down to Zugdidi, capital of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, which has the nearest inspection point and the only one in that city.
As car number 16 in the line, joining it at midday, I didn’t have much hope of getting the thing done that day. Two hours later, the line hadn’t moved at all, and cars in front of me were abandoning their positions with little expectation of success. I decided to do my shopping run (without which one doesn’t go all the way to Zugdidi in the first place), made arrangements with local friends to stay the night, and drove away, thinking I would leave my insured car at or near the front of the line for tomorrow, a thing which no one else reportedly was willing to do. Working hours: 9 am to 6 pm.
Returning with a half-full car near 6 pm, I discovered the line still active, inspections ongoing. Letting them know my intentions and that I had a long road ahead of me in the morning, I also let slip by my accent if nothing else that I was a foreigner. Where from? Canada. Crazy to choose to live in Svaneti? Undoubtedly, but there it was.
The men working there told me that, no fear, not only would they let me in quickly, but they would do it that very evening: long after work was supposed to finish! I was very grateful for this, and indeed, that was how it unfolded. There were, however, two issues outstanding which the inspection turned up: one was a faulty fog light, the other something under the car, which they wrote down for me. I must get this pair of things repaired before they could conclude the inspection. I had a month to do so; if again the car failed, it would be declared unroadworthy. I told them I’d get the issues dealt with tomorrow, as that long road home still awaited me.
Off to the local branch of Tegeta Motors the next day, which is in Rukhi, on the road towards Gali and Abkhazia, which I had never before driven. Three hours and 240 GEL later, my repairs made, I returned to the inspection point; passed; finished my shopping; and began the journey home. Unfortunately, as my car is “of a certain age” (from 2008), this 61 GEL procedure must be repeated yearly. Oh well, at least it was out of the way for now.
I knew from a careful perusal of weather reports that my trip back into Svaneti would be far snowier than the one out two days earlier. This was indeed the case. I also had my first flat tire since buying the car over two years ago and putting new tires and quite a few thousand km on it. Likely from a stone concealed on the snowy road: rock-falls are a common fact of life in these mountains. There was no bump or jolt, just a new, worsening vibration.
And how things went downhill from there that evening is a story for next week. Stay tuned, readers.
Tony Hanmer has lived in Georgia since 1999, in Svaneti since 2007, and been a weekly writer for GT since early 2011. He runs the “Svaneti Renaissance” Facebook group, now with over 1500 members, at www.facebook.com/groups/SvanetiRenaissance/
He and his wife also run their own guest house in Etseri:
www.facebook.com/hanmer.house.svaneti
By Tony Hanmer