The Yard
Blog
Although I had my heart set on buying property in and moving to Svaneti, my wife had some wise advice for us: Also acquire a place to live in Tbilisi. As a bachelor, couch-surfing with friends in the city whenever I visited from Svaneti, “somewhere of my own” here had not been an issue. (Although storage of all those books, I’ll admit, occasionally did pose a challenge.) But as a couple this option was not nearly so practical. Also, might we eventually retire from the physically demanding village life to a simple apartment? Indeed, this was a possibility; better to prepare for it sooner rather than later, and not be caught unawares.
The place we did get is at the end of one of the city’s two Metro lines, which means you can always get on an empty carriage, sit, and read. The shopping around the Metro stop includes all household goods and a great food bazaar, as well as a mall which even has western and Asian fast food and brand name supermarkets. The Metro is a mere 10 minutes’ walk from us, exercise I find helpful.
Between the subway and the flat is a long section where people come and daily spread out second hand goods, from tools to clothing to antiques. Some of my favorite pressed glass liqueur bottles I found here, and they washed up just fine. Also, rather than shelling out a small fortune for a Russian samovar at the Dry Bridge Market, I spent only 40 GEL for a late Soviet-era model in brass, having checked that it went on when plugged in but didn’t leak. (There’s no on, up/down or off switch, nothing to stop it boiling dry and then destroying itself, so you’d better not leave it unattended. But it works fine and looks beautiful, and works.)
There are lots of trees in enough density almost to be called forests. Parking is a bit iffy, as these neighborhoods were designed and built when private cars were a fraction of the number they are today. But people have built themselves garages outside their apartment blocks: illegal, but no one’s coming to tear them down. So far. I’d pay quite a few thousand for one, but they rarely come on the market. On the rare occasion when I drive my gas-guzzler all the way from Svaneti to here, I always manage to find a place for it nearby, so it could be much worse.
The actual courtyard that my high-rise looks onto has a supermarket, occasionally changing hands but always reopening; stalls and kiosks for fresh produce, popcorn and more; languages including Svan, Mingrelian, Russian, Azeri, Armenian, Ossetian and of course Georgian; vastly more noise in summer at night than our graveyard-quiet village home. Especially from barking stray dogs, but at least most of these have been “fixed”. Benches abound for outdoor life and socializing.
The lift currently doesn’t stop on our floor, so we go one up and then walk down. But we’ve installed both A/C and a heater in the flat to balance temperature extremes.
Although the atheist origin period of these parts of the city excluded religious life, most of them are getting or already now have new Orthodox churches (and other venues of expression, less visible perhaps but present nonetheless) within walking distance for the first time. The bells ring; so far, Muslim calls to prayer will not be heard. The churches, aside from edge sharpness, could have been built 1500 years ago, so little have their designs changed.
In Georgian, yard is ezo; neighbor, deriving from this, is m-ezo-beli. A nice root. We are only here a few times a year, seldom together, but it’s our home away from home when we need it. That was good counsel indeed, Love.
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 nearly 2000 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