Trek to Coffinside: Kakheti

I had just come in from a chore outside when my wife turned to me tearfully in the kitchen. It was a few seconds before she could let me know that her oldest sister's husband, aged just 54, had died a short while before, in Lagodekhi, Kakheti, east Georgia. Apparently from a heart attack. They were separated, and their daughter, just 14, was at home when he died there.

Horrible shock, but at least this time we had the means even to think about a lightning-fast trip to pay our respects and give comfort, as is done here if at all possible. I refer to the new car, a smooth-running dream, and easily up to the 600 km trip over two days. After a few minutes' praying for wisdom and thinking about possibilities, she went to ask the neighbors to look after the barn animals (3 cows, 7 chickens) for the next few days. I confirmed with another neighbor that our German guest, abandoned by his firm request for 2 weeks out of communication in a ghost town, would be picked up on schedule. We packed and left, reveling in the freedom if not the task and road ahead.

The 4Runner made it possible to travel on our own schedule, leaving when we had to (which was the middle of the day), stopping and resting likewise. It gave us my record speed for the 450 km from Svaneti house to Tbilisi flat, needing 7.5 hours with stops included. SO much easier than public transport!

Hot, hot everywhere but where we had started from, the rest of Georgia which we traversed still in its full summer temperatures. We passed a minivan signposted Mestia/Ushguli, which must be the new weekly one going all the way on Georgia's longest trip from the capital. News is, this will soon drastically be shortened. They're planning a new road linking Kutaisi northwards with the new Tetnuldi ski resort's second phase, hoping to have this distance covered in two hours! (It must bypass Ushguli for that time frame.) At that rate, we could reach Kutaisi in three hours from our mountain home, without going through Zugdidi at all but rather through Mestia, and then on to Tbilisi... Plus the new highway which is constantly being extended westwards in our direction. So things are looking good future road-wise.

We overnighted in our Tbilisi flat, not needing even a sheet for cover as it was too warm; just earplugs for the unaccustomed multi-lingual late-night noise of our very alive courtyard. Then on this morning to Lagodekhi.

On the way, we saw field after field of corn nice and high, but all burnt yellow and dry as a bone. It's been a very arid summer after the spring hail which put paid to my in-laws' fruit and grapes for the season, but in its typical capricious way left many other areas untouched. I remember the summer drought here of about 15 years ago, in which after three rainless months the cows were dying of thirst. But the grapes were to be a huge success that year, not in spite of but indeed because of this weather, which was entirely to their liking.

Arrival... tears and commiserations... understanding much more of what was wailed in Georgian instead of the usual Svan in the women’s room with the body in its necessarily refrigerated glass-topped display coffin. The funeral is just a couple of days away, and we're debating the pros and cons of my wife staying on for it, then making a more arduous trek back to Svaneti by 2 days of public transport instead of 2 days of relative comfort with me. And then there's the future of our niece, about to enter grade 9 with the prospect of either staying with just her elderly grandmother, or moving schools to go to her mother and extended family in their town. Tough choice, this one too needing unrushed wisdom to think it through. We hope this critical decision will be made right, but all we can do in the end is pray, watch and advise (if asked) from our considerable distance. It might be all that's needed.

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 1300 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

Tony Hanmer