Georgia Part 4: New friends, feasting Georgian-style, and patriotism

A few days after my arrival, but before non-Orthodox Christmas – let’s say December 21 – Rezi introduced me to some of his friends, who’d all been dying to meet me (the mystery Internet girl) since I arrived. We met up at a restaurant Rezi and I had been to once before – it’s in the shape of a huge boat! (Apparently this is the third such ship-shaped restaurant, as the first two burned down. I couldn’t help but think of Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail: “The first castle sank into the swamp, so they built a second one. That sank into the swamp too. The third castle caught fire, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up, lad, and that’s what you’re going to get!” Unfortunately, the reference isn’t funny if you don’t know Monty Python, so in Georgia I just kept it to myself).

So as not to overwhelm me, Rezi introduced me to just a few friends at first:

· Gogi (Giorgi) – Rezi’s older brother. The first night we met he was rather shy about his Russian and didn’t say much, but I subsequently found him to be very smart and engaging. I came to appreciate his willingness to let me get a word in edgewise, and best enjoyed the times when he, Rezi and I hung out on our own, because they were always considerate to keep the conversation in Russian (as soon as a fourth person showed up, the game was over – the urge to speak Georgian won out, and I’d be left out of the conversation).

· Tamazi – cheerful, extraordinarily well-read, very smart, and always telling me “how it is” in America. My favorite Tamazi quote, which became something of an inside joke among Rezi, Gogi, and me, is when Tamazi turned to me and said, “Alli, do you know who your president is?” I just looked at him, exasperated, and said, “Of course I know!” I don’t think he was actually intending to question my intelligence, it just didn’t come out in Russian quite the way he wanted. Later Gogi explained that Tamazi’s question was probably a vestige of Soviet propaganda – in school they were taught that some 70% of Americans don’t know who their own president is.

· Temuka (Temur) – 32 years old with a law degree, he works for the administration of the naval academy in Batumi. Temuka was the only one among our group who was not at all shy about speaking Russian with me right from the start, and so it was he who provided me my first introduction to Georgian culture and history.

· Eliko (Elene) – Temuka’s younger sister, a cheerful beauty with a ready laugh, she speaks excellent English – especially considering she’s never been abroad. Temuka and Eliko live with their parents right next door to Rezi’s family; their parents grew up together, and Rezi and Eliko grew up like brother and sister.

The first time I met everyone, they were all pretty shy about using their Russian – though pretty much everyone knows Russian, and most TV and movies are in Russian, they don’t often have the need to speak it out loud. Temuka was the exception, and jumped right into conversation with me. Eliko, excited for the chance to practice her English, stuck to my native language, so the whole evening – four hours in all – Georgian, Russian, and English whirled around me. Thank goodness I went to Georgia now, when my brain is already pretty good at switching between not understanding at all and Russian and English; if I had come at this time of year in 2005, I wouldn’t have understood ANYTHING, and my brain would have exploded trying. In all, we all laughed a lot, and I was really impressed by the totally relaxed and welcoming camaraderie I felt from the group.

Our dinner in the boat restaurant was my first exposure to feasting Georgian style. First rule: order more food than anyone could possibly eat. Food is served family style – everyone takes a little bit of whatever they want from the dishes in the middle of the table. Often there are so many of them that they’re perched precariously one atop another. Second rule: there must be drinking, typically wine, but sometimes vodka. The drinking is coordinated by the tamada, or toastmaster, who is responsible for making all the toasts the entire evening. Our tamada on December 21 was Temuka. Toasts do not end at a simply “Here’s to us,” or “To your health,” but go on for several minutes. The more the tamada has had to drink, I’ve noticed, the longer the toast goes on, as he adds in illustrative stories and anecdotes. The tamada also chooses a second-in-command who is responsible for adding anything to the toast that the tamada may have forgotten, or that the second would like to reiterate. It’s important to clink glasses with everyone at the table, often more than once. After the toast, it’s polite to drink nearly all of the wine in the glass in one go, leaving only a few sips at the bottom – but I learned early on that that’s a quick way to make yourself ill, and a “democratic” tamada will not take offense if you don’t drink to the bottom. Toasts that I heard over and over again throughout my stay include: to us, to our parents, to our grandparents, to those who have passed on, to life, to children, to women (for this one all the men take the toast standing), and to Georgia. There were lots of others, but those toasts were repeated every time we gathered. Temuka on that first night, and everyone else after, was always very considerate to toast in Russian so I would understand. Often these toasts were prefaced with “This sounds much more beautiful in Georgian” or “Russian can’t express this the way I’d like to,” but I found many of the toasts very moving, despite the “limitations” of the Russian language. I wish I’d recorded an evening of toasts so I could translate them for you – until you’ve experienced a Georgian toast, it’s hard to imagine.

Georgians are incredibly proud of their history and culture – and with good reason. Temuka explained with pride how every major conqueror in the world has conquered Georgia at some point in its 5000 year history – Romans, Mongols, Azerbaijanis, Russians, Greeks, some others – but they’ve preserved their culture. They expressed no sense of shame at having been conquered so often – how could it be otherwise, they reasoned, Georgia’s such a small country! Also, Georgians claim to be a very tolerant people; as evidence my Temuka cited Georgia never having an anti-Semite movement and, more recently, that Russians living in Georgia have experienced no negative fallout (i.e. hate crime) from the August war. Temuka also explained all about how Georgia is the cradle of winemaking. There used to be over 5,000 varieties of grapes represented in the vineyards of Georgia, but now there are only about 2,000 left, as conquerors always destroyed the grapevines when they attacked. Some varieties of grapes are found only in the vineyards of one or two families.

The first time I heard the above information, I was deeply interested. The twentieth time – not so much. I’m hoping it’s just because I was visiting for the first time, but I heard about Georgia being invaded by every major conqueror and yet still being a tolerant and open people from literally every person I met, and particularly from men, because they were usually raising toasts. I also heard a lot of, “You guys in America, you have it all good, while WE…” which sort of got under my skin after a while. Yes, the overall standard of living in America is higher than in Georgia, but America is a huge country, and the people in it have a huge range of experiences. I felt like I ended up smiling and nodding a lot as three or four people talked to me all at the same time – often about the same topic – but leaving me with no opportunity to get a word in edgewise.

Every Georgian I met was fiercely patriotic. Among the younger generation – Rezi, Gogi and Co. – there was a general consensus that if you live in Georgia, you should speak Georgian. More than once on our walks we’d overhear someone speaking Russian, and Rezi would say with disdain, “See how he lives here and doesn’t even speak our language? That is wrong. He lives his whole life in Georgia and doesn’t speak Georgian.” I often tried to defend the non-Georgian speaker (maybe he just moved here, maybe he does speak Georgian but he’s taking a break to speak his native language with his friends, etc), but Rezi was steadfast. When I pointed out that we were having this very conversation in Russian, he said, “That’s only because you haven’t had time to learn Georgian yet, and I haven’t learned English.” Gogi was fond of declaring, “I’m speaking the language of our official enemy only for you, Alli.” Several times I heard about their Russian neighbor, who understands Georgian but refuses to speak it. It was clear that that neighbor was not a part of the close circle on Rezi’s street into which I was readily accepted.

I do, in fact, want to learn Georgian. It’s uncomfortable to be the one person in the room that everyone else has to modify their behavior for – and besides, even when I was there, they spent a lot of time joking in Georgian, and I’d like to at least have an idea of what they’re joking about.