8th October: Tbilisi, Georgia
Waking up for the early train get like a bit of a shock today! Trains call at Gori on their way across the country to either Kutaisi or Batumi and, as far as we could gather, only do so once per day in each direction. Therefore, we were getting the 8:45 out and 16:11 back, whether we liked it or not! Actually, this was very convenient for us.
We arrived in good enough time for me to pick up a sand coffee and find our train, which wasn’t difficult in a relatively sparsely utilised station. Our names were checked on a list by the carriage attendant and up we climbed (no level boarding here) into a well-used carriage. Unfortunately, there was no seat selection and we’d been allocated seats on different rows, but there was enough space to move once we were underway. Around 1 in 3 rows has no window at all and those which did had to contend with brown/green staining and often water sloshing between the panes. If you were able to see out, the views were spectacular.
As we travelled upriver, along the Mtkhvari/Kura valley, past the ancient capital of Mtskheta, we were reminded that we were really back in Georgia. Being deposited in Tbilisi on the sleeper train had felt somewhat like flying, in that we had a disconnect with the land between our departure and arrival locations. The familiar landscapes of central Georgia unfolded as eroded sandstone hillsides became small canyons and eventually cliffsides. In the valley, the remains of collectivised farms and industries were sometimes visible, although most had been adapted or modernised. In this rail corridor, freight wagons sat idle and those containing cement appeared to have been left for too long and had set hard. This combination of industry and nature is the most interesting to my eye. Human Nature as James Popsys calls it.
We’d chosen to visit Gori now – on a day trip from Tbilisi – rather than when we passed by earlier, so that we could get to mountainous Mestia before the weather turned. The train ride is cheap (about £5 return per person) and only 1:15 each way. This small city is most famous for one of the 20th century’s most influential people, but more on that shortly.
It was distinctly autumnal on arrival. I’d picked the wrong day to wash all of my warm clothes and got a few puzzled looks from locals in coats as I shuffled past in my shorts and t-shirt! We decided to make a beeline for the fortress, mainly because it was uphill, and the walk would warm us up.
The ruins themselves were much more impressive from below, although the overgrown top did offer 360-degree views. Most significantly, the hills to the north marked the border with South Ossetia. This is one of two areas (the other being Abkhazia) which are de jure within Georgia but de facto semi-independent states backed by and integrated into Russia. In 2008, Russia bombed and briefly captured Gori (and other cities in Georgia) when tensions over the attempted reintegration into Georgia boiled over into full scale war. I’m leaving out some context here, so please forgive me, but this post is long already.
South Ossetia was made an autonomous oblast within the Georgian SSR as a reward for ethnic Ossetians (in both Russia and Georgia) aligning with the Bolsheviks during the struggles of the revolution. Various internal borders had to be drawn up both between and inside newly established Soviet Socialist Republics. Some were as a result of promises, such as South Ossetia, but this also aligned with the declared policy of autonomy to different peoples in order to promote cultures. However, defining ethnic groups and the territory belonging to each was by no means a straightforward task (see: the Ferghana Valley). This resulted in a number of autonomous oblasts (quite a few of which I’ve previously visited) within the 15 states of the USSR. A more cynical way of looking at this regionalisation is that no group would be big enough to survive on its own but would thrive as part of the collective USSR – a notion which would be exacerbated by the later rapid industrialisation of only a few specific sectors in each region. It is often these regions (see also: Transnistria) that modern Russia is able to use to its advantage in the seemingly everlasting power struggle with the west.
Who was the person responsible for establishment of the internal borders within the USSR in the early 1920s, I hear you ask? Well, that would be The People’s Commissar for Nationalities, a man born in Gori by the name of Ioseb Jughashvili. By that point, he was better known as Joseph Stalin.
The whole centre of Gori was redesigned during his leadership. The house that he was born in was surrounded by a protective stage and everything else nearby demolished. A grand avenue (Stalin Avenue, naturally) was aligned to point at the house, with gardens and a substantial museum later built to house memorabilia including his private train carriage. I didn’t really learn anything new at the museum, but the redesign of Gori did give me further insight into the cult of personality which overtook the original goals of the revolution. Simplifying of course but in many ways, with the tsar-like aura and purges, he became to a large degree what he was part of the fight against.
I often wonder how different the world would be if Lenin had lived longer and/or managed to convince the Politburo to purge Stalin, as he of course tried to do in a letter sent upon his death. Would the USSR have collapsed without Stalin’s strongman tactics, or, just maybe, would a more cerebral-led communist cause have led to even faster poverty reduction and more revolutions abroad to reach a global tipping point?
Returning to Tbilisi, rain began to spot, and very dark clouds moved in. Fortunately, there was a restaurant we were keen to try nearby, and we got inside just before the heavens opened. This place had a vegan version of the Georgian classic of khachapuri – a bread boat, filled with egg and cheese. I was dying to try it and did so, alongside a glass of my favourite kindzmarauli Georgian wine. Wow! Absolutely incredible. The way they replicated the flavours of cheesy egg and the egg yolk in the middle were gobsmacking. I think most non-vegans would not be able to tell the difference. I’m not an all or nothing vegan and will eat what’s available if it’s made for me or there’s no choice, but this really shows that we don’t need to eat animal products when such sorcery is possible!
