Georgia and the Pankisi Valley: Friendship, Tradition, Heavy Drinking

Chanting To God in Trancelike State, Women Doing Nachbondi Sufi Ritual, Pankisi Valley, Georgia

Georgia Fall 2009: "Everyone in this room will be moving to America if we can join NATO. Indeed, everyone in Georgia will move to America. Do you think America will want us?" inquired Saleem Khan, a large heavily muscled man with a protruding belly, large bald head and bear paw hands.

Saleem is the chief for a village in the hills of the Pankisi Valley, which is on the Georgian side of the Chechen border with Russia. I was sitting in the position of honor at a table of middle and older aged men. We were all waiting for the groom to arrive in a traditional Pankisi style wedding celebration. Saleem was toasting me and expressing his hope and belief in Georgia's friendship with America, and the wish that this friendship will result in a stable and secure Georgia that might one day regain territory lost in last year's disastrous 5 day war with Russia. This was to be the most common theme I would encounter in my several week journey in Georgia.

Tbilisi Central Square, Georgia

"I am sure that America would welcome such excellent fighters and workers as you in this room." I half lied in reply. In response to this, everyone at the table broke into an excited and frenzied chatter in a language wholly unintelligible to me. They all then began holding one of their hands up, palm facing towards me and pointing with the other hand at their upheld hand. This strange behavior was accompanied by more unintelligible, but highly animated chatter directed to me.

"They are showing you what hard workers they are. Notice the calluses", Saleem Khan explained. "See the deep calluses each one of us has?" I nodded in agreement: Yes, these were hard working men indeed. I did not have the heart to point out that reality does not support such hopeful (and half serious) expectations. America has a bias toward émigrés that fill certain necessary roles, such as nurses from the Philippines who help fill the large shortfall in skilled nursing personnel in the country, or for those with high tech backgrounds, who can live and work in the US under special visas. However, the idea that the doors would be suddenly flung open to all these admittedly hard working people, whose work consisted of tending their grapevines, goats, sheep and cattle in the hills of a an exotic land in a dangerous part of the world, was a bit farfetched.

Tsminda Sameba Cathedral, Tbilisi, Georgia

Georgia is a nation that many people I know, when I mentioned I was traveling there, confused with the US state of Georgia. While America's government builds closer ties to this nation, through the placement of military advisors and trainers in the country and by offering the promise of eventual NATO membership, a majority of America's citizens currently would probably be hard pressed to find Georgia on a world map.

It is a small country that historically has always sat between large covetous empires, and has a history replete with fairly constant warfare to survive as an entity. The Greeks, Romans, Persians, Mongols, the Persians again, the Ottomans (Turkey), Russians, and the Soviet Union, were amongst the most high profile aggressors. Each of these adversaries dwarfed Georgia, creating an almost impossible situation for Georgia to prevail against the onslaught. Due to such circumstances, Georgia seems to breed big sturdy men like Saleem Khan, with large hands and huge appetites. Fighting, judo and wrestling are key national sports; and, as I found in my trip to Mongolia earlier this year, the practitioners of these martial arts are held in high esteem. It is no surprise that a nation with such a long and continuous history of warfare would have a capital, Tbilisi, that was at one time a renowned center of weapons manufacturing and technology. In the middle ages, for example, Tbilisi manufactured swords and daggers were highly regarded and in great demand amongst soldiers in regions even far away from Georgia.

Small Intimate Square Near Central Tbilisi, Georgia

The overriding theme that came up in my travels in this country time and again, of the importance of the US' friendship to Georgia, is easy to understand in light of its current precarious position. It is a country badly beaten up in the disastrous short and lopsided war it fought last year with Russia. The country suffered a humiliating defeat and effective loss of sovereignty over two chunks of its land. This is a blow that at the moment it has no obvious way of correcting. So, the perhaps quixotic hope that the friendship with America will somehow make things right is widespread.

Another big theme of my, or anyone's visit to Georgia, is drinking. Georgians, especially the men, drink large amounts of alcohol on a constant and even daily basis. In Pankisi this is especially the case and the pressure to drink can be rather high on the visitor. It is considered unmanly and an insult to refuse an offer to drink. The drinking is done as part of a ritual of continual toasts followed by downing the wine/vodka/beer in one go (Wine is not sipped in Georgia as in other parts of the world. Since most of it that I tried was awful tasting, it probably was better to down it in one go anyhow). During my stay in Pankisi it was not unusual to be at breakfast with several men who would be offering to me the choice of wine, vodka or beer as part of their idea of a "Breakfast of Champions". And the offer was not for just one glass or shot. Once you started, the drinking often only stopped when the wine, vodka and beer ran out. For example, a French academic that I met in Pankisi, a bright guy named Quentin who was in the area doing research on his thesis for a Master's program he is pursuing in Paris, reluctantly accepted the offer to do a shot at breakfast on his last day in Pankisi. He was not allowed to stop drinking till 4 pm that afternoon when he finally passed out.

Sighnaghi, Scenic Town and Wine Capital in Kakheti Region of Southern Georgia

For me, I usually was polite but firm in my refusal to take a drink. I learned the hard way early into my visit in Pankisi that if you took even one shot of wine, you would then find it extremely hard to not end up consuming entire liters or even gallons, with your companions. The pressure to take the first drink, and then subsequent drinks is relentless. But if one persists in the refusal to take even that first drink, he escapes the destructive ritual much easier. When being pushed to drink, which would happen several times a day usually, I would resort to removing the empty glass initially placed in front of me so that there was no glass to pour the wine into. Of course, another glass would be found and delivered to me full of wine. I would then place it away from me, where upon it would be moved back in front of me. I would sometimes get up from the table and grab another glass somewhere else, and return with it full of water to demonstrate my intention to only consume water (or juice or something else). This action would be greeted with protestations and guffaws at times, but usually put an end to the issue. I would then join the toast to my companions by raising my glass of water or juice to theirs which were filled with wine or vodka. Of course, I did not always refuse to drink. I joined in at a wedding party and a few other times. I figure in my short 3 weeks in Georgia, I probably consumed more alcohol than in all of the previous 3 months.

Small Monument to Georgia's Famous Native Son, Josef Stalin, Telavi, Georgia

I entered Georgia via Tbilisi the capital. I spent 5 days in Tbilisi planning my travels in Georgia. My first stop was to the area mentioned above, the Pankisi Valley, near the Chechen Border. I figured I'd spend a night or two there and then continue on to another of Georgia's many interesting places. However, I ended up in Pankisi for nine nights. From there I traveled to a few towns in Georgia's south, finishing my trip back in Tbilisi as I had run out of time and had to catch my flight out.

Tbilisi can be a beautiful and charming city. This is especially so in its center and when lit up at night. The center features some imposing and grand ex-Soviet architecture intermixed with a number of large middle age Cathedrals. Even though the country was under the Soviets for so long, it has retained a very strong Catholicism. This is seen not only in the big Cathedrals, but in the myriads of smaller neighborhood churches and chapels you seem to see everywhere in the city (many people here do the Catholic "sign of the cross" when they pass by one the numerous churches and chapels, including taxi drivers while carrying passenger). The city is bisected by a major river, so the numbers of bridges that span the river contribute to the charm. But, the city is the capital of a poor country and has a rundown feel to it, despite a number of chic eateries and nightspots that have opened in the last decade.

Village Mosque, Pankisi Valley, Georgia

I found an amazing hospitality that made me feel so welcome everywhere I went in Georgia. A very nice older lady that I met in Pankisi put it this way: "Guests are gifts from God, and so we treat each one as such". This hospitality started my first day in the country, when the owner of the guesthouse I was staying ended up driving me around the Tbilisi the whole day, showing me the landmarks, where important things were located, and such. When my cellphone was stolen that night (the country is very poor and petty crime is a problem), he took me the next day to a store and waited till I figured out which phone to buy as a replacement. (I had that phone stolen too, a week later at a wedding party, out of a van parked in the lot outside of the party).

Georgia today is a surprisingly poorer country than one would expect. During the Soviet days, the country prospered. It was a center of tourism for people from the Soviet Union, who came down to Georgia to enjoy its Black Sea Beach resorts, good food, and region renowned wines. But since the Soviet collapse, the country has fallen on hard times. I believe that when the Soviet Union collapsed, it was economically ranked in the top 2 or 3 amongst the 15 CIS countries. However, it now ranks near the bottom of the economic scale amongst the former CIS states. Subsequent to its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it has suffered from very poor government, deeply engrained corruption, bad luck, and the effects of last year's disastrous war. Its current government, headed by Mickeil Saakashvili, who first came to power in 2004, seemed to be doing a reasonably good job of getting the country on a better path until last year's war fiasco. Now, he is not so popular amongst those that I met in the country. He has lots of critics due to some heavy handed tactics and human rights abuses against opposition. His predecessor, former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, led an oppressive government that drove Georgia into the poorhouse, so to speak.