Mystical Caucasia

Spain was an enchanted country for me. And until coming to Georgia in the summer of 2009, I had not been to a place comparable in enchantment. I am grateful that American Councils made it possible to come and study Chechen and Georgian in Tbilisi. Chechen was my first language of intensive study and I lived at my teacher’s sister’s place for over a year. In this way I not only studied the language but also participated in Chechen cultural life, learning a lot about Chechen traditions and perspectives. This was a very unusual opportunity for exercise in cross-cultural communication and I hope that the community of which I was and am a part of also learned some positive things about Americans. Many Chechens are quite devout Muslims and Islam plays a large role in the society. However, it never serves to incite violence. On the contrary I saw it in operation as an incentive to share food and means with the less fortunate, I saw the Muslim prayer used as a method for reflection, self-purification and reaching out to a benevolent and just higher power. I met family members of various figures from the first Russo-Chechen War who are no longer with us. And such good-hearted, intelligent and genuinely caring people are rare anymore in the world today.

Living in Georgia but with Chechens I have not immersed myself too deeply in Georgian society but have just moved into the home of a Georgian family in order to do so. And I look forward to the experiences this year will bring. That's not to say I haven’t seen much of the country though. While free of classes this summer I have been to Kakheti, in particular the calm and peaceful Pankisi Gorge, Khevsureti, Batumi, and Svaneti. Last year I have also seen the Georgian Military Highway and Mount Kazbek, Gori, Sighnaghi, Mtskheta and Uplistsikhe on ERLP sponsored day trips. Georgia is full of medieval towers, castles and churches.

Although the towers in Svaneti are most numerous and well preserved, the fortified villages in Khevsuria -- Shatili and Mustso-- have a much wilder and magical feel. In an area where spring, summer and fall lasts about three months all together, an impression of the stoic nature of the former (and a few current) inhabitants easily permeated my bones. About three kilometres north of Shatily were some mountaineer quarantine huts where mounds of bones, skeletons and even leathery corpses are still visible through small barred windows. These people were all those who chose to quarantine themselves in those horrific huts rather than spread the Plague to any other living souls. From the roofs of these huts Chechnya is barely visible as one sloping mountainside. The local Georgian border guards were very friendly and explained that Russian soldiers hold positions on that hill -- although we couldn't see them.

The cave-city Uplistsikhe is also very interesting to visit because it was a major pagan religious and commercial capital in ancient eastern Georgia. Mepe or King Parnavaz – the first centralizer – had the capital moved to Mtskheta anywhere between the 2nd to 4th centuries BC (contradicting claims). Mepe Parnavaz then had a temple built to honour Armazi the moon god at the expense of all other Kartvelian deities. He had Armazi's temple built on a prominent hill overlooking Mtskheta. But at the turn of the 7th century, Christians erected the Church of the Cross over it (Jvari). Georgia and the Caucasus as whole is crisscrossed with the buried ruins of countless empires, kingdoms and simple forgotten towns. In the mid-18th century, one traveller recorded by name over 120 permanently and occasionally (in case of enemy raids) occupied cave-towns in Georgia. Today only two, Uplistsikhe and Vardzia, are well known. Clearly there is an inexhaustible supply of historical mysteries to be uncovered here in this warm, hospitable and enchanted country.

Sarah Slye is studying Georgian and Chechen in Tbilisi, Georgia