A memorandum to Georgia

Please not that the following lines are highly personal and that they may or may not represent the whole truth. However, they do represent a truth, my truth. A truth that had partially been written during the onset of a bacterial illness and in the cold and dark month of February.

First of all, I believe a short introduction would be necessary. Some wider context is needed for you, the reader, to understand where I am and what is going on. After my frustrating months in Central Asia, may they be as instructive as they have been, I decided to head back to Georgia to visit my friends, following an emotional sickness, eat food without meat and possibly find a job here. I had taken matters into my own hand, had freed myself of most of my worldly possessions and had set my mind on trying something new for myself. It turned out to be more difficult than anticipated.

But let’s not dive too deep into these organizational matters, for they are quite boring and serve no greater purpose. It suffices to say that I moved to Kutaisi, following my intuition and the advice of a foreign friend who has settled here and seemingly adores the city. Right from the start I got in touch with a young local couple owning a teaching-center, start-up palace and who asked me straight-away if I wanted to give English lessons. I agreed. Two or three month passed without any greater evolution of my working and overall situation. I have a flat by myself, yet no one to share it with. I had the outlook for acquiring a teaching position with no fixed program, allowing me to freely teach as I see fit. I have some financial reserves and no immediate pressure to actively seek employment. I did watch a few extraordinary films, all-time classics and some that are advisable for all to watch. I read a few books.

Almost every book is based on violence. Luckily the English teaching one is peaceful.

View from my former flat.

The months passed. I witnessed the Georgian parliamentary elections. I saw the former president Mikhail Saakashvili return from his Ukrainian exile (just in time, I’d say). Misha returned and so did the snow in Rustavi. I experienced public transportation in Georgia. I followed Georgian news on the war in Ukraine. I observed the everyday Georgian life, the routine. I mused about the fascinatingly slowness at which everything and everybody moved, not taking into consideration the drunk drivers all over this country, who cannot wait to die in a tragic accident. And all the suicidal Glovo bikes who face the traffic jams of Tbilisi with a stern fanaticism, proudly carrying the banner of exploition into their glorious death. Banzai!

I remember Georgia from seven years ago, when I fresh came from high school into this promising Caucasian state that was still forgotten by most of the world. The overall infrastructure and life standards seemed to be increasing slowly but steadily. People were friendly, hospitable, exceedingly interested in meeting and talking to European strangers.

Of course, I am aware that my situation was an altogether different one. I may have had this veil of naivety, which shielded of a great number of uncomfortable truths, Well, it has been lifted. I see things clearly now. And I am bitterly disappointed.

I will satisfy myself with only one concrete example: politics. You think that politics are boring? Especially this dull process of going to the voting booth and give your voice to somebody? Fear not, in Georgia it pays off! Upon voting for the right party, the Qartuli Otsneba, in short Qotsi (note that this is awfully close to the German words “kotzen”, which means to throw up) you will receive 20 Lari and/or a sack of delicious potatoes. Yes, you may suffer from four years of hardship and an ever increasing slithering towards a pro-Russian dictatorship, but behold! you will eat well for one week.
These are the voters, who happily give their voice and receive something in return. Others, especially state workers, were forced to vote for the ruling party (in power since 2012) under the threat of losing their jobs.
Of course, in the end all of this pressure is hardly worth the effort, as the elections were rigged anyway and a majority of the people did vote for Qotsi, despite the obvious fact, that the leading politicians work on their own, personal agenda. It’s disappointing, that any reasonable being would vote for a political party that is so openly corruptible.

I realise that I sound harsh and unfair. However, it becomes clear to me that Georgia is moving away from being truly European. Not the individual people, certainly not my close friends here, who I adore more than anybody else, but the whole dirty edifice as a whole. The war in Ukraine (yes, it’s called a war, Putin, you sad, empty cunt!) is the famous drop that was one too many. It’s a disgusting display of sheer power whoring, of reckless lying and manipulating, coupled with a creeping hollowing of the free and concerned public opinion.
The valiant, empathetic Georgian people rose up and demanded their government for immediate support for the harassed, bleeding Ukrainian defenders. The political leadership answered unanimously – with silence. Well, okay, with a small outcry, condemning Russia’s move. But did any actions follow?
( a bit of a badly structured paragraph, I might rephrase it a later stage )

Slava Ukrainiy!

When I was on my 20-hours bus ride through Turkey, I had a lot of time to reflect on what lays ahead. When I first lived here I was in love and its magic made me oblivious to certain aspects of the unpleasant reality; where there was wonder, love and excitement, now sadness reigns. I have become anxious, fearing that I might be ran over by a drunk Georgian driver at any time. Or mistaken as a Russian and injured for this reason. I feel disillusioned. I had hugged Georgia and its mode-de-vie, but the embrace has been loosened and instead of the warm and affectionate feeling an awkward silence imposed itself. There’s a dwelling anger in my chest.
Therefore, it appears evident that my time here in this country comes to a close. I resolve to leave ere summer, with no mind to buying a return ticket.

Before closing this chapter I must, however, bring a small memory back to my mind. It was on my excursion to Tkibuli (ტყიბული) that I met some excellent Georgians in a restaurant. I join their drinking and feasting party. Despite the war in Russia and their ever-increasing hatred towards the Russian language, they conversed with me, therefore overcoming their unease, anger and sadness for the sake of communication: an altogether smart and wise approach. We enjoyed our reciprocal company. Upon hearing that I was going to leave Georgia one man asked me not to forget them.

That was all he demanded. To remember that scene. The true identity of one part of Georgia. A welcoming, warm, hospitable and out-goinf one. One that overcomes problems, personal and the ones that are a produce of society and the environment. And I am happy for this memory and for many, many more.

But I have made up my mind about leaving.

Off, I will go, into the west.

Georgia on my mind ✌

Some thoughts on an imaginary Metro

A typical stereotypical trait about Germans is their efficiency, perhaps only surpassed by the Swiss. After living in Berlin for years already I can assure you that this may not apply to all Germans or German cities equally. The surrounding cultural life is simply to various and awake that many tend to neglect their “responsibilities” or ignore the higher “authority” * in a broad sense. It shouldn’t be surprising, however, that a great number of Germans do actually fulfill the stereotype of being a efficient and reliable workers.

I feel like I’ve adopted both those mentalities, meaning that I might neglect some parts of my responsibilities just so that I may join a higher educational project and be all-time ready there. More to this in a tiny bit. Another example of this is me sitting in an airport and instead of checking the security systems or the shitty duty-free stores, I’ve decided to write another entry. Let’s not drag this out unnecessarily!

 

Here’s to the first large parenthesis before the plot:

In the course of your life as a well-meaning and politically active individual, one will get involved with the European Union to some extent. The more one learns about it, the wider the opportunities and advantages provided by this semi-corrupt, capitalist society becomes obvious. As one takes a plunge into it, and dives into the matter, it becomes apparent that the institutions are an amazingly deep pool and diving to the bottom becomes an impossible task.

Most people know about the 3 main institutions (i.e. the European Court, the Commission and the decision-making Parliament). Now try digging deeper: How about the social services provided, the almost unlimited financial supports provided not only to EU-citizen, but to any such individual that has a legal certificate of residence in one of the member states or those that are part of the Council of Europe? Meaning, that “foreigners” ** who reside on “European territory” *** have the opportunity of partaking in Youth Exchange, without fearing to pay more than those people with a “European nationality” ****.

People! Get yourselves a Euro-Pass (link at the bottom), enroll for a job anywhere in Europe, apply for an EVS project for a year or start your NGO with European money. Don’t let those corrupted and alcoholic Commissioners such as the Luxembourgish national hero Jean-Claude Junker waste it all on booze! The world has become too open and accessible as to spend it at “home” *****.

 

Why not simply starting with the story? We (as in the readers) still have no idea what you did or where you travelled this time!

Greece. Thessaloniki. The second most populated city of Greece. The one with Arabas Hostel, where I’m known as the imaginary friend because I come from an imaginary country – some say it’s a creation of the KGB. To be honest, I like myself just the way that I love my Thessaloniki Metro: Imaginary.

The city is strange, two-dimensional if not more. The part closest to the sea fully burned down half a century ago and was rebuild in the most disgusting capitalist way, that leaves no space for creativity or emotional attachment – unlike the Northern part. Here’s a direct comparison:

New Fashion

Beautiful meatmarket

Amazing concrete

Dirty ocean in direct contrast to capitalist response to Chrushtevkas

Northern part

Northern part

What more needs to be said about the city? Perhaps the most distinguishable part of Thessaloniki is the public transportation. It’s everything but reliable or comfortable. However, as there is no other choice but putting oneself into the skin of a sardine and imagine what it’s like to be all packed like they are. And enjoy being shoved in every possible direction while the bus takes hard turns and break every 5 bloody seconds to let new people in. You like staying in touch with people? Try the public transportation “system” ******* of Thessaloniki!

As mentioned earlier, my main objective in the city was the active participation in a youth exchange on “Express participation” – all financed by European money (thanks for paying your taxes, my dear European readers). Of course, we would have a project on democracy in the country where it was invented (though differently). During the course of many long session me and other 54 participants from 11 nations had the pleasure of learning about EU in a non-formal way. As representative of the German team, I took upon me the important responsibility of not portraying any sign of humour. As imaginable: German humour is no laughing matter. Though “German Team” in itself was slightly ridiculous, as it was represented by an imaginary person from Luxembourg, a Ukrainian and a US-American girl and two actual Germans.
On a scale from 1 to Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungaufgabenübertragungsgesetz, how German do I look?

Why was this project important? Probably because it displays the European unity that still exists. It managed to bring together people from all across the continent and beyond (if you consider Ankara to be situated on the Asian continent, rather than on the European), who spend more than a week together in complete peace and harmony between each other. Everyone was involved in the decision-making process. No voice was ignored (or at least so it seemed). Moreover, closely related to this was the cultural exchange that was guaranteed and, in fact, expected to take place.
Claiming that the European idea had failed would be a treason to our modern moral codex. We greatly profit from the supranational forces that helped creating and holding together people from various countries with different ethno-cultural backgrounds – projects like the one I participated in are only an expression of the wonderful ideology that has peacefully combined our European nations.
This, however, doesn’t mean that everything is perfect! Much needs to be adapted and transformed, more direct democracy is necessary for a continued peace. The voice of the people shouldn’t be ignored any longer; millions of signatures demanding change in economics must be taken into consideration. It is furthermore to be noted, that many conflicts were only repositioned into the so-called 3rd world countries. The weapon’s industry hasn’t disappeared yet. People are still afraid of foreign aggression. Balkan countries have been struggling with ethnic tensions. It may not be perfect, but it’s the best system that has been developed to this day.

I hope that the participants stay in touch and use their newly-gained knowledge for the future. It’s been an amazing time, truly. Therefore I’d like to thank all of them again, if I haven’t already done it or shown my affection sufficiently. You’re sending out some good, positive vibes, mates!

And that may have already been the main thought. Here’s to some more pictures from the project.

Here’s for more info on the Europass: https://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/

 

Some thoughts on the previously marked words and constructions:

Authority: Being treated as inferior by a higher power is a primitive expression of power and therefore violence. Every authority should be regarded with mistrust, starting from teachers, going up all the way to presidents. No power for nobody, only by the collective.
Foreigners: Giving some people more rights and privilege over others, simply due to the fact that they were born within some imaginary lines is as ridiculous as it is outrageous. Globalisation slowly eradicates those lines, though it may bring massive ecological destruction along.
European territory: How exactly would one define the European territory? Would one only consider the tectonic landmasses, on which our world floats or take a rather cultural approach? Wouldn’t it be therefore impossible to let any people from e.g. far-Eastern cultures enter this sphere? If you rule this out, would Georgia, Russia or Turkey ever be allowed as their territory strictly isn’t on European Territory or just to some extent? Or do we have to think differently and consider the European Union as nothing but an economical institution. thus rendering the “European values” worthless?
European nationality: Similar thought. Who belongs to the imaginary European clique and who’s out?
Home: The place of one’s birth, one’s flat, the village one was born in or resides at the moment, the mountainous region or even the country in which one lives – home can be defined in many notoriously different ways. Some may even find that home is the place, with the special gems such as the famous Arkenstone. For me home is where the heart is, which can be attributed to a never ending amount of places all over the planet, under the condition that one is with beloved people.
System: The Greek public transportation system may be called as such, but only because destructive systems also fall under the category of systems.

 

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To new shores

 Well, let’s get back to writing – shall we? It’s already been some time since i wrote the last time and since I’ve returned from Romania. Therefore, it is wise to put myself into the right writing atmosphere. Suit, coffee, music, a quick skimming through pictures and off we go. If you’re interested in the music:

In between Georgia and now a long time has elapsed in which it appears that I hadn’t had the time to write or travel as I didn’t upload any new stories to this site. This, however, is hardly true.  In fact, I have more time than in Georgia. I’ve become slightly lazy and the challenge of competing with the other volunteer’s publishing articles has greatly lessened. In the meantime, my focus has gradually shifted towards reading and adopting styles from writers that can be considered more “important” than my humble self. Fear not! For the writing will continue! Those few that I managed to satisfy with my half-assed, semi-sarcastic and surely completely biased correspondence will get what they’ve been craving for – now.

First of all, I’ll give you a quick overview on the year that separates me from Georgia… expect that it didn’t. For I have already returned there 3 more times since my official departure last March; and I’ve traveled almost all by myself through Balkans by hitchhiking a month after my returning to Luxembourg; and I helped in the task of challenging the recent status quo in politics by protesting against lignite coal in the Lausitz region and by learning the language of the most dreadful of all European and Western countries’ enemy’s language: Russian. Have my studies given me any advantage in communicating with locals while in Romania, Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania, Poland and Eastern Germany? Almost not at all. My Russian remains to this day (quite) bad. I will, however, be working on my language skills.

Let’s get to the actual story, which commenced more than a year ago, back in Georgia where the infamous WTF gang decided to start a major campaign towards Russian territory with the main objective being the magnificent Baikal Lake deep within Siberia. What exactly happened to the fighting spirit of our group I still don’t fathom, but it must be noted that more and more members turned their back on their fellow travellers and chose the routine, the every-day working life and thus backstabbing us. Much that once was, is lost. The initial group diminished in size and morale, and eventually ended up in splintering groups of which one was representative for the whole group on Woodstock and the other in Transylvania – the latter being the heart and soul of the whole movement, including the important elements of hitchhiking, musical skills, random mountain-spotting-and-climbing attitude and minor alcoholism. Sure, some minor deviations have occurred and the changes in character in everyone cannot be unseen.

Good, now that I’m finally done with the 4th introduction, I can start with the telling of  the chronological course of events; additionally, I will try to figure out some minor overlapping elements with Georgian mentality and experience that will be analysed in further detail in this article:
Gabi (Ltu) and Paula (Pol) first met somewhere in Romanian mainland after dealing with Wizzair’s incompetence and sudden cancelling of flights, then continued towards Brasov where Sepp and I would join them (actually the name of the city Brasov is written with some kind of nipple, that transforms its pronunciation into something similar [Brashov]. Actually, Romanian happens to be of an extremely interesting structure and history so that one can find elements of all neighbouring regions in it, with the basic structure founding on Latin). And that’s exactly what we did. Luckily, a lot faster than expected as a friendly Romanian guy agreed on taking us all the way from Dresden to Brasov (1400km!!!). Before meeting us he had already driven through most of Germany and had enjoyed something close to 2 hours of sleep. He insisted on driving all by himself. On the way, we had 2 breaks of 4 hours in total which he used to rest. Furthermore, he had some food provisions that consisted of the cheapest bread and meat you can buy in Lidl, which he gladly shared with us. Funnily enough, he laughed at us for falling asleep from time to time. Once we got to Romania, he unloaded his car in his employer’s father’s home where we got some strong homemade wine – a fine welcome into a new culture.

Brasov. Like most cities from former Siebenbürgen it was built by Germans, which also explains its German name of Kronstadt. Beautiful architecture, countless translations into German (however, not necessarily into English), teenage street musicians jamming in the park for their pleasure and two exhausted Gopnik-like travellers finally welcoming their female equivalents in the newly-discovered city – reintroducing Gabi(-ja-chacha-yan) and Paula, the Mysterious Dragonmaster (Վիշապագետ), to the scene. An entire book’s content could hardly suffice to fully portray their personalities, so that I will content myself with the introduction by adding a group picture:

From Brasov, where we explored the huge touristic Hollywood-like sign (also lacking this strange kind of nipple), we continued southwards in the typical style that we had to gradually adapt while in Caucasus: missing the last bus, so that one’s forced to accept a local’s private car that’s easily transformed into an unofficial taxi, thus avoiding taxes and paying less that one would have by taking a bus/marshutka. We eventually escalated a long and winding path leading to the “7-ladder-canyon”/Sapte Scari, where we stayed with the park ranger and her family. Thanks for our predilection for wine, we were able to offer some to the ranger who courteously turned it down, notwithstanding genuine Romanian hospitality by offering us intel on the region (including its bear family that inhabits the mountain range and the lonely fox) grilled potatoes and bread.

Best facial expressions…they’re simply INFINITY

The successive day gave way to heavy rainfall just past afternoon. Before that, our small group was able to skip the payment for the entry to the Ladders, climb through the creek, escape the canyon’s cold, jurassic soul by sliding down a steel rope and playing frisbee for some hours on the shining green meadow just downhill. If we hadn’t taken the bus, we would probably have drowned on the way to Sinaia. Also, we would never had heard the tourist’s information guide, telling us about the dangers of climbing Omul: 2-5m visibility if we’re lucky, 2300 bears in the region, temperatures far below 0° on the summit, at least 27 hours of walk in order to get to Bran on the other side of the national park. Enough to scare us off, aye? Putting our lives at risk for the sake of a view that would be denied – something absolutely ridiculous. For a group like ours, that hasn’t even any material to protect us against heavy rain, neither having adequate shoes for anything that exceeds a stroll on the beach (please note that the shoes that Sepp’s wearing on the picture were the best he had; the same shoes carried him over many summits in the course of the following days while granting him knee ache at the end of our trip), information like this should scare us off like a flock of sheep that sees the shadow of something that barely resembles a wolf.
Here’s a collection of pictures that shows us being reasonable and avoiding such an endeavour:

We didn’t sleep in a tent, but in a mountain rescue hut… mostly because they told us that it’s prohibited to pitch our tent on the premises of the National Park of Bucegi. The possibility of getting caught in a half-frozen state and still having to pay 3-6000Lei was an argument convincing enough to make us pay the reasonable prices of 40Lei per night per person and stay in a (bloody, exceedingly) warm quarter. We were offered some mountain cheese.

MEMES! Why are there only so few memes…?!

Well, what is Romania famous for? Exactly! for its magical garlic that has the power of prevailing against the devilish powers of their national demonic spawn. A mythical construct created by mingling Bram Stoker’s creative spirit, the desolate nature of Romania about 200 years ago and one of Romania’s most infamous personality, the Voivode Vlad III. Draculae or Vlad the Impaler. Time for some historical background! While being a hostage of the Ottoman Empire he soon learned the art of war, only to return to his home country where he claimed the Romanian throne and restored the order in a most brutal way (inviting all gypsies, homeless people and mentally and physically disabled to a feast, then locking them in and burning them alive; all oppositions from the nobility was liquidated in a similar way). When the Ottomans felt menaced by this sheer exhibition of power, they invaded the country. Vlad expected a raid and used the tactic of the Burned Soil After a gruelling, unsuccessful summer campaign of heavy losses against an enemy that used an unsupportable guerrilla technique, they were confronted with a literal forest of spiked corpses. Every single captured Ottoman soldier was put on a thin stick, which made its way through the POW’s guts. Needless to say, the process of dying was performed under an unimaginable amount of pain. Upon seeing this demonstration of pure inhumanity, the morale of the army reached its breaking point and they returned home. Vlad’s brother, however, led another expeditionary force and succeeded in laying siege to Vlad’s fortress: Bran castle (visible in the background).

It costs 35Lei to get to the other side of this fence… Bloody vampires! We should put them on some sticks!

I’d like to put your mind at ease: despite our general lack of garlic we were not visited by a nightly visitor with long and spiky canines. Yet, the only vampires in Romania are working in Bran. Those parasites asked a 35Lei fee – only to be allowed onto the premises of the castle garden! Bloody vampires! So we drank coffee instead and then searched a camping spot. Due to Paula’s great knowledge of the Romanian language, we were able to convince a local worker with a scythe to lead us to an ideal spot, where we enjoyed a refreshing night with another small bottle of wine (Georgia and Romania share a common enthusiasm for big quantities of wine; we purchased a 2nd glass bottle of 1.5l of very acceptable red wine) and grilled food.

Bran –> Sibiu (Hermannstadt). Many thanks to the two cars that helped us: a Canadian-Romanian couple who have a sort of weekend house in Bran, while actually living in Abu Dhabi; a former truck driver, residing in England, who had an excellent taste in music, whose driving skills reminded me of the typical Georgian driver.

After some tasty, nice, slightly salty Balls (Bulz, some traditional food with polenta) and a good night’s sleep we continued towards another peak, namely Cindrel. A lonely Canadian guy gave us a lift, after enjoying a local beer with me. The process of backpacking towards the top was rather spontaneous and quite exhausting. The beer earlier certainly didn’t help. And the weight of the additional wine bottle and cognac were of equal usefulness. We still managed to reach our camping spot, close to another ranger’s hut. Thanks to Sepp’s amazing singing talent no bear dared approach us… it is, however, likely that he was responsible for the Monsoon-like precipitation the upcoming morning. The high-pitched wind and its never-ceasing, cold company didn’t leave us for about 2 hours, until we finally made it to Cindrel’s top (2245m above sea level). It wasn’t until this moment, when the clouds finally lifted and gave way to a superb view on the landscape at our feet that the cognac tasted well. But the few drops that found its way down our throats onto an almost empty stomach as a reward for the arduous hike and tasted like the most exquisite beverage. The drink reminded me of the – usually very mediocre beer – Kaiser that I received after a similarly arduous bicycle tour to Udabno, Kvemo-Kartli, Georgia.

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After the highly exhausting, close to 50° inclined descent we arrived on a road. Sadly, we didn’t have cookies… (Thanks, OBAMA) so, instead of writing anything reasonable onto our fellow cardboard sign, Paula figured it being wiser to write “Mag/Shop”. By pure luck, some people actually did stop!
Our last stop as a group in Alba Iulia (also known as Karlsburg, but build around a fortress that was highly inspired by the French architect Vauban) was met with beautiful Langos, a few local beers and a freestyle on the grass dance floor within the outer fortress walls.

The next day, the WTF devotees parted ways – but not for the last time! For our trips are INFINITY! Distances are but a small barrier between us. The only thing that we’ll be missing might be watermelons (“Winter is coming”). Luckily, the next summer will come soon and there will be plenty of Cucurbitaceae and we need not worry. The fellowship will live on. See you, dear readers, next time. Til’ then, let us drink за будущее!

 

Here’s a short summary of my itinerary:
Berlin->Dresden->Brasov->Sapte Scari->Sinaia->Omul->Bran->Sibiu->Cindrel->Alba Iulia->Cluj-Napoca->Berlin

 

And some more knowledge that I’ve gathered in Romania:

• it’s acceptable to be racist against Gypsies, because nobody will disagree (at least we haven’t met anyone)
• Russian is useless; I didn’t use it even once
• the country is huge, far more enormous than we had expected… so, always a reason to go back
• everything is German: city names, explanations for tourists, tourists, the entire architecture of many cities

(PS.: I wonder if it makes any difference if you write 0° or -0°C…)