Guest Writer Vol. III (Vol. II will not be posted)

I had the pleasure of dining with a number of bearded middle-aged Georgian men who shared stories and reminisced about their past. I brought up the topics of the Rose Revolution and the Abkhazian War. They gladly shared their perspectives.

Where were you in life, and what were your experiences during these two events?

They all responded,

“We were all there in front of the Parliamentary Building protesting on November 23, 2003. Many people came out for this historical event.”

The glasses were filled. One glass for Ludi and one for Araqe. ‘We are having both?’ I thought to myself. ‘This might be bad.’

One of the men, we will call him Gogi was a student during the Abkhazian conflict. He was in Germany for a conference in 1992. As he made his trek home to Georgia, the Abkhaz war erupted. He was bringing a Fax machine on the airplane. As the plane approached Tbilisi, he noticed that almost all the lights were out in the city. There was however, a circle that he spotted that formed around the Tbilisi airport. When he landed, he realized that this circle was a unit of informal paramilitary forces that had taken, or were trying to take, control of the airport.

As he got off the plane, he clutched his fax and his passport. Confused about the situation.

“Why are all these paramilitaries here?”

He asked this question to one of the airport police.

“They are causing nothing but trouble, and are posing as protectors. They’re impostors.”

Gogi took a swig of Ludi and continued his story.

Maybe protectors of the Mafia, but certainly not of the people! One of the paramilitaries took Gogi’s passport, and then asked what it was that he was bringing into the country. Gogi confessed to us that the paramilitary man had not the slightest clue what it was. Gogi answered,

“It is a fax machine.”

The paramilitary officer, not knowing what this machine was, avoided the topic and said that Gogi would have to be arrested.

The nearby police officer was keeping tabs on the situation. Gogi walked up to the police officer and said,

“Who are these men and what do they want from me?”

The officer handed Gogi his pistol and said,

“You take care of it. Finish this situation.”

Gogi, the other men at the dinner table, and I took a sip of our Ludi as we sat at the edge of our seats.

Gogi took the gun and demanded his passport. The paramilitary officer returned the passport and no longer bothered Gogi, who was now not only clutching his fax machine, but also a soviet pistol. Gogi got home safely. The country was a mess though.

—To our country, to its future, to our people. To peace and to love—

Gaga, the man sitting in the corner, interrupted before we could drink to the toast. He said,

“We lost the war because our military was much undisciplined. Aside from the fact that beating the separatists, who were supported by Russia, was an impossible feat, our soldiers had intercourse with women in the tanks. It was a sad situation.”

As they reached for their Araqe to take a toast, they chuckled and laughed.

“Gaumarjos, gajimarjos.”

After squinting his eyes and making a face as he endured the burning of this awful drink, Gaga went on to explain that Georgia had only a voluntary army, between 4,000 and 6,000 men. There were many informal units though, like paramilitary forces, throughout the country.

Gaga lived in Siberia in the 1970s. He was a rather successful man there (as successful as you can be in Siberia). Every farmer was required to produce five pounds of food per square meter of land owned. This is impossible, everyone in Siberia knows this. He said that the key was in declaring how much land you possessed. He took a sip of Ludi and explained.

“For example, I would declare that I had one square meter, where in reality I had five. This way I produced the necessary amount of food. Not only that, but the municipal offices awarded me for being such a successful farmer.”

In northern Georgia where I lived, added Goga, there were informal units everywhere. I knew all the leaders. Goga had only had Ludi. He did not want any Araqe.

“One of the leaders, Giga, stole so much money that he appeared in town with a new white Volvo. He let me borrow it one day. I drove throughout the north of Georgia and everyone feared me because they thought I was Giga.”

Goga lived in a small village along the military road that headed north to Russia. Now he has a family, like all the other men at the table. He owns a bakery in town.

All of these men came out for the Rose Revolution in November, 2003.

Ghia, my translator, said that he was outraged, as well as thousands of other Georgians, that the elections had been a fraud.

Araqe in hand, Ghia gave a toast to the current government and to positive change in Georgia. He gave a toast to success and then downed the glass. (It is bad medicine if you ask me. It is not so much that it is hard to swallow, but once this vile drink is in your throat, a fire erupts. You must breathe out in order to avoid a distasteful experience.)

“Everyone was voting for the opposition, and everyone knew it.”

Now there is a new government. They have been in power since 2003. There are a lot of expectations. The good thing for some (and the bad thing for others) is that there have been a lot of changes in almost every area of life. Will this breed success in Georgia? Only time will tell.