Holy Week: Easter

As this is the last day of Easter, I should post this final part in the series about Easter Week. We did not attend a vigil mass on Easter Eve the way that many Georgians do. Devout Georgians go to church in the evening for a long vigil which includes a litany of the saints. Around 11 pm we could hear bells at the churches around us ringing intermittently for this litany. At midnight, we heard a barrage of bells from all of the nearby churches, and could see processions of people walking around the major churches. It was a beautiful sound, hearing all the different church bells and faint sounds of singing far away.

We managed to get to sleep, and on Sunday morning awoke to celebrate both Easter and Nic's birthday. We went to church to find dozens of bouquets of flowers and a huge crowd of celebrating people looking their Easter best. Above is a picture of the alter at St.s Peter and Paul church on Easter Sunday. We bought some of our own lilies as you can see at the top of the blog. It was rather confusing, however, as we tried to buy 3 lilies which were wrapped up, we were quoted 10 lari. We asked instead the price of an individual flower: 2 lari. Needless to say we did not buy the wrapped flowers, but carried two large, individual, unwrapped lilies home. While we were going to church, many Georgians were just coming home from church with their Easter new fire.

I asked this couple for their picture in the metro. They have fashioned these devices to protect the fire so they can get it home. I saw huge numbers of Georgians in the metro with these same plastic beerbottle or waterbottle protectors. Georgians will often stay at church all night for the Easter Vigil and come home after the sun has risen. When they get home, they usually sleep for several hours. As a result, there is not always a large meal on Easter. Often just the eggs colored on Friday and Paskha.

Georgians have a special cake they only make for Easter called Paskha (the Russian word for Easter). From what I can tell, it is heavy on the butter and eggs with raisins and dried fruit, and difficult to make. I am told that to make it properly takes 12 hours, so people rarely make it themselves—they buy it from a store or special bakery but then they complain that not all the ingredients are used. Some people even sell it on the street out of the back of their cars (like almost anything you can buy on the street: whole chickens, fruit, cheese. This is common). As you can see, the cakes are light colored and rather tall.

During Easter week, I tried both homemade and store bought Paskha, and could appreciate that the homemade was a little better. It is a sweet, spiced cake but with no overwhelming flavors.

I was also pleased with the eggs, and found that although color choices are limited in Georgia, there are ways to "spice up" and decorate the eggs with these plastic pictures. Below you can see two that our landlady gave us. In the one on the right, you can see cartoon animals bringing paskha to each other. The one on the left is in Russian with a church. I also heard a new story about the eggs, but only from one source. A student told me that eggs are also related to as story of Thomas, the disciple. According to her, he made a comment of non-belief in Jesus' resurrection, and said something like "I'll believe when these eggs I have turn red." And then they did. I'm still a little shaky on the details.

Before you eat the eggs, the tradition is for two people to crack them, by hitting them one on top of the other. The one which does not crack is supposed to have good luck for a year. Especially children love this tradition, and will take eggs to school and compete with one another. When one of my students was younger, he remembers competitions at school, and the year when he had the luckiest egg. Another year, a boy brought an egg which seemed immortal--it could never be cracked! Then the owner dropped it on the ground...and it had a distinctly wooden sound. What a cheater!

Nic wanted eggs, but not paskha for his birthday picnic. We specially ordered a chocolate bundt cake (which I thought we had a picture of but I cannot find), I made chicken salad, and we took some wine and fruit to the botanic gardens, which were particularly quiet. With a couple other guys, we celebrated Nic's birthday in a beautiful setting with tasty food and cake.

We rested on Monday, a much needed day off, but Georgians were out at the cemeteries visiting their relatives who have passed on. This is the most important Easter tradition, portrayed in this picture by the famous Georgian artist Niko Pirosmani (you can see the little ghosts flying with the birds). It is essential to visit graves because it is believed that spirits of lost relatives return to their grave on Easter. If you don't come to visit them, they will feel sad and unloved, especially seeing every other grave visited by family. The tradition is to bring little paskha cakes, red eggs and a candle to the grave. Family often makes a toast with wine to the lost member, and drinks only half the glass of wine. The rest of the glass is poured on the grave in a cross-shape for the spirit to drink. I have heard that the foods brought to the cemeteries are not only an offering to the dead, but to the poor as well. Supposedly, hungry people are allowed to eat the food left on the graves--the most important thing is that the dead relative was visited and loved.

-Sora

Holy Week: Good Friday (or "Red" Friday)

This is a the second post in a multi-part series on Easter traditions in Georgia.

During lent, devout Georgians fast much more American Christians. They give up all meat, dairy and oil dishes, leaving only a few options of fish, vegetables and some bread/ bean dishes. It seems rather extreme but everywhere you go you can find “fasting” alternatives: cookies, ice cream, sour cream, mayonnaise and yes...donuts. I don't fully understand how that works, but one of my teenage students told me that some less devout women use fasting as an excuse for extreme dieting, but with so many alternatives, they often gain instead of lose weight. Some priests are more strict than others in consulting parishioners on Lenten rules. Some pregnant women are allowed to have dairy products everyday except Wednesday and Friday, and some people with medical conditions are given special exemptions. Unfortunately, many Georgians don't really like vegetables or fish, and end up eating a lot of lobiani, beans with dough wrapped around it, or just a pot of beans (lobio). Although I have noticed a lot of more sickness in public (common colds and flu) during lent, no one seems to be starving themselves to the point of danger.

I don't have much information on Holy Thursday, except that it is called "Big Thursday" and most Georgians go to church, but devout Georgians go to church every day of Holy week anyway. I have also been told about a non-Christian tradition on Holy Wednesday. Children and young adults run through and jump over a bonfire in order to make bad things (spirits, illness, bad luck?) go away. Today it is more of just a fun tradition for kids than anything else.

On Good Friday (which Georgians call "Red Friday", there is an early morning church service for Mary, Jesus' mother, and another service in the afternoon. In addition to the services, people dye eggs red near dusk to symbolize when Jesus' blood was spilt. The egg dye comes from a plant which has a rich red color in the branches.

Georgians buy these branches, boil them and mush them up and then let them sit for 12-24 hours before boiling the eggs with it. It produces either a rich red or purple color on the egg, and I am told that the egg tastes different...we shall see.

My neighbor was kind enough to let me dye eggs with her after my mass on Good Friday. She did all the hard work crushing and boiling the branches, but let me join in for the fun part.

Once the dye was ready, we carefully placed the uncooked eggs into the pot and boiled them for a while--until we thought the egg was cooked and we liked the color.

We were able to put them directly into cold water to facilitate peeling without losing the color. Really quite easy, and produced a beautiful result.

The service I attended at the catholic church was a little different this year--it was in Russian and Georgian, because they did not have enough people for an English service that day. It was difficult to follow with my limited knowledge in both languages, so I read English versions of prayers and readings during most of the service. At one of the shrines, they put up a beautiful skrim with flowers and a crown of thorns attached to the fabric.

 

More to come soon about Easter...Sora

Holy Week: Palm Sunday

I was talking with one of my students the other day about Easter, and she made the comment that one thinks of some traditions as universal until you are confronted with someone who does something different. This is common knowledge, but sometimes we still forget it when it comes to things like holidays which are shared among countries. My student is from Poland, and she thought that everyone celebrated Easter Monday by throwing water on each other. Let me specify: the tradition used to be that boys would throw a small amount of water (like a glass of water) on a girl if they liked them. It has turned into a slightly more dangerous event, and these days, people try to stay home on Easter Monday morning in order to avoid being doused with huge buckets of water by “hooligans.” I have never heard of this before, but my student grew up thinking everyone did this on the day after Easter.

So, I have been investigating some of the differences between my own Easter and Holy Week traditions and Georgian traditions. This year is uncommon with Orthodox and Catholic/ Protestant Easter falling on the same day. Usually, due to different calendars, they are on different weeks.

As luck would have it, when I was celebrating Palm Sunday last week, so was Georgia. Georgians follow a similar tradition of having foliage blessed by a priest on this day, but instead of palms, they use boxwood and pussywillow branches (at the Catholic church we attended, they used olive branches), even though there are palm trees all over the country. A Georgian told me that they believe that Jesus was greeted by palm branches according to their bible, but yet boxwood has become the tradition.

As a way to display the branches, they are often sold in little baskets which make it easy to put the branches on a table in your home and dry for the whole year.

It was beautiful to walk around all day and see people selling branches and baskets (very inexpensively) and see others carrying huge bundles around.

My polish student also told me about the palms they use on Palm Sunday in Poland. Highly artistic, they are supposed to be saved for one year and discarded, but as you can see, they are so nice many people keep them for several years. There are palms involved in the construction but clearly other materials as well.

These last two are not my pictures, but give you the idea of how different traditions can be.


More to come soon...Sora

Blustery March and the Shift into High Gear

With generally warming but unpredictable weather, I finish my Russian study grant and move into the research phase of of the Fulbright.  There are many ideas I have to pursue and so much I could write up just now, but I feel I cannot do that until I have had my on-the-ground time in schools.  Everything up to now has been hearsay. 

And so off it goes...

This next week I will be in Akhalkalaki, Akhalsikhe, and the surrounding areas surveying the Armenian community (in Georgia) for language perception.  Hooray for traveling somewhere I've never been.

Map from http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/georgia_map2.htm

The study?  I am undertaking it with a friend and another acquaintance.  In short, what people think of someone speaking a given language based on where the speaker and listener are from and which language is being spoken.  So, what do Georgian Armenians feel about a Georgian speaking Armenian and vice versa, versus an Armenian speaking Armenian or a Georgian speaking Georgian.  I know...gripping research!  But, it does have importance when it comes to educational inclusion in language minority areas and governance.  So, it is a start on some broader themes I am interested in.

In the following weeks I will be making direct school contacts, doing interviews with aid agencies that work in education, data mining, copy-editing an archive's journal, applying for visas to Armenia and Azerbaijan, making travel plans to both those countries, and planning some domestic travel.

A big few months ahead of me, but exciting indeed.

Snow? Yes, finally.

 

It did finally snow in Tbilisi. We had waited for so long, and a few weeks ago we were pleased to wake up to a wintery landscape. The snow has completely melted now, and the weather has turned warm, but for two weeks, we saw some snow around us. It wasn't too cold, so we took several walks around to look at it. Luckily, there are many hills and areas around us without roads, where the snow could stick and stay white.

On the first day of snow, we took a long walk up a street we had never been up before, to find an old church with some nice views of the city.  We saw some snow men, snow churches, and even a few kids throwing snowballs. The kids were not alone, however. After taking pictures of a monk ringing the midday bell, Nic looked away to take other pictures but was nearly hit by a holy snowball! The aggressor? The monk who had been ringing the bell. After he was finished, he picked up some snow and crafted a perfect ball for throwing at Nic. I think he intentionally missed, as it fell at Nic's feet. Perhaps this was the saintly (though funny) thing to do.

Skiing at Gudauri

The adventure which is skiing at Gudauri, north of Tbilisi and about halfway to Russia, starts with a wish.  Our wish was to see snow this season, because as it does get cold seasonally, the climate in the capital does not often provide for snow.  So, the wish was there a long time ago--snow.

This Mandarine Man (in lieu of a Snow Man) represents our boredom, inside, with no snow. He looks pretty powerful, but he's actually only 10 cm tall. Much like us stuck at home, it seems much more difficult to change than it actually is. 

Procrastination is the next hurdle to overcome.  Though one may have the urge to do something, one may not have the means.  He dismisses any winter trip because travel will be difficult, equipment must be found, and schedules must be changed.  Procrastination is overcome when an acquaintance suggests a trip together, allowing the party to pool its communal woes, wishes, and responsibilities.

And that is how it started.  Darren, a acquaintance I met through my banya group, came to town to visit in-laws, and suggested we make the trip.  Two days of skiing, one overnight stay, and...snow!  He offered up his father-in-law's purple 4x4 Niva to get us there.  He suggested a guest-house where he had had some good experiences.  He pointed us in the direction of equipment rental (through the guest-house owner) and after arranging a departure time, there was much rejoicing.

Off we went in our purple Niva. 

He generally smacked of a fearless consciousness and patience with Georgia.  It was understood.  He was of a different vintage.  Darren came from a time not too long ago where political killings were the norm, there wasn't electricity, and the presidential cabinet owned all the hotels in town.  So, when we encountered a massive, slow-moving queue for lift tickets, he patiently stood in line while we began griping about the lack of efficency. The other skiiers around us were not nearly as frustrated as us, for they had bottles of wiskey to take pulls from and finish before they reached the cash desk. It was 10:30 am (very early for Georgians).  Upon reaching the cash desk where a single woman was selling tickets (the talented individual happened to be texting on her phone), she nearly handed me a 100 GEL note (approx. 65US$), thinking I had put it down to pay for tickets--I did the honest thing.  We were sure the magic that is skiing would begin.

Not so.  Lift lines in Georgia are a lot like democracy in Georgia.  Everyone knows how it's supposed to work in theory, and gripes when it does not, but does nothing practical about it.  We waited at the "end" of the "line" which is more like a dog-pile of thirsting sailors competing for the last cup of grog on an infinitely long voyage.  men were pushing their children between other patrons, women would take off their skis and give a suggestive smile, as they passed by others in the cluster*#%@, walking on others' skis as they passed.

This would not annoy so much if each of the seats on the lift were occupied.  Georgians seem to have this puppy-like need for social connection; so much so that if one wrestled his way to the front, able to look at the empty chair beckoning him as it turned around the center of the cable-wheel, intoxicating all who could only just glimpse it through a crowd usually only seen at papal masses and UNHCR camps, he would not move to seat himself.  He would stand.  He would wait.  He would yell to his freinds behind him, only centimeters from others' ears and blocking others who did have their whole posse, to hurry their slow butts up. 

And so the day had begun, triple-chairs floating away into the distance empty, empty, then with five people, empty, two, one, three, empty, four, empty...

Once we made it up the first lift, feeling confident about having our rental gear, lift tickets, guest house figured out, and our lives from the first lift-line, we realized that the greatest challenge we would yet face on this trip was the line for the second lift. Many people took off their skis to get through the turnstiles, others pushed ahead or through the line, children were stuck, unable to get themselves up the small, icy hill to the lift because they would begin to slide backwards.  Several vendors were prepared for this, offering all manner of spirits on the slopes at 10,000'+, pictured below.  I was scared at this point for my life.  I can deal with reackless skiers, but with drunk skiers I have had little experience.

The very British Darren charged ahead, experienced, cool, with his skis in hand, while we spent a very angry hour with our skis on, but going nowhere. Other skiers began standing on top of our skis, trying to get as close to the front as possible. Others jumped the turnstiles without any concern, even though I have never seen turnstiles jumped in the Tbilisi metro. We found it necessary to push, just to keep our place, but once we reached the lift itself, we saw all the people who had cut us in line were waiting at the actual lift--for their friends to show up and meet them. Thus, there were dozens of people in the front of the lift line, but alas, as before many of the (quad) chairs were going up with only 2 or 3 people in them...some were empty. We had a pretty short fuse at this point.  Below is a photo from the next day, monday, when the place was nearly empty.

Note the lift line being jumped. 

Luckily, Georgians are pretty pitiful skiers.  The steeper, windier heights scared most of the normally fearless Georgians.  We decided to spend the rest of the day on the upper parts of the mountain, and did not have to navigate that particular lift again. We began skiing and finally noticed just how gorgeous the scenery was. It was not a huge resort, with only a few hotels, so when you came down the slopes, you saw tremendous, snow-covered mountains, instead of highways and condos (but they're coming soon).

Quite specatacular indeed.  From the top of the highest lift, one could see the 5033 m (16, 558 ft) stratovolcano summit of Mt. Kazbegi (behind us), and the mountains of South Ossetia, Chechnya, Ingushetia. The views could only compare to what we've seen on top of 14ers, in terms of distance and multitude of peaks in view. 

Kazbegi was beautiful, with her main glaciers in full view. 

After two days, we were ready to come back.   We had not had enough skiing, but life has to happen some time.  We have come to miss the stray dogs in the lift lines, and the inviting, undeveloped atmosphere of  the base of the resort, what Georgians think is a tourist economy. 

Old needs die hard.  Fulfilled with the knowledge that snow existed inside these borders, mandarine-man-o-cide was the most effective way to go.  Sora brought her wrath upon him, and we ate him.  But before we did so, we wisely secured his power of attorney.

Nic & Sora

Happy New Years

The New New Year and the Old New Year have come and gone.   Fireworks have turned to ash and children's injuries have had sufficient time to heal.  The crowds on the capital's main drag, Rustaveli Avenue, have dispersed, and thankfully taken their drunken Abba renditions with them.

Our landlord's mother traveled from Abkhazia to greet the new year with us.  She ate one piece of meat, three pieces of candy, and had about a half-liter of cha-cha (distilled wine, Georgian vodka, the local firewater, moonshine).  Just before midnight, we made the way to our balcony and observed all manner of fireworks.  Our landlord squeezed off a few rounds from his Kalashnikov and 2010 was born.

Orthodox Christmas was celebrated with much less fanfare.  Some churches opened as bells tolled; worshipers came and went from midnight and into Christmas dawn.  No Kalashnikov action.

And Old New Year woke me--at midnight for a handful of fireworks.