Meetings, Music, and Mtshketa (Tuesday & Wednesday)

My apologies for the blog delay, there are no words to cover exactly how tired I am. While I am killing a few hours in the Istanbul airport, I figured I should catch up a bit. Since I am behind, I am combining Tuesday and Wednesday into one blogpost. And it's going to be one jam packed blog post! It seems that the entire country of Georgia wants to meet with us. It's funny, EVERYONE wants to make sure the we get their point of view. People keep calling and wanting to meet with us. In fact, on Wed. we have an 8-10PM meeting at a government office. How crazy is that!?!

The other thing that is interesting is how everyone uses the same information and completely twists it to fit their side of the story. Abkhazia  and Abkhazians could be anything from Georgian citizens in occupied territory, independent citizens in their own territory, Russian citizens in de facto territory. It's crazy. Another example:

Fact: Abkhaz people are crossing the ABL (administrative border line) to seek medical treatment in Georgia.

Georgian Govt: Obviously our policies are working and the Abkhaz want to come back to Georgia

Abkhazia: Because their is an embargo against us and our borders are closed, we do not have adequate medical services. We are forced to travel dangerously to seek treatment in a hostile area. But what other choice do we have?

Georgian Opposition: The government is using medical services as a way to try to woo the Abkhaz away from the Russians

Russians: The Georgians are luring Abkhaz into their territory and then won't let them return home.

Assessment- Who in the world knows what the truth it!?! It's pretty wild, but fascinating to hear people argue and disagree over things like this.

Tuesday morning our first meeting at ICCN was with Mamuka Kuparadze and the producer of Studio Re. Mr. Kuparadze is the director of several documentary films showing different aspects of the conflict between Georgia and the breakaway territories. I'm about to show how much of a nerd I am, but I love this director. He has incredible and emotional films capturing the true experience of the people. He pre-screened for us his new film that is coming out about the 2008 August War. The film really was great and afterwards he even gave me a disc of his other films!

After the film, we listened to Lasha Tugushi, who is head of a Tbilisi paper called Resonance. He spoke about the media in Georgia, which is only partially free and talked about how the government monopolizes the media to its benefit.

After Lasha, we headed back to Vino Veritas again for lunch. Lasha and a Georgian PhD student named Lara joined us to discuss their work. After lunch we had an appointment with Shota Utiashvili at the Ministry of Internal Affairs (basically their intelligence department). It was located back towards the airport so we had to pile into cabs. Julie, Katie, Ashley and I unfortunately got a little lost, but since we were the Russian speaking cab we finally made it to our destination. At the ministry, they hassled us a little bit at security attempting to take our phones, cameras and laptops. But, once the minister's assistant came down they backed off and we got to take everything in with us! Too bad we were too scared to take any pictures. They took us into this big room about the size of a hotel conference room. It was completely bare, everything was white except for a roll in table with chairs. It was the epitome of what you would see in a spy thriller of a room that the captured spy gets drug into and questioned. It was crazy! As usual, he had a very interesting perspective on the whole conflict situation.

After the Ministry, we headed back to the hotel for about 15 minutes to regroup before our next meeting at 5pm. My cab got back first, so I laid in my bed and closed my eyes for what I thought was going to be 5 minutes. I still had my shoes on and my purse around my shoulder, but the next thing I knew it was 20 minutes later and we had to run downstairs so we didn't miss our meeting at the GFSIS (Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Affairs). We listened to former Georgian Ambassador Archil Gegeschidze give us an academic perspective on Georgian and Russian relations. It was funny to here him give all of this information and at the very end summarize by saying, bottomline, Russia and Georgia have incompatible goals and show no sign of compromising anytime soon. No kidding! That was definitely not the most positive way to end our day.

Anyways, after this meeting, we hauled back to the hotel for a cultural evening. We had a great feast, including caviar, Georgian wine, and a special drink gift given to us called chacha (homemade vodka). In addition, Neli, our guide, managed to get a very famous Georgian singing group to come and perform during dinner. It was another night of toasts to everything from music, to love, to Georgia, and even to Georgia's enemies. Once people had enjoyed their wine and chacha, it somewhat turned into a talent show. We had multiple dances, singing in multiple languages, and topped the evening off with a rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. By the time the evening was over and we got everyone to bed, I was just too tired to blog.

Wednesday morning came very fast and we had a very busy schedule. First we met with George Khutsishvili who is the founder and director of ICCN where we held our classes. He was a very interesting speaker and was open to pretty much any question that we might have. Immediately following him, we heard from the Ambassador of Switzerland Guenther Baechler. Switzerland currently serves as the mediator between Georgia and Russia in these conflicts. I found his opinions very interesting as someone whose job is to be impartial. It's crazy that they have completely cut off all communication between each other. He said that the Swiss even deliver mail and notes to each of the parties each week. I am a very visual learner, so I appreciated him using the drawing board:

After he spoke, we heard from a friend of our professor, Paata Zakareishvili. He was extremely opinionated and open about the current state of the Republic of Georgia. At one point, a girl in the group asked him why the Georgian government wasn't taking more steps to take care of the needs of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). His response, "because the government doesn't take care about anybody's needs." He was blunt to say the least, but very informative.

Following these morning discussions, we immediately left for a meeting at the U.S. Embassy with both representatives of the State Department and USAID. They piled us into this old, 18 seat van with no ac. I somehow got squished in the back and got waaaaaaayyyy to hot. Since I felt bad, they then labeled me the one who got car sick in the group even though I've never been carsick ever before. Oh well, it meant that I got to ride in the front seat for the rest of the week! We did get a snack on the bus, and one of my new favorites is a Georgian treat called Churchkhela. It has walnuts and other nuts all strung on a string and then it is dipped into a grape compote. It looks like a weird, ugly candle, but I promise it is delicious!

Of course, our embassy had the tightest security of anywhere around so it took forever to get inside. First we met with David Gehrenbeck of the State Department who gave us his thoughts on the matter, and then we heard from Joakim Parker from USAID. Unfortunately, those conversations were off the record, so I can't really write much about them here, but I will say that personally I was disappointed when we left.

After the Embassy, we drove out to Mtshketa to eat lunch and have a short afternoon tour. We ate at a restaurant my professor highly recommended, Sa Lobio. It was amazing! They are known for their lobio, obviously, and it was sooooooooo good! It's basically red beans, onions, cilantro, walnuts, and something else all crushed up into a liquid and then you eat it with "cornbread." I'm not sure what that "cornbread" was made of. It was super dry and so dense and heavy when I went to pick it up I almost dropped it. I'm not sure if I was just starving, but it tasted sooooo good!

After lunch, we went up a hill in Mtshketa to visit the oldest church in Georgia. It was built in the 4th century and many of the original structure pieces are still there. What wasn't original was still built in the 6th century, so it was OLD!

 

Not only was the church and the view absolutely beautiful, but it was so nice to be out of the city and just to just relax for a bit. No more meetings, no more taking notes, just enjoying the sunshine! After our short visit, we had to head back to Tbilisi for a quick dinner before a late night meeting at the Ministry of Justice.We loaded up in cabs and headed over for our meeting at 8pm. We met with Andro Gigauri to discuss a new program that he is implementing in Georgia. He is reforming the criminal justice system for juveniles. Previously, Georgia has had a 0 tolerance policy, meaning that if a child steals a pen or a loaf of bread, they go to prison for several years. This seems ridiculous. So in his program, first-time offender juveniles are given a chance to reconcile with their victim and perform some kind of community service for them. It really is an intriguing way not only to give kids a second chance, but also to help those young people build and develop skills to help them be more successful in the future. The meeting was really interesting, but it lasted until 10:30 which meant we had been in meetings for over 13 hours. It was an exhausting day! I snuck a few pictures from the Ministry...

Check back tomorrow for our day-long adventure to Kazbekhi Mountain up on the Russian/Georgian border!!!

The Good, The Bad, the Banya (Monday)

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that I did in fact attempt a shower. It was one of the not so good experiences I've had here. We've discovered that at night, the water turns off around 11pm and does not come back on until after 8am, which can be difficult to schedule around. Saturday night I attempted my shower. The shower itself isn't that bad, it's old with a water tank that has limited hot water and basically drips out so slow its impossible to wash your hair. The biggest problem was that our shower curtain was COVERED in mold. I put up with alot of stuff when I'm overseas, but mold is not really one of them. I just really felt like I didn't get clean in the shower, which means that as of Monday  I had not showered since. Gross, I know, but I just can't bear the thought of that mold on me. We were hoping that as a Memorial Day gift, that they will get us a new curtain today, or at least get that one out of here. Annnnnddddd, they pulled through!!! How beautiful and clean are those dolphins!!!

I am up at 5:45 this morning. I think it is ridiculous to be up this morning, but I do get alot of work done while everyone else sleeps. Today, I submitted a Letter to the Editor of the New York Times about a Georgian article. If it gets published, I'll let you know! Everyone met downstairs for breakfast in the hotel at 830. We had tea and hot dogs - breakfast of champions! At 915, we left the hotel and walked to the ICCN for classes to start at 930.

Our first meeting was with an NGO called CARE. A representative named Anthony Foreman came and spoke to us about their mission to involve women in the peace-making process. He discussed the challenges of that in general, and then specifically to applying that to the Caucasus. Next, we had 2 girls from the Georgian Young Lawyer's Association- probably the most well respected NGO in Tbilisi. They were absolutely fascinating talking about the legal aspects of not only the breakaway conflicts, but also the domestic problems as well, including the protests and subsequent violence from last week. Nina and Tamar were extremely open and honest of their assessment of the government ministries and the police. Sometimes I couldn't believe they were telling us certain things.

After our meeting with them, we went back to Vino Veritas for some lunch. We were hoping to meet with the EU Monitoring people while we were here, but they were kind of busy, so two people came and had lunch with us so we could at least hear a little bit of their perspective. Ariel and I were apparently twinkies in our purple shirts...

After lunch, we walked down to the Ministry for Reintegration to meet with the Deputy Minister Porchakidze. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the outside, the policeman got mad when we pulled out our cameras. Inside, they had to searched all of our stuff and we even had to turn on our computers and take a picture with our cameras to prove that it what they really were. Interesting method. Inside, we listened to the Georgian minister for about an hour, and I have to admit I feel like most of what he said was pretty biased. Of course everyone we heard was biased, but some of his comments were bordering on entertaining. First off, he would not refer to the Abkhaz people or South Ossetian people - they may be ethnically those, but they are Georgian citizens. Instead of the breakaway regions, we talked about the occupied regions. He clearly HATED Russia and accused them of some pretty intense things, including ethnic cleansing. It was important to get his opinion, but wow. My favorite is that when he walked in, he asked us who else we were talking to. When we mentioned the Young Lawyers Association from that morning, he said "oh great, I'm sure they were critical of us." It's almost funny how nobody gets along. We snuck a few pics before the minister arrived

After the Ministry, we came back to the hotel and changed clothes really quickly for a walking tour of the city. Originally we were just going to be gone about an hour, maybe a bit more. We were gone about 4 hours and I can't even begin to imagine how many miles we walked.

Here is a picture of the old city, near where we are staying.

This is a new and very modern bridge in the heart of the city.

Saint George (of Georgia!) and an old church

Sorry this picture is kind of far off, but its a statue of Queen Tamar, aka Mother Russia. In one hand she has a bowl of wine for friends and in the other a sword for enemies. As you can see, Georgia is pretty black and white in its view of the world haha

Me and my new friend Cathrin from Switzerland in Tbilisi!

Katie and I are holding up the ancient tree!

And making strong shadows

We walked up a giant hill through the city in the search of a magnificent church. I was starting to get worried when I took this picture...

Here is a picture of Georgian writing. I have no idea what it says, but how pretty is this writing!?!? Most people speak Russian too so its easy to talk to people, but all the signs and labels are impossible!

This is the remnant of our local snack on the way up the hill called Churchkhela. It's basically nuts dipped in a grape compote on a string. It looks like dirty candle, but its actually delicious!

 Me and Ashley sitting outside the big church!

 How cool is this reflection?

 The presidential palace! Sorry its from so far off. If you pull your camera out any closer, a policeman jumps out from nowhere and yells at you. Seriously...

We went from one side of the city all the way to the other, up hills, down hills, we crossed the river multiple times, and then finally walked all the way back. It was great to see the city, but it was exhausting! Plus, we aren't sure whether it is pollen, dust, pollution, or what, but my allergies are INSANE here. I probably sneeze 50 times a day, sniffle the rest of the time, and while we were out walking yesterday, my whole face broke out in hives. Made enjoying the scenery a bit more difficult.


By the time we got back to the hotel, we were completely whipped. I basically inhaled my dinner of chicken, yogurt and egg soup, chicken, nut stuffed carrots, and cold mashed potatoes. Side note- we also drink endless amounts of tea here. It reminds me of Turkey.

After dinner, we decided to go try out the Georgian banya - the sulfur baths. There were 6 girls and 3 guys. When we got down there, we ended up getting group rooms- one for the guys and one for the girls (thank goodness we did that!!!!) Our room was incredible. We had a sitting room with a couch and table and tea. Then you walked into a HUGE room that had a hot water spa, a cold water spa coming from a rock formation, and two rinse off stations - this led into a room with a massage table, a sauna, and our own personal restroom. It was unbelievable and the smell of sulfur wasn't actually that bad! After such a long day and all that walking, the water was unbelievable - I can't believe natural water gets that hot. We also all paid to have scrubs and massages which sounded so nice. What we didn't realize, is that when you sign up for those, this gruff Georgian lady comes in and demands your clothes. Yes, all your clothes. So whether or not the 6 of us girls were friends before, we are definitely all friends now! Naked banya-ing was not what we all expected, but it was still great. The gruff lady was a little rough in her scrub and massage, but we probably needed it. PLUS, we were able to use the unlimited hot water at the rinse off station to take showers and wash our hair! (this was before I knew about my new shower curtain). We all felt incredibly clean and relaxed when we left an hour later.[Sorry no banya pictures - I think it is obvious why!]

My intention was to blog all of this last night when I got home, but I could barely keep my eyes open and it was almost midnight so I totally crashed. Before I did, I happened to get a few pics of our room so you can see our living quarters.

They aren't great or anything, but they could be alot worse!!!! Well I've now been blogging for almost 2 hours and it is time for breakfast (Tuesday). I'll update more later!!