Beeing in Batumi

Our Glenny hosts in Batumi: Heidi (in a quite serious moment, quite exeptional) and...

Clara, who spend her final evening at the beach with us and left next morning for France.

Gonio fortress close to Batumi.

The beach... very great. We were lucky with the weather and went swimming several times each day.

Landscape in Adjara region.

At the entrance to the Botanical Garden north of Batumi.

Philipp made new friends...

Sightseeing in Gori

Uplistsikhe, a cave city founded 1000 BC near Gori.

Our taxi driver who also took care of our physicall well-beeing after we arrived in Gori at 7 am with the overnight train from Batumi. The Wolga he imported from Ukraine 23 years ago.

A huge nameless stature on the central square of Gori of one of the most famous sons of Georgia: Stalin. He was born here and the town still practices a way of whorshipping him that simply ignores the cruelty of this man responsible of millions of death.

Stalin in the Stalin Museum. The museum is huge, almost like a temple and ends with the conference of Yalta...

Kids playing soccer on the streets. In every yard the vine was ripening, hanging over the street. They say its only two weeks left for the new wine to be ready. Looking forward to that!!

Evening light on a fortress overlooking the town of Gori.

Dogs are everywhre, here we met some very playfull ones. In other places, specially in the mountains, they can be quite scarry.

The entrance of the very impressive and still affordable Intourist Hotel. Only half of one floor was renovated, devided from the rest by a large curtain. We had a nice day here, spend mainly in bed because Philipp got his share of the usual georgian stomach problem. We all had it, some of us more then once and by now it makes a great small talk topic...

Mariamoba

Mariamoba, on the 28th of August is one of the greatest holydays in Georgia. Thousands of pilgrims from all over the country make their way up to Sameba church in Kazbegi. It is a day for sancification, mediations and joy, a day spend with family and friends.

Resting on the way to the church.

Together with hundreds of pilgrims we went into Sameba church and lit some candles.

The biggest cars where parked just in front the church.

Everyone able to ride a horse was racing up and down the hill.

Georgian ritual: Taking a lamb up to the church, surrounding the church three times and then slaughtering the animal outside the church yard, boiling the meat and eat it there with friends and family.


Big party at our house. One of the sons of the family came home for the holyday- together with 14 friends. Georging feasting at its best, with great singing and music, delicious food, toasts from the heart and of course a lot of alcohol!

Mt Kazbeg with lightened chruch at night: This picture was taken on the same day at 1o pm with extreme long exposure time. In moments like this i really wish for a tripod!

State of mind II

I am still alive! And have not a really good excuse for not writing for such a long time. Some great things in my life happened: My sister got married on the 8^th of September and this seemed to me an important enough reason to fly home for a week. It was a wonderfull, chaotic and happy time in Germany.

Philipp accompanied me on my way back to Georgia. Our triple team decided to take a week off and do some travelling before winter hits the country. So Kadri left with Tönu for Armenia and Elina showed some highlights of the country to her mother. Philipp and I took the night train to Batumi and spend some relaxing days at the beach and visiting the region, before we went back and had a stop in Gori. We spend Claras last day together with her and Heidi and it seems quite weird that for some of us Glennies the time here is already over.

Now we are back and working on the project. In a week from now we have a seminar in Kazbegi, presenting our work to all who are interested in the community. The web site was born yesterday and we will have a rough version ready to present at that date. Also our questionnaire shows some results that might be interesting for everyone here dealing with tourists. Many people ask us to come by and take pictures of their place. So this will keep us busy for the last month here and also working on the web page will take some time.

I could say that everything is great. But sometimes I feel doubts in my head. The easiness of the first weeks vanished a little bit. Questions arise in my head. Not so much about the project here, but about what to do after. At some point I have to decide which road to take. Maybe not for the rest of my life but for the next months, the next year. At one side I can feel the freedom of deciding for what I want to. On the other side this decision seems quite a heavy one.

It’s great to be in the same place for such a long time. It makes it possible to follow life and not only perceive the country in a static moment. Fall came to Georgia. The grass turned brown and the trees along the military highway show off in brilliant colours. The cows came back from the high pastures. That means more work for Manoni, because she has to milk three cows before going to work and great pleasure for us: fresh milk, yoghurt and home made cheese. Today school started again. The kids have off 3 month in the summer. It must be hard to get used to sit still after running around in the mountains all summer. Everywhere on the streets you could see small groups of young pupils nicely dressed... so much more to see and to experince. More pics are on the way.