Hello, all! I write to you from Kutaisi, the second stop on my Georgian adventure. I arrived here yesterday by train from Tbilisi. I had the option of taking a marshrutka, or minibus, which would have taken about three hours. However, after my one-hour marshrutka experience visiting Gori a few days ago I decided that I would rather be on a train for twice as long. There will still be plenty of marshrutka travel in my future, I’m sure.
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| Chilling outside the train on a stop |
Tbilisi was a lovely city and I am glad that I will have time to return there in the coming weeks. I am in love with the hostel I stayed in, Fabrika, that opened a few years ago. It was renovated from a Soviet- era sewing factory and also has local shops and restaurants within its compound. My room was clean with high windows, bright colors, comfy beds, and the ability to control the temperature, a luxury especially in this recent heat. I took advantage of the restaurant downstairs where I bought a coffee every morning for 3 lari (about $1), and went to the Japanese restaurant in the courtyard twice, to eat something other than Georgian food, which is delicious but very heavy.
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| Bento Box, you were delicious |
Ahhh the food. I love traveling in the summer when so many veggies are in their peak season. When I self-cater I buy juicy tomatoes, crisp cucumbers, salty cheese, and fresh bread to make salads. Almost daily I’ll buy a small sack of cherries or apricots from a street vendor and munch on them throughout the day. Markets are bursting with color, and I’ve really enjoyed wandering around and looking at everything, almost apologetically as vendors hawk their wares. I visited the major market in Tbilisi the other day and I swear, the only sellers calling out to me were the butchers. I really need to learn how to say “Sorry, I’m a vegetarian.”
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| Market in Tbilisi |
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| No sir, I do not want to see where you keep all of the refrigerated little piggies |
I honestly thought being a vegetarian would be difficult here, but I was happy to learn that the Georgian Orthodox Church encourages fasting during Lent. This means that meat, fish, and dairy are off the table for many followers, and many restaurants have a “fasting menu” which is essentially a vegan menu of many Georgian staples!
Regardless, salads, veggies, and cheese play a large role in Georgian cuisine, so I have not been going hungry, that’s for sure. I tend to order a tomato/cucumber/onion salad, which is commonly sprinkled with fresh herbs (dill, parsley, tarragon, even purple (Thai) basil!) and sometimes a tasty walnut crumble. Walnuts play a large roll in many dishes, including one with little slices of eggplant rolled around a walnut paste and topped with herbs. I also tried the vegetarian version of khinkali, or soup dumplings, and the mushroom variety was delicious.
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| First meal in Georgia. YUM. |
My new friends Nino and Anna took me for khachapuri, Georgian cheese bread, one night. I met Nino in the shared taxi on the way to Tbilisi, and she invited me to spend time with her 16-year-old daughter Anna. They showed me around the old town and were absolutely lovely to hang out with.
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| Nino, me, the too smiley American, and Anna |
There are many regional types of khachapuri, but perhaps the most well known is the Adjarian khachapuri. The dough is shaped into a boat and baked with cheese next to a wood fire. Afterwards, a raw egg yolk and pat of butter is added to the top before serving. To eat it properly you mix everything up with a fork and then eat it with your hands, using the bread as a vehicle for the fatty, buttery, melty hot cheese. It was delicious, and incredibly filling.
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| Before the stirring |
Fortunately, I made several friends in Yerevan who were coming to Tbilisi around the same time as me, so I had plenty of people to hang out with. I ended up in the same hostel both times with Adil, from Toronto, who was traveling around before going to Pakistan for a wedding. We wandered around Tbilisi, took a day trip to Gori, and ate a lot of great food together. Adil heard of this local restaurant near our hostel, so we headed there one night and ordered so many things off the menu, including that eggplant walnut thing, salad, soup, fried potatoes, beans, beer, and bread. Our total came to 24 lari, about $8 dollars. It was insane, and probably one of the best meals I’ve had so far.
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| Adil surveying our feast. We didn't even have everything on the table yet! |
The next day Adil and I went to Gori, hometown of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin. The town is home to the “Stalin Museum” opened a few years after his death in 1953. I won’t spend a lot of time talking about it, but it was interesting to say the least, and still very one-sided even after all these years. There are plans to renovate it and spend more time talking about the millions and millions of people that were starved, prisoned, tortured, and killed under his leadership, but as for now it is mainly pictures and documents with recently-added English translations.
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| a smattering of Stalin kitsch. Note the man who had been "erased" in the painting. |
I also met Deb and Elizabeth, two Americans in their early 20s staying in Tbilisi for a research project. I invited them to go to one of the thermal baths with me, a common pastime for Georgians and tourists alike. Tbilisi’s origins as a city come from its natural hot sulfur springs, and some of these baths have been in operation for centuries. We booked a private room with a sauna and scrub massage for each of us, paying about $45 total. It was heaven. There was a hot tub and a cold tub that you were supposed to alternate soaking in. The “massage” itself was great- the masseuse uses one of those mitts that scrubs all the dead skin off your body, soaps you up, and alternates pouring buckets of hot and cold water on you.
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| Me in my happy place |
The sauna was wild- I wish I had taken a picture. It was brick on one side with hot rocks in a hearth, and cedar planks all around. There were four tiered “steps” you could sit on, so I perched on the top step for a while and inhaled the smoky cedarwood smell. It was so relaxing, though I did get pretty lightheaded after all the big temperature changes. We topped the night off with ramen.
Anyway, that’s all I’ll say for now, but expect more updates after I make it to the seaside and the mountains!
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