Still Life

by Goga Chikhladze

Georgian village maintains bucolic beauty, but few hopes for the future

Mandaeti in Upper Imereti, region in western Georgia, is an ordinary Georgian village. Tourists never come here for a vacation and many things, habitual for the city dwellers such as TV and fresh newspapers, hot water, electricity or even a doctor are almost completely absent from life of the locals.

The World Bank research rates the province of Upper Imereti the poorest region of Georgia. But the life here maintains contagious bucolic calmness and simplicity.

Local people learn about events in the country with big delay. Life flows slowly and not much money is available to nurture the hope for the future.

Spring, summer and autumn are the seasons of hard work. Winter is a time of complete isolation and forced idleness. One-and-a-half meter snow is a normal thing here and roads become impassable in winter. Usual thing to do in winter is to dig the tunnels through snow to a gate, kitchen or the neighbor. In winter people sleep, eat, take care of cattle, go to neighbors, drink wine together.

The wine, made from the local bitter grape makes for useful companion during the evening fireside chats, especially in winter. The grape is so bitter and sour, that locals always add some water and sugar for taste and possibly some grappa for proper strength.

Information is scarce, absence of electricity cuts off the villagers from TV and the newspapers make it here rarely. People who travel to cities – Chiatura, Kutaisi or Tbilisi are useful source of the news and always welcome to join the conversation over the glass of wine. The table is usually quite poor: corn pies, cheese pies, beans, bread and wine.

Politics is the most beloved topic for idle chatting:  "We should not have broke up with Russia. Russia is our first friend and savior. And now they [Russians] took away Abkhazia and South Ossetia and we will never get these lands back again. We can’t defeat Russia," many locals say.

Locals persistently ignore any elections. They rate far below the usual village routine. In addition, many think that their votes won’t affect anything anyway. "I don’t have time to go for voting. Last time my cow was delivering…" – says Avtandil, a local dweller. "I and everybody else would definitely vote against Shevardnadze and his party," was the answer when asked for whom the locals would vote should they have time.

There are not many tools that the locals can use to master their own lives. Local governmental body (Gamgeoba) stands deserted. Ancient and feeble statue of Stalin, standing in front of the administrative building, looks over the village. In the building local grandpas and grandmas endlessly wait for their pensions. It’s ought to come "any day now". The village has not received pensions for more than a year.

Village’s has ‘ghost’ self-government. Loud and honorable post of Gamgebeli, head of the village has absolutely nothing to do with the village’s real life. There is not enough money for the government to be real, so it stays ‘virtual’ or ‘imaginable’.
Main goods, sold in an only shop in the village are: salt, sugar, matches, kerosene, soap and cigarettes. Everything else is a luxury that only few can afford. There are no wealthy people in the village.

Some scarce cash is made from selling wine, meat and other goods in cities. There are people who go to the cities to sell someone else’s goods. They get certain percent from income. Those who have water mills keep certain amount of flour. But cash is very scarce in the village.

A cattle is most precious for the village, for it is a prime source of income. In the morning it has to be milked and brought to a pasture, in the noon – given water, in the evening – brought back to home, cleaned, milked, fed… and it goes like this from day to day.

The villagers see the future in gloomy colors but know that the calm farmers’ life is likely to stay unchanged.

"The country is going to hell and nobody knows what will happen to Georgia [in the future]. But we have nothing to loose… Whatever happens, we will be growing our grapes and corn anyway. So we will survive somehow. Let Shevardnadze [Georgian President] do whatever he wants, since we can not change anything."