Wine Protest: Drinking Olympics on Television

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Media Fanfare at the Wine Protest

It is nearly midnight here and my heart is still racing. I have felt tipsy since around 2PM today. When our friend suggested a celebration of Georgian wine in front of the Russian embassy in protest to the Russian ban of Georgian wine, I thought it might be a fun field trip. You may ask, why ban the closest producer of wine to Russia? Well, scientists found too many pesticides and other pollutants in the wine, which actually comes from the massive counterfeit problem that the Russians have of Georgian wine, cigarettes and loads of other things.

As it was a work day and we had planned it to coordinate with the lunch hour so the rusetis elchi, or Russian Ambassador would see us outside the embassy with dinner table complete with 15 or so chairs, table full of food, on a spanking white table cloth (which would not stay so white with the amount of wine that was being drunk). Did I mention there were more journalists and camera crew members than participants in our non-protest? Yes, there were several TV stations, radio crew and independent media there, all to watch foreigners drink wine in the middle of the day on the sidewalk and toast to Georgia. Did I also mention this was the first or second news story on all the TV news stations that day: that is probably what I find the most incredible of this crazy story. In other countries, we would not be the lead story but would probably get coverage. It really says a lot about Georgian pride or the fact there was NOTHING to report today. The other main story was on the 100 year anniversary of the Duma in St. Petersburg. Nino Burjanadze, the speaker of Parliament in Georgia went there and was critical of the Russians and their politics/economics. Zhirinovsky, a Russian MP then starts wailing on camera about how they fed the Georgians for 200 years and this is what they get, just insults with every 3rd or 4th word was Bliyat, whore. I swear Georgian TV is more serious than this. It seems like it is a bit of a clown act from the Russians and the foreigners protest, but it really isn't.

The Krombacher, a supra-event style restaurant across the street, agreed to transport the food, table, chairs for our event free of charge. The owner said that it would be hard, but he is a nationalist of course.

There was one part on television not on this television clip which was way later on, long after the "hour" allotted for the supra expired and everyone was staggeringly drunk, when I was saying "Ra kargi rvino-a" in Georgian meaning good wine this is. It was quite surreal. The funny thing is is that someone of the stations reported it as the Georgians paid for the Supra or celebration but invited foreigners to taste free wine. It is a example of how something so simple can be skewed by news agencies. We are wondering when to do it again. I mean, what a country. You have a nice outdoors lunch with a LOT of wine and you make the news on several stations in several countries. :)

My name was reported for some odd reason as Ruth Berger, so I have been given a Jewish name and turned from a hill into a mountain, in German nonetheless. What were they thinking is my question?

Some news links on the event
http://www.apsny.ge/news/1146178959.php

http://www.vz.ru/news/2006/4/27/31633.html

http://www.newizv.ru/lenta/45519/

http://www.apsny.ge/news/1146165848.php

http://kavkaz.memo.ru/newstext/news/id/987920.html

http://www.newizv.ru/lenta/45519/

http://www.day.az/news/georgia/47477.html

http://lenta.ru/news/2006/04/27/table/

http://echo.msk.ru/news/307846.html

http://www.from-ua.com/news/4450cdbc06601/

http://www.gazeta.ru/lenta/2006/04/27/news_626923.shtml

http://www.apsny.ge/news/1146100814.php

http://www.vesti.ru/news.html?id=90792

The Future of Spam

As often my non-spam messages go into my spam, and my spam messages go into my inbox, I tend to look at the spam folder of my email. To my amazement, there was a message dated from 18 January 2038. 2038!! Speaking of spam, has anyone ever wondered why bad email is the same word as processed ham products? There was apparently a conflict after unwanted email began being called spam, and a legal pursuits of sorts began. However, Hormel the food company now seems OK with the strange association between SPAM ("food") and the inbox clogger, otherwise called spam. SPAM, the food is actually quite well loved in Guam.

So, Either I have had a mind bleep and haven't aged in 32 years, or the spammers are getting awfully sneaky. It's strange that my father also sent me some scary jokes about what life may be like when I am 58. I guess today is a forward-thinking day.

I also get a lot of spam from Spanish banks where I have never had accounts telling me something about my account.

The Cat's Meow

The Cat's Meow

Prickly stingy plant

This plant does sting when touched. I tried to use some as shoe cleaner while going to the cementary for the Easter supra as it was in a village, muddy, raining and everyone is obsessed with clean shoes here. I found grass works well without getting hands dirty. In case you are ever lost in the forest and needing toilet paper or want to pick leaves for some other crazy reason, remember not to choose this one.

Georgian Reggae

As I turned on the TV tonight, to my surprise there were a bunch of Georgian bichos, boys, singing about friendship in Georgian in a reggae format. There are a lot of MTV spoofed video shows. It's like a radio but with images as well. The funny thing was that these boys are on TV but the video is essentially them singing in their basement recording their song with eggshell for soundproofing and a couple of shots of Georgia and people around what is probably Tbilisi.

No one really has control over Reggae and who am I to say what language it should be in. After all, a flamenco loving samba adoring girl should have someone to relate to, right?

Mating Call

People here in Georgia are much less promiscuous then their cars are. We observed two cars last night sending off their mating call of car alarms as we walked by, each one echoing the other's lovesick sighs.

Honestly, everything is more demonstrative through the third person, that is the cell phone, car, music, etc. Although don't get me wrong, people do start shouting at each other in the street as well. For example, it is generally not accepted to kiss in public because it is "indecent" yet it is ok to have half naked non-Georgian (obviously) women on magazine covers on display in kiosks. The botanical garden appears to be the make-out place in Tbilisi yet it is not anywhere close to "making out" of Brazil, France or even Italy. My friends in Iran say the same is true about the parks and overlooks of Tehran that it is also the place to go and kiss.

When we first arrived, I usually hold on the Vova's arm so he doesn't walk to fast, or we will not get separated or the bus driver will know that he is paying for the two of us. Most men and women or couples do not hold hands/arms here. The man drapes his arm over the woman's neck. Sometimes the man looks quite uncomfortable and awkward. I call it the choking position. Women and women however do hold hands as they walk down the street. To set the record straight and in case you were wondering, these brave bold men that chainsmoke and refuse to hold umbrellas as they are too "feminine" and will instead get wet or put a newspaper over their heads, will kiss another male family member on the lips, a male friend on the cheek as well as hug him. Interesting paradoxes, n'est-ce pas? Americans somewhat have this problem about kissing on the lips. For some reason it has been designated only an activity to do with spouse/or love interest of your shape and flavor. I always thought it was unfair for one person or family member to give and another to receive a kiss but it is that Victorian sense of puritan values to keep relations in their proper boxes.

Wishing tree or pragmatic Christmas tree?

Similar to the Bulgarian tradition, with the first bloom of flowers in spring, people tie cloth to the tree and make a wish. This tree accompanied several others making it a bit of a wishing forest on the walking road to the Motsameta monastery.

Orthodox Easter

Easter Preparations inside a chapel in Motsameta near Kutaisi, Georgia

Memories of the past

Karate in Tbilisi

The "airport" being constructed on the Tbilisi hillside.

Spirals

The worst toilet ever

I would like to retract my previous comments about the toilets at the Zestafoni bus station, I have found a worst toilet, at the Gelati monastery. That by far is definitely the worst toilet, once again, no doors, but with a stronger smell, and flies hovering over a brown liquid puddle in the middle, and no water in bottles. Then again it was free. That 10 cents makes a larger difference than you may think.

Zestafoni

In an attempt to go to Kutaisi, the second largest city in Georgia, we decided to take this minivan/bus called a Marshutka through a small city called Zestafoni and then transfer to another bus. I went to find the bathroom and found what was perhaps the most disgusting bathroom ever. The fact that you had to pay 10 cents for it was almost an outrage, but there was some water in bottles for you to rinse your hands with and they did give you paper. The toilets were pit toilets in a row, and there were NO doors. I had never been in a bathroom with several stalls and no doors so you can imagine it was indeed an experience. I think this does rank as the worst toilet ever that I have visited and I have been throughout Africa, Latin America. To be specific, it is the worst toilet that is called a toilet and not just a pit or corner or something else which was not designed to be a waste receptacle.

Gori, birthplace of Stalin

Gori


One of the last remaining statues of Stalin in the world. There are a couple in Russia as well.


Stalin Ave, the main drag through the city.

Skiing in the Caucasus

La Gorda

Who ever would have thought to be grateful for a flooded restaurant? Who would have thought that a restaurant would flood without heavy rains? All of these questions you never really think of the consequences but I do promise you they do make a difference. Tonight I was going to a Khinkali, Georgian dumpling, place with some friends, but as it turns out the restaurant was closing as a water pipe had exploded and there was water on the floor. I felt a bit relieved in a way as it seems they are repairing water pipes in front of my house and down the road from here which makes me think perhaps there IS a problem with the water pipes and they aren't just doing it for practice or to annoy residents. Speaking of annoyance, I learned that the Russians change cases for numbers before months or days, etc. several times. For example 1-5 weeks/days, etc is one case, 6-18 or so is another, 20-25 is another and so forth. I honestly think they did it to annoy the foreigners.

As the pipes had exploded we went to a Spanish restaurant that had just opened. Curious to see if they had anyone Spanish there other than the owner I decided to speak Spanish with them and as suspected, they did not understand Spanish, nor even the menu in Spanish which is always useful. They messed up our order several times bringing us dishes with meat even though the majority of the party is vegetarian/fasting (to be discussed later). Towards the end of the meal, someone speaking Spanish wiggles up next to me trying to turn on a light switch. We were excited as there was finally better light, but secondly speaking Spanish. I turned to them and asked in Spanish where they were from and began a friendly conversation. They asked me how the meal was and I said great but began to outline that we had had several order mix-ups, attitude from the staff and other friends of our had had issues with them not speaking an ounce of English. The owner and friend were quite distraught by that, apologizing profusely and mentioned how the waitstaff doesn't ever seem to listen. They sent over several extra free desserts. As the bill comes, the waitstaff has overcharged us and charged us for food we didn't consume. As the situation began to border on comical/absurd, the surrealism emerged. The bill was fixed as the waitstaff was getting concerned with the free food being sent by the owner and us chatting away in Spanish, and we learned that the owner is Georgian but grew up in Spain. He mentioned that his family moved away with communism. Originally our friends thought he was Jewish perhaps as many Jews moved during that time, but as the Georgians probed a bit more it became evident that a celebrity was before us, only I was the only one that was totally clueless to this. He mentioned that his family was in Bulgaria, Russia, Spain, etc. After he mentioned his last name, Nino, my friend asked a few more questions and I later find out that he is the second in line to the Georgian royal throne, meaning if it was reinstated, he'd be prince, and his cousin would be King of Russia if their monarchy went back. So if the restaurant hadn't flooded and we hadn't been sitting where we are I would perhaps not have Prince David's phone number and a lunch meeting with him and his friends next week :)

Whoever thought Spanish wouldn't be useful in the Caucasus hasn't realized the impact of tsiganka's suenos.

Child Violence in Georgia

Warmonger for kids

Traffic police?

Naghmebi

Digging


Naghmebi is the Georgian word for mines. There is a series of relief aid words in the phrase book that I had for the language but have lost in the last couple of days. Strangely enough there are no phrases on, "I think the construction is taking too long." or "Do you know what you are doing?" or rather, "Do you understand how much environmental damage you are doing by knocking over trees and spitting toxic clouds of smoke out of your tractor that shouldn't have a permit if it does indeed have one?" Nothing terribly current in the book, although there still are landmines in Abkhazia. There is at least one page on questions such as:

Take me to the mine field.

Where are the mines?

What are they made out of?

Help me!

Thief!

How many victims are there?

Among many other questions/phrases etc. It really doesn't paint the country in the most favorable light. We used to bring it out at cocktail parties in DC and here when visiting people for a good laugh. It really is a random group of expressions and perfect when you don't know what environment to expect.

So, with that in mind it may explain my current mindset. We have been here almost 2 weeks and nothing has exploded yet. Not that it is supposed to. I just keep thinking it will for some reason. Vova didn't really describe the place as explosive but perhaps the word for mines, naghmebi, has been poking at my subconscious in the back of my brain.


Water pipes in Tbilisi

So far the water has been turned off twice for fixing the mammoth pipe down the street. The electricity was off at the market towards the end of the day when we were there once. I haven't been attacked by bugs, or shouted at. For the most part everything seems normal. Well, everything except for the fact there are tractors outside my house with make-shift engines spitting asthmatic black coughs into the air lifting concrete slabs off the street.


Parking lot at the intersection with several police directing traffic

There is a very pretty parking lot of buses, tractors, cars and trucks honking at eachother in the intersection complete with 4-5 policemen directing traffic, shouting on loudspeakers to speed up/quiet down and other crazy things. Oh, the internet just went out except for Georgian website pages. Yet, I'm still waiting for something to happen. Either I am getting too accustomed to being here or Vova set wierd expectations in my head. I didn't come with any expectations but I was expecting less electricity as the film Powertrip portrayed and others have complained about. We have taken to watching traffic instead of TV recently. It is actually reasonably entertaining. Usually around 3PM the parking lot takes over the intersection. I have a feeling driving will be a topic of several entries. Archil, a Georgian friend who met us at the airport apparently broke all of his bones in a traffic accident but still drives like his rear end is on fire and he is trying to put it out. There is this odd desire to get faster to one's death here, or perhaps teasing it slightly. I guess it is the challenge of avoiding it, perhaps.

View of Old Tbilisi

Beautiful Tbilisi

Russia Bans Georgian and Moldovan Wine

April 9, 2006
In Russia, Buying Wine Takes a Delicate Nose for Fraud
By C. J. CHIVERS

MOSCOW, April 8 — Dry young Saperavi, a wine so tannic that Georgian winemakers often call it not red but black, can be one of the great pleasures of the former Soviet world.

It is a wine with origins reaching back thousands of years, and whose rich and varied flavors have been newly coaxed by a generation of post-Soviet winemakers who are reviving the Caucasus' ancient culture of grapes and wines.

The trick has always been to find a bottle — a real bottle.

Since late March, Russia has barred the import and sale of Georgian and Moldovan wines, citing concerns over pesticide content that both Georgia and Moldova insist have been a pretext to punish the former Soviet nations for aligning more closely with the West.

But long before the trade dispute with those countries, it was a challenge to find many of their most common and delicious wines. The problem was not bans, but fakery.

Officials and importers here say that half to 80 percent of the wine sold as Georgian is cheap wine with counterfeit labels or not wine at all, but alcoholic cocktails laced with dyes and flavors, and perhaps a trace of fermented grape to try to fool the inexperienced nose.

"This is an aggressive theft with a special cynicism," Valery G. Draganov, head of the commission in Russia's lower house of Parliament that covers alcohol legislation, said in an interview. "We have been devouring this bitter pill for several years."

In the tale of post-Soviet wine fraud can be found many of the hustles and deceptions that have characterized this region's shift from a listless planned economy to a corrupted brand of capitalism.

Georgia regards itself as the cradle of world winemaking, and has a wine culture dating at least several thousand years. Many of its varieties and blends are distinct, and small plots in valleys have earned names of their own, like Mukuzani in the Alazani Valley, where some of the finest Saperavis are harvested.

But the Soviet system emphasized quantity, not quality, and during the decades when wine was made to the plan, Communist winemakers cheated, spiking grape juice with sugar to increase its alcohol content after fermentation, then cutting the wine with water to increase production volume.

When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Georgia's vast valleys of vineyards were left struggling to find cash flow, fresh expertise and new equipment. And yet the soil and climate were still capable of producing fine vintages, and the new market wanted them.

Georgian wines had always been the most popular in the Soviet Union — Stalin's taste for them was famous — and demand continued in the mid-1990's, when Georgian wineries were barely able to produce.

"This is when the falsification really began," said Tengiz Javakhishvili, director of the Telavi Wine Cellar, one of the top wineries to open since the Soviet period and to begin reclaiming the Georgian name.

The first fakes were simple, Mr. Javakhishvili and Russian and Georgian officials said. Vats of low-quality table wine from Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania and Russia were bottled under false labels and passed off as famous Georgian wines.

"It ruined the reputation of high-quality Georgian wines," Mr. Javakhishvili said.

What followed was worse. As demand for wine grew in Russia, Russian and Georgian businesses began mixing grain alcohol with fragrances and dyes to make a cocktail faintly resembling wine, or fermenting concentrated juice and bottling it as if it were a vintage. Then a Georgian label was applied.

Such crude fakery has endured, wine importers say, because many Russian consumers have limited experience with wine. In Russia, vodka is still king.

The frauds are highly profitable. Per capita wine consumption has been climbing as much as 25 percent a year in Russia as the middle class grows and new habits take hold, Petr Kanygin, chairman of Vinny Mir Holding, one of Russia's largest wine importers, said last month.

Victims abound, starting with consumers. Mr. Draganov, the leader of the parliamentary alcohol commission, said they can risk poisoning while being exploited.

Importers suffer as well. The fakes, Mr. Kanygin said, have slowed the market's growth and sophistication. "These situations have been taking shape for 11 years, and hurt our development of sales and a wine industry in Russia," he said.

A larger victim, Georgians say, has been their industry itself, which has been rebounding in recent years. At least 130 Georgian wineries operate now, Georgia's agriculture ministry says, many newly equipped and harvesting from vineyards planted after the Soviet Union's demise.

Although many of the early frauds were committed by Georgian businesses, the Georgian government has moved against the falsifiers in recent years, and last year forced at least two wineries to dump their supposed vintages when inspectors found fakes wines.

Inspections are now common, said Mikhail Svimonishvili, the agricultural minister, and Georgia has begun registering all of its vineyards, assigning them registration numbers, known as passports, and compiling data on their yields.

Wineries must now show where they have bought grapes, and growers must keep records, to prove the origins of each year's vintage. The passports cover newly designated appellations, with micro-zones of some of the finest regions.

"The Soviet system, for 70 years, was terrible for the wine industry," Mr. Svimonishvili said. "But now we have working in a better way, and with this system we can make something good for our country."

One of the stranger and perhaps counterproductive elements of Russia's recent ban on Georgian and Moldovan wines is that it overlooks that a large fraction of the faked wines bearing Georgian labels come from inside Russia, Georgian and Russian officials. These wines, and their risks, are not affected by the new policy while the best wines from the region are blocked.

Mr. Kanygin said the Russian faked wines, principally made in vodka plants, were among the most dangerous and unregulated, because they pass no borders and, consequently, have no natural checkpoint for inspection.

Mr. Svimonishvili said his registration system has shown that the Mukuzani region produces enough grapes to make about 1.4 million bottles of wine each year bearing the Mukuzani name.

But each year in Russia, he said, more than 10 million bottles sell.

"Most of these falsified wines come from within Russia, under our name," he said. "We would like to see Russia work against that."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

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Russian gangster rap

Watching television in foreign countries can also be entertaining. Georgia does not fall short from that at all. We have been seeing a lot of the Russian MTV and what has struck me most is the amount of confused young gentleman who are "singers". This Russian guy who was rapping, I suppose seemed to be a classic example of what is commonly referred to a poser or perhaps someone who is in denial about that ethnic background. You see, this man seemed to think he was from the hood and perhaps even black. The clothing was baggy and typical rap style attire, lots of tattoos to blend in well, muscles to help show them off, a band around the biceps for who knows what. But what really perturbed me and made me wonder if indeed they had dubbed him into Russian was this type of nylon/pantyhose/strange head garb thing that I have only seen African-Americans wear in Washington, DC. He is indeed Russian and I do doubt he is from the "hood" but am sure he has a slight identity problem.

Ode to Natia

A stone dedicated to the women named Natia, or perhaps one specific beloved one :)

Ayurveda and Georgian Gyms - paradoxes in Stalin-land

I guess to start off I am going to need to explain what Ayurveda is. It is a an Indian philosophy which believes that there are 3 different compositions of individuals which determines what medicines, diets, lifestyles, etc work for them. You can be primarily vata, or water, pita: fire, or kapha: earth. There are essential oils, foods among other things which are coordinated for based on what your composition, or dosa is. So, in the republic of Georgia I randomly saw an advertisement for an Ayurvedic massage center in Tbilisi. I have yet to go and check them out but talk about surreal. I was hoping that I wouldn't be viewed as a heretic for yoga and there is something even more esoteric here. You may ask where such a strange ad would be in this Orthodox country, where else but Vake Park, the most elite and luxurious gym in Central Europe, the Caucasus and most other places I have been. There is a 50 meter pool with Olympic 20 meter diving platforms if desired, deluxe spa with sauna, steam room, up-to-date fitness equipment only in English, and these strange vacuum elliptical machines which burn fat in the women's section of the gym. Apparently you are supposed to put cling film/plastic wrap around your legs and you are in this machine that is covered so you only see your head and resembles and elliptical machine. I have yet to try it so I will keep you updated. So this gym has pretty hefty prices and I almost thought they were joking when I first went. They are not joking and there is a waiting list.

It gets more surreal. Men and women have separate price ranges as they are trying to get more women to join. It costs somewhere between $90-160 a month to use the gym depending on whether you would like to come at all hours or be restricted to only daytime weekday use. Everytime I go it is really a social experiment trying to figure out HOW on earth Georgians are able to afford this place. Salaries for most people short of computer programmers are far short of the rates of this gym each month. Yet, the men's section is pretty packed in evenings and apparently it is hard to get a locker. It seems like I am missing something. There is a piece to the puzzle which is constantly not present. The paradoxes of this country baffle me each day. Sometimes each day more than the next. For example, the streets are dusty, muddy, with many holes and thousands of obstacles such as construction workers, water pipe repairers, yet women wear heels, that don't have any mud on them and they don't seem to destroy the shoes. I have resorted to wearing my hiking boots today as all my shoes are muddy and too wet to wear today. There seems to be an art to walking here that I am anxious to learn. Another example, people spend fortunes on their cell phones, at least $200-300 with fancy cameras on the phones, and they never have credit to call anyone as you have to pay per minute for outgoing calls. I was wondering why people were texting like crazy and then I saw how easy it was to use up money by talking.

So Vake Park, like the cell phones, the fancy cars which get beaten up by the roads and pilfered are status symbols. Strange thing, the ego, isn't it. We saw a parking lot of cars in the intersection outside our house during rush hour. In fact, it usually happens almost every day, at 12pm and then at 3pm. You usually know it is happening by the number of honks, and the police on loudspeakers telling cars to hurry up. Tbilisi is definitely an experience.

Hercules

Old town of Tbilisi

San Francisco - Tbilisi

Whoever said that Jet lag is a joke really has never gone 12 or more hours away from them. I've heard horror stories about traveling to Asia from Europe/US but have yet to had that pleasure. I can certainly attest from the longest flight schedule from San Francisco to Tbilisi that 5 days after arriving we are still a wee-bit jetlagged. From yawning at strange hours, finding myself waking up at 6AM or taking a nap at 2PM, I think it is safe to say that we are jetlagged. Someone mentioned to me that it takes a day per hour change, and I somewhat laughed but it has been more time than I thought for me to adjust to the difference. When I flew from the depths of Winter to the heart of Summer to from 2C/37F to 40C/110F Spain, I did indeed get a 24 hour flu.

The time difference from Tbilisi to SF is 12 hours. When my mother asked I could have possibly found a place further away from home, this time I couldn't deny it. I mean I guess Mongolia is further away one direction, but then on the other side it would be closer. A 12 hour time difference does indeed make the fact clear that I am on the other side of the planet. Somewhat trippy really, although communications aren't terribly difficult. Just subtract 12 hours and you can talk early in the morning or late at night.