I marvel that in the former Soviet Union there are a very large number of babies born and named Svetlana. It seems that half of the folks I met in or from the former Soviet Union countries are named Svetlana. This makes it easier to remember names, but harder to talk about them. “Svetlana from Moscow, Svetlana from St. Petersburg” is a distinction that must be made, but frankly that distinction is for my benefit. They are all the same to the people around me in Canada, except for the three Svetlanas I know who live in my small area of Canada.
They do help me though with nicknames. Svetlana from Sukhumi prefers Sveta. Svetlana from Novy Afon prefers Lana. My close friend Svetlana from Tashkent prefers Svetlana, but I can get a rise out of her by calling her “sweaty Lana” and she replies with “Philsky”
Lana is the head of Abkhazia’s International Department. She went to Moscow, took a University degree and began a rat race of a career in Moscow; a “good job”. Then she decided that she should ‘downshift’ and come back to Abkhazia to work. Her role in Akbhazia’s foreign ministry is underpaid, but she makes up for it teaching at the University.
Her English is exceptional, and when she started doing simultaneous translation between Minister of Agriculture and me, I was actually startled. It didn’t take me long to get used watching the Russian language coming out of my mouth in deep and foreign tones and into my ears in her very feminine, perfect English lilt, but the first few sentences caught me off guard.
She offered to take me sightseeing, much like I take people here to Niagara Falls and I was thrilled to have a chance to see some of the tourist sights. This area has a rich history. This is the region where the earliest recorded winemaking has been discovered, about 7500 BC. Schoolboys are taught about Jason and the Golden Fleece. This is where Jason and the Argonauts came to find it. It seems that lambs pelts are perfect for putting in mountain streams as they capture heavy gold particles in the wool and incidentally make a ‘golden fleece’. St. Peter (or locally called St. Simon) came here in 55AD and was killed near Novy Afon after a few years of hermitage. Nearby are the largest caves in the world. The New Athos Monastery is majestic on the nearby hill.
I’m not much of a tourist. The world’s largest caves would be interesting if there were no guardrails or signs like, “This way to the egress”.
In my free time in Moscow I did not see Red Square for two reasons; I couldn’t figure out how to cross the road to get to it, and I wasn’t that motivated because everything I saw was interesting. If you want a thrill ride in Moscow, I recommend Tim, my Georgian friend who drove me through the deserted streets around the Kremlin at 120 km at 3am in a mad burst of exhilaration. We were both stone cold sober and perhaps next time I’ll see more of the Kremlin. I do recall my hands on the dashboard, gripping tightly. I did see the Kremlin from the across or along the river, but I was perched high up in a nightclub called Soho Rooms, getting to know some rather interesting people.
So where is the soul of this land?
I have decided that it was with Lana, walking through some delightful woods to a small cave which is a shrine to a saint who lived 2000 years ago. We in the west typically call him St. Peter, but locally he is called by his birth name, St. Simeon. Lana pointed out red spots in the river which appear magically and are said to be the blood of St. Simeon. The locals killed him for some reason and now they revere him. The former Soviet world is full of such conundrums.
A garden of rocks sprouted out of nowhere. The river begins at the foot of a high rock face, bubbling out of the ground. It is clear and beautiful and there is no need for bottled water, drinking fountains, or pop stands. It is fresh and drinkable. In fact it stands out as beautiful tasting water, filtered through the Caucasus Mountains and popping up virtually untouched in the copse of trees at the foot of the cliff.
Novy Afon was missed by much of the destruction of the 1992 war so it remains reasonably pristine, but it joined the economic black hole that sucked in all of Abkhazia and it shows. There are no bullet holes, and the huge Georgian monastery of New Athos was untouched, as tempting as a target it must have been, by both sides in 1992.
Everybody in Abkhazia, indeed, all of the rural Caucasus, makes their own wine. Wine is the soul of hospitality among these incredibly hospitable people. Grape vines are trained up trees or trellises, harvest is done by hand, and fermentation happens in large clay pots that are buried in the ground in a shed as a natural form of climate control so the wine doesn’t overheat. Beside the largest pot is the second largest pot, and beside that is the third largest pot, in a cascade of ever smaller pots sunk into the earth of the wine cellar. The wine in the second smallest pot is poured into the next smaller and so on up to the largest pot to make room for the new harvest. Presumably some is drunk from each vintage year and the finest wine is often in the smallest pot.
Before I left, I read in a cooking book that the name of these pots was “Kvevri”
I only saw one in Abkhazia, on that walk to the shrine. It was turned over and we took pictures of each other standing beside it.
Lana was, I think pleased that I knew what it was, but she was sweet and patient but firm when she explained that “Kvevri” was the Georgian name and that the Abkhazian name was “Apshah”, which means something like “home of the soul”.
The only Ashrah I saw on this was upended, broken and would hold no souls. It was left on the side of a path on the way to a martyr’s shrine.
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