GEORGIA
ON MY
MIND
I
s tare at the towers, imagining
marauders on horseback, serfs
crouching servile against these
cracked stone walls, their bare
feet muddy and calloused. Thin
dogs wander at will; a horse
makes its solitary way home. Against
a stone wall an ox-drawn sled lies,
constructed from logs, more practical
in these rocky places than the wheel.
Old carved doors, low and secretive,
shut me out. There is a life lived
here that I know nothing about; the
towers, the small, square churches
dating back to the eleventh century,
hold pre-Christian secrets about life
lived in these isolated mountains that
tug at my mind. I am allowed only the
briefest of glimpses - the sights and
smells and sounds that testify to an
ancient people living lives to which
I am only a transient spectator. The
depth of history here humbles me,
the timelessness of it…
Georgia greets us with a large bill-
TRAVERSE 37
board featuring a smiling young lass
encouraging us personally to visit the
local casino and lose all our money.
Just behind the casino billboard is a
church. I'm not sure if there's any sig-
nificance in the order of placement
and what that says about Georgia, but
placing a church within a hundred
metres of the border seems to echo
the mosque placed an equal distance
from the entrance into Turkey.
Tit for tat.
The mosque is bigger.
But the Christian character of
Georgia, distinct from the Muslim
character of Turkey, is reinforced
by the placement of crosses at the
roadside entrance to and exit from
most cities and villages as well as
large crosses mounted on prominent
hilltops. Even the Georgian flag fea-
tures the bold, red cross of St George
and, just in case you missed it, small-
er bolnur-katskhuri crosses (like the
German Iron Cross) in each quadrant.
Five crosses for Georgia beats