Back to Life

Perhaps it is time to revive the blog.
Since we last left off, I took a boat across the Black Sea and passed several months in the South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh). I have many many stories from the period of time, but those will come later.

Now I am in Abkhazia. It is a country... kind of. Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and a Pacific Island nation or two recognize it, but for the rest of the world it is part of Georgian sovereign territory.

I will let you wikipedia the Georgian Abkhaz war and the Georgian civil war because I do not have time to give the required history lesson.

The story starts in Zugdidi, the capital of the Samegrelo region of Georgia. I was planning on meeting a friend of a friend in the town to get a place to sleep for the night, but when I called him at 10:00 pm he was still on the road from Tbilisi. Without a place to sleep, I decided to bike the 10 km to the "border" (ceasefire) line on the Inguri river to find a police or military post to camp. I only now realize how much faith I have in Georgian hospitality and kindness, especially of their police.

I was stopped at a little after 11:00 pm by the two officers manning the checkpoint. Within moments, they had assembled a little feast and I was playing guitar and singing. They called another police post and had them listen to me on speaker phone. I asked them if I could camp, and they thought for a second. They said, "no," and insisted that I sleep in the police post, but made me set up my bivy sack (a tent-like object) next to the post. I was confused for a moment, until Zviad explained to me that it was not allowed to have someone sleep in the station so they wanted it to look like I was sleeping outside. Fair enough. That night and the next morning, I had some really moving conversation with the two officers (all in Russian). They were both in their 30's and were both refugees from Abkhazia. (IMPORTANT DEMOGRAPHIC POINT: at the beginning of the conflict Georgians were the largest ethnic group in Abkhazia at about 45% of the population and Abkhaz were only 17%). Zviad took several long looks at my entry permit from the Abkhaz Ministry of Foreign affairs and seemed lost deep in thought. I woke early that morning to Andrey's snoring and found him sleeping on the cot next to me cradling his automatic rifle.

Thy bid me good luck and said they would see me in a week. I felt very sad that I could not tell them the truth: I would not be returning to Georgia from Abkhazia. I had a Russia visa and intended to violate Georgian territorial integrity and cross to Russia. I felt strange as I looked back toward Georgia (proper that is). I might never be allowed to return without facing a short prison sentence (probably only a few days) or pay a major fine. Thankfully though, in the 8 hours I spent with the police, I think they never took down my passport information (which is the point of the checkpoint), so there may not be any proof of my entry to Abkhazia...

Anyhow, the last thing Zviad called out to me was to "write the truth," about Abkhazia (I had let them know that I was writing a bit about the Caucasus).Indeed in many respects it does seem that the Georgians have many points on their side. They were the largest ethnic group, the Abkhaz violated the initial ceasefire, the Abkhaz only won militarily because of Russian backing (and to small extent north Caucasian support including that of future number-one wanted man in Russia, the Chechen leader Shamil Basayev), and the final stages of the conflict involved the large scale ethnic cleansing of Georgians from the territory.

I crossed from a modern, westernizing, safe, relatively corruption free, forward looking Georgia to a corrupt, crime ridden (every police officer and soldier I met told me that I could not leave my things for a second or it they would be stolen), and economically depressed Abkhazia still standing much in ruin.

But the hospitality was much the same.

After about an hour biking through the ruins of the semi-tropical Gali region, I was stopped by some paramilitary forces trying to repair their broken Lada (THE soviet car). They approached me, aggressively at first, but after about 30 minutes of talking, smiling and consciously trying to charm them, I had three (enormous) glassed of wine in my stomach and was holding one of their AK-47s. On command, I was forced to shoot up an unfortunate tree.


After talking with the soldiers for a while, I decided to leave. The last thing they told me was to "write the truth" about Abkhazia. This line really struck me. I heard it twice in one days from enemies. A biked off a couple of km, too drunk to get much further, found an abandoned, bullet-scarred house and fell asleep for several hours. When I awoke, I was still pondering that line.

I entered Sukhumi to find it over-run with Russian tourists. It is quite funny that it feels adventurous to be here as a westerner, but Russians take their families here on beach vacations.

Couchsurfed with a really nice Russian couple (the only people in all of Abkhazia on couchsurfing). I helped with large scale brewing operation and was rewarded with a night of Abkhazian drinking that truly felt identical to a Georgian one. The alcohols are the same: wine, cha-cha and beer. The structure is the same: one tamada (toastmaster) who leads the process. And even the toasts were almost identical: first to god, then to family, then to our great guest, etc, etc. Not to mention that Abkhaz food is, well, Georgian food with a little Russian food (and I don't think Abkhaz can take credit for the inventions of these dishes since their names, even in Abkhaz language, are all Georgian words.) At one moment I raised my glass and began with a loud "Ga..." and, quickly realizing that my habit of using the Georgian word for "cheers" (Gamarjos) could serious get me in trouble, I quickly recovered with a sloppy Russian "Nazdorovya!"

The Tamada invites you for a drink:


When I say that Caucasians make you drink, people often think I am not being literal. But I am... and yes that is a real gun. The dialogue accompanying this, "Don't worry, I took the clip out, she won't shoot you, this isn't Ossetia!":



Anyway, it is a beautiful country and on bike I have been stopped many times by curious Abkhaz, Armenians (the second largest ethnic group) and Russians who want to ask me what I am doing and wish me luck. One thing that does seem a bit strange is that almost every single one of the Russians and Abkhaz men ask me if I am "doping"- a question I have never been asked before and often ask about my sex life during 6 months of biking (not in conservative Georgia any more...). And the cycling has been great, except when you have to pull over for a column of Russian "peacekeeper" tanks or when you are on a road that has suffered artillery damage and almost two decades later it still isn't repaired. Oh and everyone jokes that I am a spy... but my host the other night confess that he was sure I was, but (as he waved his pistol in the air) he said he believed I was a good man and that was all that mattered.

Spot the soviet relic:



And the road ahead (actually the road to the recently captured upper Kodori Gorge):


Best,
James

The Battle for Kiev (Things Get Interesting): Part 1

Alright, finally things get interesting:



I'm back in the (former) USSR. The crossing to Ukraine was a bit surreal. Pushing my bike through the thick snow I began to feel truly out of the EU. As I entered the dimly light immigration building I was greeted by a dark Soviet-Realist mural complete with all the essential symbolism: the crushing of Fascist Germany, the solidarity of the proletariat and the glory of the Red Army. The large hall was nearly empty and I wheeled my bike up to the only open immigration kiosk. Across the counter was an absolutely beautiful girl in a military uniform. Her face was momentarily cold and serious, but as she sat up straight she saw that on my side I was wheeling a fully loaded bicycle. She cracked a very friendly smile and carried out two simultaneous interrogations.

The first was centered on the business at hand of screening me to get into Ukraine. The second was an excited attempt and discovering what the hell I was doing on the bicycle in the dead of Ukrainian winter. At the point I told her that I had biked from Amsterdam, she left the little booth for several moments. I heard some excited giggling and she returned with two other female guards. I caught a small glimpse of their legs as they passed between the kiosks and saw that along with their military uniforms, they had high heels. The three women crowded in the kiosk and as the questions continued (in English) I listened to them commenting in Russian. To my great satisfaction, the word "simpatichno" (cute) was thrown around several times. I finally started answering in Russian to let them know I understood what they were saying and they seemed incredibly surprised and delighted that I could speak it (and use it to flirt a bit). The questions didn't seem all that out of the ordinary at first.

"Birthplace....Family name... Where have you traveled in the last 90 days?" etc, etc.
Then came one that still seemed fairly normal, "Are you married?'
"No," I replied.
With evident playful excitement, my dark haired interrogator leaned forward and with a smile perhaps wider than my own asked, "Do you have a girlfriend?"
"What?! Uh... no."
One the two blondes pointed to her friends and said "They have no boyfriends!"

To my delight the questions continued like this for a while culminating in ,"Will you stay in Chop (the border town) tonight?" "No." "Will you please stay in Chop tonight?" they finished jokingly. Once questioning finished, they excitedly looked over my bags. I was forced to pull out my guitar and to "prove it was mine" they made me play and sing them two songs while one took pictures on her camera phone.

Welcome to Ukraine.

I broke down my bicycle into parts and took a long over-night train to Kiev. I shared my sleeping compartment with a kind woman who worked as police officer in Uzhgorod. We shared food and I practiced Russian. My slight cough became an inter-compartmental affair as people from the next sleeper compartment heard that there was an American with a slight cold. After nearly an hour of arguing over the best method of treatment, the other passengers a series of competing lists of medicines I should by in Kiev to treat myself. My attempts at, "it is only a small cold" fell on deaf ears as they started chattering about the best doctors in Kiev.

Having only paid for one night of accommodation in 7 weeks, I decided to rent a cheap bed for several weeks and catch up on Russian language study. Thankfully Kiev is mostly Russian-speaking (though the damned signed are in Ukrainian). It is quite surprisingly, dare I say it, beautiful here.

A bridge of love locks:

Саша + Юра = Любовь (Sasha + Yura = Love)

With the Dnieper and its forested islands in the background:


I could write a lot about the charms of Kiev, but there is something else that has been bothering me here. I'll write about it later. But here is a hint.

Babi Yar; the ravine where the murders of 100,000 people by the Nazis took place (including 33,000 Jews in a single incident):

Catching Up: Switzerland to Slovakia

I am way behind in my posting. Currently in Eastern Slovakia.

On the road to the High Tatras:


Here is a quick summary of the last leg journey (Basel, Switzerland to Poprad, Slovakia):

Part 1: Cheese and Chocolate
After a great time couchsurfing in Basel with some very kind hosts (pictured below in their garden) I cycled a wet day over the hills to Zurich. Unfortunately it was a couple degrees above freezing so I had heavy rain instead of snow. I finally gave up on try to stay dry and just kept pedaling fast enough to keep my internal furnace burning. When I finally arrived at my friend's flat in Zurich, I stayed in the area for almost 2 weeks. During this time I consumed more chocolate and dairy products than I would have thought humanly possible. Much music was played with friends in Zurich and Winterthur. I think I spent the entire two weeks in Switzerland smiling.



Part 2: Cheating and Saunas
Having spent so much time in Zurich, I ended up getting a really cheap night train ticket across Austria. Passed a few days in Vienna with a friend from UCSB and made the snowy route to Bratislava, Slovakia. I had never intended on coming to Slovakia but I ended up really loving it. Couchsurfed with two really incredible brothers (Peter and Brano) and ended up in a sauna on both my second and third nights in Slovakia.

Part 3: When alone in the woods with a gypsy...
Brano suggested that I check out a Roma (often called gypsy) camp 30 km North of Bratislava. That was one of the stranger experiences of my trip. Though in the region for hundreds of years, the Roma have, for the most part, successfully resisted integration. Many now live in separate slums outside of towns and cities throughout Eastern Europe and the Balkans. In Slovakia, unemployment among the Roma stands around 80%.

They first came up in conversation in the Sauna. When one Slovak mentioned their India roots I was a bit surprised. After a couple days of reading, I came to learn that they had migrated out of South Asia (hence their facial features), most likely as a low (perhaps untouchable) caste in the Hindu hierarchy. Though they tended to adopt the religion of the region in which they moved (Islam in Turkey and Bosnia or Christianity in Slovakia or Romania for example) they did little else to assimilate.

I don't have time to provide a full history of the Roma or talk fully about my limited experience in the slum, but I have to say that the tension between the Roma and Slovaks was visible and the conditions in the slum were a bit shocking to see in Europe. After leaving the camp, I was followed by a friendly (a bit too friendly) Roma and, well... if you see me in person, feel free to ask about what happened. The only advice i can give is, "When alone in the woods with a gypsy, bring equal parts caution and sense of humor."

Part 4: The Tatras
Took a train across western Slovakia and biked to the Tatras mountains. Currently couchsurfing with a kind Slovak girl who took me skiing yesterday and is letting me rest today. My route has now drastically changed. Looks like I'll be in Ukraine soon. Think I'll rent a room there for a week or two (so far I have only paided for one night of accommodation since I started my trip Dec 13th) so I can have some alone time and catch up on the work I doing for the University. I will also finally have a chance to get some Russian language immersion. Afterwords, I will continue on to Georgia somehow...

Tatras:

Basel, Switzerland.

Since Belgium I have been on a rather intense roll. I am already in Switzerland. I caught a ride across part of the Ardennes to Luxembourg and then made a line due south, couchsurfing/warmshowering (two hospitality websites, the first for general travelers and the second specifically for cyclists) my way through Metz, Nancy, Epinal, Belfort and am now staying with a couple in Basel, just over the border from France. Temperatures have ranged from -8 to a whopping +13 (Celsius), and days that have started with light snow have ended in monsoon rain and bitter wind. I absolutely wore myself down toward the breaking point on an 80km day that took 11 hours of nonstop mountain cycling in torrential rains and gale force winds that forced me to walk long sections.

There have been a couple of really interesting surprises along the way:
In the Ardennes, I had the privilege of meeting a man who had kept photocopies of the correspondences sent between the local Belgians and the American soldiers who had liberated the country in WWII. It was quite something to go through a region were so many American soldiers had perished, and where memories of the Battle of the Bulge still existed.

I have slept all of the past nights indoors, thanks to hospitality websites. Also stumbled upon some gorgeous landscapes and villages in Lorraine. True, there have been some real shit holes (or as the French say "sheet oles"), but even they have yielded some great conversations with locals and perhaps my greatest surprise: apparently I can speak French. I always thought I lacked the ability because I was always surrounded by people with no patience to speak the language slowly (Parisians). But so far I have burned through my French grammar book and am communicating (although it is fairly hilarious that I can't correctly express the future tenses). But alas, just as I was getting the hang of it, I crossed into German speaking Basel. Spending a day doing some maintenance, laundry and letting my legs recover (I could barely get up the stairs this morning). Walked through Carolyn and Kurt's community garden across the border in France and am now doing a bit of Russian studying in a cafe in central Basel.

A logistics post has been requested, and I think it will be coming soon (but it is fairly difficult to determine when I will have internet access again).

Happy New Year
James