Supporting Georgia

[fivemack]

Georgia (on the Black Sea coast, rather than the Atlantic, and containing Lake Tabatskuri rather than Strom Thurmond Lake) is currently being thoroughly Frowned Upon by the Russians, who've set up quite serious economic sanctions against it (banning the import of its wines and mineral waters to start with, then cutting off flights, postal connections, and permission to send remittences home) on account of its temerity in arresting Russian spies on the grounds of espionage, and in attempting to join NATO.

I tend to have the naive belief that small democracies being Frowned Upon by large autocracies ought to be supported. On the other hand, there's essentially nothing imported from Russia that I buy (except for natural gas, but boycotting heating seems to be going a bit far); if I can't stop supporting the Russians I have to start supporting the Georgians, and, whilst a small democracy, Georgia is a lot bigger than I am, and I don't know how to go about supporting it. The most visible exports to the UK are Georgian wine and champagne; I wonder if Cambridge is big enough to have sellers of such things.

The other obvious approach is to visit: the country's gorgeous, though the Foreign Office advises against travelling there alone. Does anyone fancy Easter in Tblisi?

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

If you can find a way of getting there without flying, certainly, but I can tell you ther best way I've found so far, and it's jolly complicated.

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

Well, you generally can't cross land borders in the former Soviet Union by rail, so it has to start off by boat at Poti (Batumi is run by the Ajarian mafia). You sort of feel it ought to be possible to get there from Trebizond, which would be wonderfully Orientalist, but the only route I can find goes from Ilyichevsk in Ukraine on UkrFerry, and leaves 11pm Tuesday (on the "Hero of Sevastopol", no less!) arriving 9am Friday.

Ilyichevsk is near Odessa, which is two days by train from Berlin; and I thought Berlin was just slightly further than could sensibly be reached from Cambridge by train (saying which, I'm planning to take the train to Madrid in February).

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Yeah it's fundamentally the train to Odessa, and hitch on a cargo ferry to Poti. I guess it's easy from there - my actual interest was in getting to Yerevan so I don't really know the internal mechanics of Georgia.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Cue Gladys Knight & The Pips...

[morayallan.livejournal.com]

The 2004 Lonely Planet says, 'Sailings to Burgas (Bulgaria) and Trabzon (Turkey) also exist, but are less regular and untimetabled.'

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd like to, but... no, actually if I could afford to go anywhere for Easter it would be Liverpool.

Georgia makes and exports excellent tea. Most of the "Russian" tea you used to see around in Cold War days was Georgian. You used to be able to buy it in Cambridge market, under the inspiring name of "Georgian tea". You'd like it. It's black tea that doesn't stew easily, so it's possible to have it strong without excessive tannin. You could possibly encourage large communal dining halls to invest in it, because it makes the only good urn tea in the world -- I discovered this on my trip to the Soviet Union in 1987. The random post-meal tea from huge samovars was always good, though clearly not fresh, and eventually I asked about it.

Their wine and champagne you might have to go to London for, though I can buy it in the Georgian deli up by Snowdon. There's also a Georgian restaurant there. Am I supporting the country if I eat there, or just some individual Georgians who left? I suppose if I eat there and drink their wine I am. I'll put them on my list of countries whose food I especially want.

It always cheers me, at times like this, to remember that my utter deprivation of grapes for winter after winter did eventually end apartheid, and my enthusiastic eating of Wensleydale cheese did save Hawes Creamery. Not just mine, of course, but mine too.

[naath.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of maybe going to Liverpool for Easter...

[fanf]

Surely Cambridge Wine Merchants?

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

I tried at the Bridge Street branch and they said 'maybe it'll become popular later'; there's a small entrepreneurial part of my mind which says 'why not go to Georgia and come back with a hundred cases of wine' and a larger prosaic part which says 'how do you advertise them? how do you negotiate bulk shipping rates in a language you don't speak? how do you store them? doesn't the duty eat up all available profit?'

[morayallan.livejournal.com]

I'm interested in going there some time, but from my reading it sounded as if Tbilisi, while picturesque, is quite dangerous even in a group?

In the region I also want to get to Armenia, and to Iran before we bomb it.