For both of you still following this

Although limited access to internet inhibits me from updating as much as Dylan, I'm still trying to keep you abreast of happenings in Georgia.

Since the last update, we've been to Batumi, Tbilisi, and Trabzon, Turkey. Batumi is the main city of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, the southwestern-most region of Georgia. What does "Autonomous Republic" mean, you ask? From my limited impression, it means that the region has more or less the same degree of autonomy as a state would in the US (ie, a good number of decisions on local issues are made in Adjara, not Tbilisi.) It had more autonomy before 2004, when the rather corrupt President of the Republic tried to seal it off from the rest of the country. This proved to be a bad idea, and he decided to skedaddle to Russia.

Batumi. Like far too many pictures on this blog, it's not ours.

Batumi is on the Black Sea and is being built up as Georgia's premiere resort town. (During Soviet times, that title belonged to Sokhumi, in Abkhazia, but that's not too accessible at the moment.) The city is at the base of Adjara's mountainous range, giving its skyline a beautiful backdrop whichever way you're looking at it. The main areas of it are very nicely developed, with new hotels, wonderful restaurants, and a beautiful boulevard walk along the Black Sea coast. It has a giant ferris wheel that Kate and I tried and a placed called European Square that features a spotlit statue of Medea. Medea was the daughter of the ancient king of Colchis, the Greek name for modern western Georgia. The legend goes that a Greek lad named Jason and his Argonauts sailed into Colchis and were given tasks to accomplish by this king (who likely lived in Kutaisi). Jason fell in love with Medea, and she helped him do these feats, earning him the treasured Golden Fleece.

"Is THIS your golden fleece?" "Yes, thanks, I must have dropped it somewhere."

Just south of Batumi is the town of Gonio, which was also known in antiquity to the Romans and Greeks. The Romans fortified the town, building a garrison there to hold around 1200 soldiers and sailors to exert Roman control over the western Black Sea. It later served as a Byzantine fortress and then an Ottoman one, and is still in remarkable shape today. It is also the alleged resting place of the Apostle Matthias, one added to the original 11 after the departure of Judas. The town and fortress were known in Roman times as Apsyrtos, named for the Colchis youth who happened to be the brother of Medea. While Jason and Medea were running from her dad, who was displeased with her aiding Jason in getting the Golden Fleece, the two of them  came across Apsyrtos near Gonio. Here they chopped him up into little bits and threw his remains into the sea.

Despite this storybook beginning, rocky times lay ahead for the couple. In later years, Jason and Medea would separate, though Medea still had feelings for him. When she heard Jason was to be married to someone else, Medea sent the bride a hand-made wedding dress as a gift. As the bride tried it on, the dress burst into flames and consumed Jason's new love. This is the source of the common phrase, "Something old, something new, something borrowed, som- AHHHHHHHHHHH"

 The trip to Batumi also saw us have our best example of "Atcharuli Khatchapuri", which we will cover in a separate food post. Another place we had this food was Tbilisi. (What a segue!) Our second trip there included a walk up to an old fortress and a statue known as "Kartlis Deda", or 'Mother Georgia'. It's a towering metal figure that overlooks the city of Tbilisi and provides wonderful views of Tbilisi and the Caucasus Mountains. The mountain upon which Kartlis Deda stands also held an old ruin of a church that was surrounded by a fence labeled "Property of the Hellenic Republic", aka Greece. Given their financial state right now, I think it's quite possible they're looking to sell.

Fortress and, in the background, Mother Georgia.

Turkey I'll cover in a separate post, I suppose. Perhaps in August?

It was my host sister's birthday on 27 April, and I got her the first two Harry Potter (or "Hari Poteri") books in Georgian. In the first one, a chapter is called "Kvidechi" and a character called "Hegridi" keeps showing up to help Hari and his friends, Roni and Hermini.

Stats:

3 - languages (German, English, Russian) and countries (Germany, USA, Georgia) in which I've seen the final chase of the Stanley Kubrick (yes?) film 2Fast 2Furious. This scene is notable for a car jumping from a small dirt ramp about 40 feet onto the roof of a moving yacht.

1 - languages (Polish) and countries (Georgia) in which I've seen the first hour or so of Air Bud. Still waiting for Air Bud: Seventh-Inning Fetch to show up on satellite.

4 - ways to transliterate Adjara I've seen here. They include Adjara, Ajara, Atchara, and Achara. I've also heard it as "Adjaria" though that seems to have been phased out. The individual letters are normally transliterated as "a-tch-a-r-a".

1 - golden busts of Ronald Reagan located behind the desk of Mikheil Saakashvili. No, he does not have a tie around his forehead.

2 - questions on Georgia's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" I got right during the last week of April. One was about chemical elements and the other was about films directed by William Wyler. My Georgian is improving.
Batumi

Vocabulary:

rva - Eight

dghebi - Days

kvira - Week

damekhmarot - Help

kishiyebenda - Please (Megrelian)

tu sheidzleba - Please (Georgian - literally means "if possible")

me - Me

Privyet - Hello (Russian)

nakhvamdis - Goodbye (formal)

mas ukvarkhar shen - She loves you

ki - yeah

ho - yeah

ko - yeah (Megrelian)

Phrases the authors thought were important to include in my Georgian-English phrase book:

"You're slacking/you're being idle."

"We are in deep doodoo."

"Ethnic minorities"