Georgia after climbing Kazbek

Having descended from the snow-covered peak of Kazbek to the mountain village at its footsteps Stepantsmidu or in the old Kazbegi, and embracing farewell to the participants of our expedition, I was only here, able to turn off close attention to the state of everyone who walked this way with me. From all those who got up, who came down and who waited.

I was only now able to fully exhale with pleasure, as it happens in a person after a well-done job. It is good that they will and will live in a new way. This journey will be a point of no return for everyone, because no one has ever returned.

When I got back to reality, I realized that what I wanted most was a hot shower. Accommodating in a hostel with my friend Ergin for the night, it turned out that in the whole village, today, there is no hot water. Accident, which means we're not getting a hot shower, so I went to wash myself piece by piece in the washbasin.

I was very, very angry, I thought it was so unfair and my own inner indignation made me very funny. But I knew that tomorrow would be a new day and it would be a miracle. My Wizard will come and I will be in a state of warmth and abundance with boundless pleasure.

There will be warm everything that you want to be warm; cool everything that you want to be cool; soft, everything that should be soft (I slept so many nights in a tent on the ground and stones) and solid everything that should be hard, and the rest will be ... just delicious. My beloved Jean will magically create a beautiful aftertaste of what was on the Mountain.

This is the beauty and fullness of our life. All that a person can desire while living fully at the intersection of sensations and perception of reality. I remember the Sufi saying, “Man, your life goes between good and very good.” It is a pity that many people do not see this. If people did not forget this, we would always be surrounded by happy and luminous faces.



And really early in the morning came for me. A silver roomy carriage to load us and our 100-litre backpacks.

We went to Tbilisi to first escort my friend to the airport and then travel and enjoy Georgia. At that time, I had traveled a hundred kilometers through ridges and valleys during our ascent to the summit, away from everyday civilization.

Giving us a carriage-car Jean, as it should be characteristic of real Wizards, knows how to meet and accompany beautifully, show and tell, feed and drink.

Feeding and drinking was very important. Without exaggeration, we were noticeably exhausted and dehydrated by a 9-day “walk” to a height of more than five thousand meters. But incredibly happy for what was and for what is and even advance, for what still awaits us ahead.

After such ascents, comes such a clear, clear understanding of who You are. It comes along with a sense of profound correctness of what is happening at any point in life. Wherever you look, in the past and in the future, everything is in its place, as it always is. But not everyone, and not always able to see it. This is a great art that comes from an open heart, forgive the banality. The art is to see life here and now. I'm sorry about how good it is. Seeing life, not inventing it, is a great gift. If you lose it, go to the mountains.

In old Tbilisi, Jean “lunched” us in the fabulous restaurant Rizo Gabriadze, very tasty dishes with unfamiliar names. Some of them did not sound Georgian at all. “Seeds” and “donuts” cut the hearing in the same row with khinkali, mazoni, pkhali, chehonbil, saperavi, nabeglavi ...



In Georgian there is a word “shemomejamo” – meaning that the food is so tasty that it is impossible to stop, literally translated “shemomejamo” – I accidentally ate it all. This word became clear to me here, it entered my lexicon when I was absorbing Georgian cuisine.

“Seeds” turned out to be finely sliced and skillfully toasted pieces of juicy meat, which my non-vegetarian friend Ergin rejoiced, and “donuts” are not doughnuts at all, but something ... that is very suitable for me. It's an amazingly creative country and people here really understand what they're doing. There's a lot to learn here.

Georgia. This country has always had access to the sea and was at the junction of ancient trade routes, which means that new guests were always welcome here. Guests promised to enrich with ideas and gifts. New, unheard of, far away. This is where Georgian hospitality comes from.

A new guest is a new wave of inspiration. A holiday is when a guest is in the house. It is always useful if you can use it correctly. Bread salinity is the internal state of the hardworking and able to enjoy the life of the people of this region. How do you know yourself if you don't show someone else?

Self-knowledge is not only self-observation, it is also observation of those who react to you and your actions. You understand a lot about yourself when you see the effect of your own actions and actions. In the reception of guests, there is a lot of the Power of the Spirit of the People and in such openness national consciousness is constantly growing.

The Georgian people are unambiguously focused on cooperation and cross-pollination with inspiration, although they are ready to fight back against the violator of foundations and traditions immediately. What's all this about? Georgians sort people out. Experience is historical, like talent – you can’t drink it in a cup.

This differs from the attitude of many other nations, for which a stranger is a potential enemy who has come to steal, enslave or conquer.

A new one that is able to move has passed the test of both time and distance, which means that such a new one is useful. It is always delicious and opens us up again.

Man is bound to identify with everything he hears. Even if he categorically does not accept something, he does not care, in his mind will first have to identify with it (at least for a moment), and then you can reject it. A person perceived something and automatically weighed something, but how would I “in this,” how would I feel when so?

Therefore, travel and all contact with novelty develop us.

To receive a guest is an honor and gives advantages, because now I know what I can tell my neighbor, so for the neighbor I am a welcome guest with news.



The openness with which the Georgian people acquire knowledge, and the curiosity with which they immerse themselves in the study of everything they undertake, are worthy of admiration. Culture and education have always been high. The teachers are amazingly real, the actors are inimitably deep, the singers are fiery and passionate, and the dancers – so I will not say at all – there are no words.

Hence, from the variety of everything that historically flocked to these lands and such a characteristic humor, and Georgian toast, and Georgian songs. A mixture of everyday wisdom, romance, eroticism and gratitude for life, but eroticism is the main thing here!

Eroticism is always where there is a lot of taste of life. It is savoring through all the signals of the senses that tempts us to call a person sexy. But if you look closely, it’s not about sex. Not about sex with people, but about sex with life. In its multiplicity of manifestations pressing on us incessantly when we are open to the world.

There was almost no paternity in this country. Even after the war, there were very few street children. Every orphan here, without question, will be taken by relatives. If a couple does not have their own children, then relatives with many children will give birth and give a baby to their childless cousins.

Understanding and knowledge of the male hierarchy, I have observed everywhere – in the environment of climbers at the weather station, in the taxi parking lot, and in the cafe-restaurant. Seniors give orders, and young men are happy to follow. And that's the kind of male solidarity and respect that I admired. Such a fraternity, instead of resistance, sabotage or competition, that you want to take off your hat or something.

In this country, both men and women are expressive carriers of gender. If you are a woman and forget about it, go to Georgia, you will be reminded. The Georgian Mother is a stronghold of the family, a queen woman. It can not only be seen here, it can be experienced.

Georgian men know how to cook well, are engaged in crafts, home. They are masters of what they do and are always proud of their work. The PR of your product is also something you can learn here.

If you ever find yourself in Tbilisi, know that you should visit the hot sulfur baths in the old town. Especially you will appreciate them, if you are lucky before that, and you unobtrusively climb to one of the peaks of the Caucasus, then you will learn what happiness or happiness in the cube is.

These hydrogen sulfide springs have existed since the most ancient eras, and they were the reason for the emergence of the city of Tbilisi. According to legend, rooted in the V century, one of the first Georgian kings was on a falconry on the site of present Tbilisi. When his falcon attacked the pheasant and the wounded pheasant fell into the water source, he was instantly healed and flew away.

The king decided that it was a sign from above, and ordered to establish a city near the springs. The city was called the "Warm City", meaning Tbilisi. Near the sulfur baths and now you can see a bronze statuette of a falcon that grabbed a pheasant. The pheasant also became the logo of Tbilisi and can be seen on city benches.

My impressions were reinforced by the contrast of the still fresh touches of peak snow and the reaction of the fingers and toes frozen as they climbed.

The unprecedented depth of relaxation, after contrast baths, really covered me. In the cold font for so long and with such pleasure, personally, I have never been so much before. It is only important not to squeal while diving into a pool with ice water, otherwise you will splash all the fireworks “from the inside out” and leave nothing bright to yourself. You need to enter the contrast water quietly, taking an endless breath and the same long exhalation. Such a quiet experience of contrasts is an even greater art than the ability to scream out by expressing emotions, but it is a secret – about it to anyone.

I slept after the sulphur springs with an unearthly sleep and woke up, for a long time I could not remember what kind of planet I was on and what kind of animal I was here, or maybe I am even here today a plant.

So I, like that pheasant, fled fresh and cheerful from Tbilisi to Adjara.

On the way, we were delighted by capriciously walking horses, cows and pigs. Sometimes proudly lonely, sometimes small companies, they blocked the movement in our path. One day, descending from a hill somewhere in Imereti along the serpentine, we saw a stately grandmother in black standing on the high porch of her house, with a huge military binoculars.

- And this is her looking for a cow freely grazing on the slopes, she explained to me.

Surprisingly, livestock in Georgian villages is allowed to go free. This is complete trust and cattle and people, which pleasantly and unexpectedly pleases the mind. Mountain ranges and streams are a natural fencing and do not contribute to the fact that cattle go far from home. I think that the relief of native places is well remembered by animals.

But of course, only those who have a consciousness of abundance can afford such trust in the world, which is very pleasing. Not greed, not fear, lack, or envy “to make your neighbor die” — no, but the consciousness of abundance. Enough, room, food, cattle, wine. And homemade wine here is accepted, just because the person liked it.

Although, if measured by mercantile standards, it turns out that the country is not rich and people are not wealthy. But there is a feeling that there is everything that is necessary for life. God’s Spirit is God’s Spirit, God’s Spirit.

Christianity here is much older than that of the Slavic territories. What is only a chapel at 4 thousand meters, above the glaciers, under the very top of Kazbek? A white van, sheltered on a small heel of lifeless earth, stretched by slings so that it would not be blown away by the top winds, inside is equipped with icons, a lamp and a bell...



Ascended to this height, you can instead of a prayer drum, as in the high Buddhist Himalayas, ring the bell yourself and call God. Respect for the shrines here is trembling and sensitive, which reminds any guest of the country with new depth of the existence of the unmanifested in the manifested. God, he is one, these “providers” we can be different.

Approaching Batumi, we saw the blue silhouettes of skyscrapers, sinking in the sunset twilight and dissolving in the impending thunderstorm. Batumi is little Dubai. My subjective when viewed from afar and at high speed. The view of Batumi – a city in thunderclouds that continually slid down the hills, where the city rope went – delighted me with its contrast of coziness, modernity and of course the view of the sea. Nearby, the city resembled the Soviet Union, and the feeling of home and nostalgic sadness make themselves felt, especially in contrast to the new skyscrapers with the old districts.



Gene and I walked unusually slow compared to my last week in Kazbek. Just measuredly floated, in glowing its characteristic architecture evening Batumi. My Wizard, who turned Georgia from the civilized side for me, and I admired the city bustle of the evening promenade of the resort city, People riding bicycles and other means of transportation that I don't know. Here, happy parents with strollers and scurrying around them babies, so everything is fine – in this country love, love each other and give birth to children.

I also had a desire, it was a desire to eat. A simple animal desire, after descent - to drink and eat. By the end of the climb, my thorax became markedly ribbed and not only starved for oxygen, but also for full human food ... and that's happiness.

Happiness will miss something or someone and then enjoy it. After all, otherwise, if there is never a deficit in anything, then the acuity of perception is dulled in a person and gratitude for life disappears. Deficiency causes us to reevaluate what we have long been deprived of. It's so great just to miss you.

And so I had two requests: I want watermelon and fish, and the sea. The sea is like a smelly, tangible scenery. Yes, and the scenery, please wrap - they are also important.

After descending from the mountain, I usually have bright taste preferences, like pregnant women. They know what they want, they want it and they want it immediately. In the rest of my life, I do not have such an acute need to have explicit preferences in food, wishes - yes, but there is no hype. To quench thirst and hunger, we climbed the spiral staircase of one of the many cozy restaurants on the Batumi embankment, and settled on a white veranda overlooking the sea.

- “Are you not an artist by any chance, the one, the one?” asked my man, a hospitable waitress. Oh, that question was familiar to Gene. The post-Soviet space asks him periodically, and sometimes just ask for an autograph. We nod together:

- Yes, yes, and to clarify ... yes, that is no ... looks like, looks like, "the same" ... and laugh.

In general, the waitress served our table with increased tenderness, maybe she did not believe that it just looks like, or maybe we were very different from other visitors and just in case we were treated here somehow for a special, or maybe this is – Georgian hospitality.

I woke up in the morning and didn’t remember where I was. The window to the whole wall gave me a city from a height of 100 meters. I slowly returned to the sensations of the body, putting my hands in my fingers, remembering who I was and where I came from. We are in Batumi and below our hotel, splashing the turquoise Black Sea.

The sea is as eternal to human life as the mountains, and I went to meet him. I've been swimming long and long. The sea seemed to me a path up to the clouds in the distance, and at some point I realized that there was no difference whether to swim long or long, long walk. Rhythm state, it's all ours. Catch him, you can do your job endlessly, tirelessly and with pleasure, and it seems that the whole eternity.

The clouds seemed so close to me, I swam and looked through them. And I seemed to know them very well. I know them more than this coast, than the Batumi hills, than the coastal greenery. Of course! And then I remembered, of course, I'm just the third day out there. Yeah, I just came down the mountain! Yes, I remember their texture, density and shape, how you can remember the face of a loved one, every groove, hair and mole. I even know the temperature of the visible cloud in different places, by touching the skin. I know because I remember.

The shape of the cloud reveals its character, its activity, its turbulence. That's the kind of turbulent cloud that accompanied us for the last three hours on the way to the top of Kazbek, blowing out our brains and freezing our skulls. There are clouds – cold gray mist; there are clouds – wet-warm mist of white; there are clouds – flowing upwards, like veils, prominence lifting and lowering the strings of breath of heaven and earth.

I thought I knew more about these clouds now than I did about the people I met in Batumi. “I understand clouds now more than people,” that thought smiled. And so, in tenderness, smiling at the clouds and the radius of the horizon, I turned and swam back.

As we came out of the sea, we saw an impressive herd of cows. Those lucky "tourist cows" stood along the beach and each "parked" under its palm-umbrella from the scorching sun. One cow is one palm tree, very structurally. It echoes a series of cows and palm trees, with similarly smooth structural patches of white clouds above the water line along the horizon. The music, the rhythms of Georgia, I thought.

After saying goodbye to Batumi and the hospitable Adjaria, we went to Okatse Canyon in Svaneti. Along the steep wall of the canyon is a suspension bridge with a length of 1.5 km and an observation deck, which overlooks the winding canyon and the surrounding rocks. What to say, it is good to walk and warm up after many hours of sitting in the car. And, if you did not come to Georgia to climb the mountains, then stop by - it will be a pleasure and you will be happy for Georgia. And, if you came down from Kazbek, then this will not surprise you.



Not far from Okatse Canyon there are the lower and upper waterfalls of Kincha, where we decided to spend the night right under the stars. The streams of water flowed rapidly from the 40-meter height of the upper waterfall, which can only be reached by jeep or all-terrain vehicle. Above the upper waterfall we found a cozy place with natural baths.

The mountain river washed the canyon wall, forming many picturesque baths. She crushed the rock into square stone poufiks, which resembled the man-made foundation of some ancient temple. Legends say that in this place there were ancient baths for the Georgian nobility. There are no tourists, there is a waning moon and firewood for the evening campfire. In the morning, the canyon wall lit up with a pre-dawn screen and showed us the mystery of the colors of the sunrise.

The waterfall is large, thoroughbred I had earlier, a week ago under the glacier at an altitude of 3200 m during a “walk” to Kazbek. That stream of virgin water powerfully beats from under the blue glacier, illuminates with a 100-meter rainbow and for a long time, its strength, for many kilometers, foams a white river in the gorge. Not many people will climb to such a height, but if they climb, it is unlikely only for the purpose of simply admiring the waterfall.

Here in small fonts, I rested in idle silence and idleness, got used to my new body after climbing. The genie splashed in the waterfalls like a young dolphin.

On the way, I looked at people again. I felt like I was seeing their lives like never before. All of it. Through such an obvious formula for each of his personal happiness. Here's a grandmother and a grandson, that's what makes her happy. Here's the groom, here's the tourist traveler, here's the cafe owner, here's their faces and wrinkles on them in the corners of their eyes and mouth. They are so well understood and so badly understood, as all their aspirations are visible in the palm of your hand. It's like I see people's fates transparent. I am happy for them, because they get theirs, theirs, even if it is not what they think.



The next morning we went to Prometheus Cave near Tskaltubo. In these many kilometers of underground labyrinths there is something to admire. It was very contrasting to me underground after the height of the snow. Stalactites and stalagmites are illuminated, the halls are huge, the reliefs are fabulously extraterrestrial. In general, I paid special attention to the art of illumination back in Tbilisi and Batumi – it was done with love for the relief. Sensually and in moderation, in moderation aggressively.

And I realized that there was no sense of touch. The touch of the paradise of Adam and Eve, the outside of the greenhouses is tropical, and the mountain is cool, as in the ancient castles of the lake with underground rivers around. And to build the ancient people, there was nothing. How many people do not build, and the Great Architect will not surpass. Still, even in his best creations, man repeats precisely His masterpieces – masterpieces of the Creator of All.

It was nice to emerge from the coolness of a natural underground castle in the tropical warmth of a sunny day. The first thing Gene and I did was look for watermelon again, because my body was still very dehydrated. Be afraid of your desires, they will be fulfilled. The watermelon was found and after lunch we went back to Tbilisi, and from there to Kiev. From the state of eternity and happiness of timelessness, we were pulled out of the need to go to the airport.

I want to add that after climbing, people do not interfere with my life. They just don’t bother me at all, they become interesting to me again, with all their unique differences. They are an organic part of the landscape I visited. Arrange their lives and their mentality, I see as an extension of the uniqueness of the energies and nature of these places.



This was how I saw it then, and I learned again to understand myself through other people’s meanings, observing the fates of others, which are always visible through posture and stamp on the face. And looking at them, I slowly remember that I'm a part of them too.

Author: Natalia Valitskaya



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