Living in Javakheti [Georgia, Caucasus]

Volcanoes, windswept plateaus, Armenian villages; the view from my townStalin's head, statue

1. Volcanoes, windswept plateaus, Armenian villages – the view from my town. 2. The view from my window.

[from my journal, dated AUGUST 25, 2011; I am occasionally transferring old posts from a travel site here. ]

So, I have been living in Georgia for about two and a half months. I live in the town of Akhalkalaki in the region Javakheti, which is virtually completely Armenian ethnically. Saamstkhe-Javakheti is the larger region.

My town, Akhalkalaki, lies on the the very beginning of the great southern Plateau that extends to the Armenian border and beyond. This plateau also marks the boundary of Georgian- Armenian culture. Akhalkalaki is over 90% Armenian. Follow the river Paravani through the mountains to the next large town of Akhalsikhe in Saamskhe province and the percentage drops to 40%, and the atmosphere is noticeably different.

This area used to have a large number of Turks as well, but if I understand correctly they were relocated under Stalin under his Soviet-wide plans to splinter ethnic groups. At any rate, later Georgia apparently tried to repopulate the area with ethnic Georgians, offering them land and the chance to live in deserted villages. This process was successful n some parts of Georgia, but even with empty villages offered to them, the living conditions are so harsh on this plateau that they wouldn’t come here. Only Armenians from the area would, and the 60+ villages surrounding Akhalkalaki are virtually entirely Armenian.

At any rate, the area feels completely different than other parts of Georgia. The family I share a “compound” with (the Armenians in this area often live in compounds, sort of like Albanians; this is not true of the Gerogians so much), as most of the people in the town, speak virtually no Georgian. They speak very fluently Russian as their second language, and many things are written in Cyrillic and Russian is frequently heard on the streets.

I brought a Georgian phrasebook from Tbilisi and studied a tiny bit of Georgian. But I don’t have an Armenian phrasebook and had not studied it at all. Thus language acquisition has been a problem. Signs in the city are written in three different alphabets that are not related to each other at all. I have had trouble deciding which language it would make most sense to focus on. Russian would be the most useful for future travel, it has a much easier alphabet than Georgian or Armenian, would help with other Slavic languages etc. But it IS still only the second language here. I hear and see Armenian the most here. But it is a difficult alphabet that I hadn’t studied at all (I at least partially already know the Georgian alphabet). But I am in Georgia, and when I leave this area I hear and see only Georgian.

So I have gone through various phases – first trying to learn Armenian phrases to get by in daily life, then deciding that Russian is the best compromise, then traveling outside of this region realizing I really should know some Georgian here. Anyway – trying to learn 3 different languages with 3 different alphabets has meant I am learning none of them.

But now it looks like in September I will be moving to the next town I mentioned, Akhaltsikhe. I have spent quite a bit of time there, and although it has a large Armenian population, it definitely has a more Georgian feel to it. Focusing on Georgian will make more sense there.

Sometimes I feel like I have stumbled into one of my favorite shows, Northern Exposure, here.

[Sometimes I feel like I have stumbled into one of my favorite shows, “Northern Exposure”, here.]

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