I'm sorry for the delay in getting this post up. I've been sick for the last couple of days and frankly have had so much material to blog that I can't keep up.
I took heaps of photos throughout the week which can be viewed at the usual
place or in the sidebar. There should also be a
map of the tour below of this post (Blogger willing) that will shows the major locations and our approximate route.
View State Ballet Georgia Tour in a larger mapSo, in the beginning. We left Tbilisi on Monday 30th Nov. It was a seven hour bus journey to Batumi that took us through the heart of Georgia. The interior of Georgia was rather bleak in the bland shade of grey that winter had coloured it with. Mostly it was small simple farms and villages with the occasional small city dotted along the way. Passing through the Likhi Mountains that divide the country into east and west provided some interesting scenery, but on the whole it was unremarkable.
The route that I've marked on the map is only a rough guess, but it will give you an idea. Interestingly, a good chunk of our route took us on the ancient silk road trade route. For not being mapped properly, the roads were surprising good. The only real hazard on the road was the Georgian drivers (including our driver) who overtake with out fear of God, law, man or bull-bar. I stopped watching after a while figuring that we were be bigger than at least 50% of the traffic coming the other way.
Photo highlights include
Stopping at a disused fuel station for a break.
Modern conveniences were a bit lacking here. A theme that was to be continued.
Travelling through war scared Gori
We were very tired and travel sore by the time that we arrived at Batumi. As I've mentioned, road maps are scarce in Georgia, and even if you have a map, roads and streets are usually are not marked or numbered. This only leaves you the option that turns your average Western male into a babbling idiot; stopping and asking for directions. Georgian men though seem to enjoy it, with often several men joining a frank and open discussion on how to get a somewhere. Georgain tour company's are not above this and once we arrived in Batumi we spent another half hour driving around asking for directions to the hotel! After about three stops for directions and several long discussions we eventually found our hotel and thankfully disembarked.
The city of
Batumi doubles as a resort where all the Georgians come in summer to holiday and as Georgia's main port which handles mostly oil, light manufacturing and agriculture. We were there during the off season and the town felt rather dead which was not added to by the constant strong burning smell coming from the oil refineries.
I was rooming with Oliver, Sean and Zura. We we were so tired from the journey that all we did was get some food, come back to the hotel, use internet and sleep.
On the bright side, our hotel was nice and had all of the modern conveniences, most of the time. The hot water was scarce for some reason which made some people very unhappy. The girls got quite cranky and ended up having a go at the hotel manager. The result was that we had to ration our showers by rooms.
The next morning, Tuesday 1 December, I got up and had the hotel breakfast which was one of the strangest breakfasts I've ever had. Hot dogs, cheese, bread, pasta, tomatoes, cucumber washed down with tea and coffee. It tasted more like a barbeque lunch than breakfast, but what the hell, it was free.
The theatre in Batumi was one of the worst theatres I've ever worked in. It was an ancient building that had holes in the plaster, a tiny stage, pokey dressing rooms (that the boys would persistently smoke in) and no heating whatsoever. It was often colder inside the building than outside!
But the worst of the worst was the toilets, or to give their affectionate Western name,
squat pots. I hadn't expected these as they are more of a Eastern thing, making it a very unpleasant first experience. I have no objections with using the design, but these obviously hadn't been cleaned in a century, smelt like chemical warfare and were leaking!!! Sean Oliver and I found a nice little Turkish cafe across the street from the theatre that had a nice clean Western toilet and I timed my toilet stops accordingly. That cafe did good business while we were in town.
We did our run through that day without any major glitches. It was then that a rumour began to surface that contrary to planned casting and marketing Nina Ananiashvili would not be performing the second show, but if anyone asked us, we were to say that Nina was going to perform.
That evening Oliver and Sean got a bottle of Absinthe alcohol. A couple of members from the company joined them and they all had a good time. I wasn't in the mood for drinking that night so I spent most of my time cruising the internet and watching a movie downstairs. Bed time that night/morning was about 02:3o.
December 3rd. We were not required at the theatre until 16:00 so I was able to catch some extra
zzz. I didn't do much that morning. Getting my head around what I needed to survive/stay warm that day was more than enough.
The performance when off relatively smoothly. The only problem was a track repeating on the mini-disc which left Yuri wandering on stage by himself for five minutes. The audience just sounded confused, but side stage everyone was splitting their guts with laughter. The joys of live entertainment.
December 4th: Pretty much a carbon copy of Dec 3rd. After breakfast I when for a walk and found some kangaroos in a small zoo! They very small roos, but it was very nice to see something that was a little bit of home.
This performance was the one that Nina was to perform in. Before the show she went on stage and apologised for not being able to perform due to an ankle injury. This was an outright lie, and everyone in the company knew it. The only reason the rumour mill could come up with is that she just didn't want to perform.
By now it had also been confirmed that instead of doing two performances in Kutaisi the performance that Nina was to perform in had been cancelled. One of a continuing series of events that question the company's management.
December 5th: I don't have much memory of this morning or the bus ride between Batumi and Kutaisi.Mainly due to being up too late the previous night talking packing and generally mucking
about. After a six hour bus ride and several stops for directions we made it to our hotel. Kutaisi was a surprising nice city. In ancient times it used to be the capitol of Geogia, I liked it because it just had a generally nice atmosphere. People didn't seem to in as much of a rush as they are in Tbilisi. We were all starving by the time we arrived so as soon as we were settled in our room we went and got a huge meal a the
Pub (No joke that was the places name.) While we were there a gentleman who was eating at the adjoining table gave us some of his home made red wine. I don't usually like red wine, but this stuff though a bit strong was very nice. When I got back to the hotel the combination of good food, wine and long day took effect and I slept the blissful, dreamless sleep of a brick.
December 6th: The lack of modern conveniences continued the next morning, when the whole city lost power for about 10 hours. So now did we not only have no hot showers (again!) but also no internet, lighting or much else. I got lucky (or smart); because I had slept so well the previous night I rose relatively early (8am) and was able to grab a brief warm wash down. I joined people at breakfast (there was a generator in the kitchen) which again the strange picnic-lunch like menu, and went for a morning wander. The lack of power had not dulled the day's activities of Kutaisi and judging by the steady growl of innumerable generators across the town, this was a very common event.
After my fill of very cold morning air and photo snapping I headed back to the hotel. Sean, Oliver and Zura had just risen to the prospect of no hot water or internet and where not impressed. Fortunately for them the Georgian power gods restored the power at 11:00 and they were able drink their fill.
Kutaisi's theatre was a grand building that must have been quite culture and social hub in it's hay day. Now, it had a tired and depressed atmosphere with it's fading painting, worn out seating and dirty ceilings. The backstage facilities were not much better than Batumi, but at least this place had heating, and squat pots that were cleanish.
The day's class, brief run of the show and performance ran without anything of real note to report. Once back in the hotel, Sean and Oliver got a bottle of Malibu to celebrate and after packing I whiled away the evening playing computer games with Zura.
December 7th: We had to leave very suddenly the next morning as our departure time went from 11:30 to 11:00 to 10:30 in a matter of minutes. A problem of the language barrier is that all the information we get is word of mouth. That and nobody seems to know what's going at the best of times.
In light of the cancelled performance, the company had decided to go on a little excursion to the
Gelati Monastery. This UNESCO listed site is extremely ancient. You can actually feel the age in the buildings. This site is a very important religious site to the Georgian people, and the whole company was as keen as mustard to get there. Anyway, if you what to read more you can view this Wikipedia
article.
It was a further four hours back to Tbilisi, but the journey was uneventful smooth.
So ends the epic story of the Geogian tour. It's been one hell of an adventure and I'm sure that I won't forget it in a hurry.
There is still much more to tell you but this post is already epic in size so I'll finish up, and speak to you next week.
DreamChaser
Rodney Cuthbertson
