Davide Cassenti

Stalin

Friday, morning. We’re thinking to go to Gori, the town where Stalin was born on December 1878. The town is less than 100km far from Tbilisi and with the new road built it is possible to reach it in less than an hour. Marshrutkas leave the capital from Didube bus station and in the early morning we are there, looking for one of them; however, when we arrive at the station, we immediatly see a car with a sign: Kazbegi.

Despite we are fed up of mountains, Kazbegi sounds really a nice place to visit: there you can find one of the most famous churches in Georgia, Gergeti, located 2170m high on the mountains. The idea looks good, so we are asking the old driver how long and how much would it be to go there: he says 2.5 hours and 120 lari, two ways. Not so much, but the man looks more a zombie than a real person and we are not that confident on his ability to drive there: despite he follows us for 20 minutes, trying to persuade us to go with him, we finally get rid of him and find a marshrutka going to the same destination.

Forgetting about Gori and Stalin museums, we are sitting on a 10 lari marshrutka which will leave soon to Stepantsminda, formerly known as Kazbegi. It’s in this moment that the role play game adventure begins: for those who doesn’t know, an RPG is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting; usually the characters are strange elfs, dwarfs and any kind of mythological creature and the people sitting in the bus with us are not that less strange.

In the first row of the marshrutka there are some georgian girls: I’m surprised to see they are the most normal people around us, so there’s no need to spend that much time to talk about them; probably the only reason why they are here is to translate to the driver what others are telling in english.

Behind them there are four americans: three of them might look normal, if we don’t consider that the girl is going to Kazbegi with her MacBook Pro, but the fourth has the most ugly combination of clothes and mustaches ever; we might give him the nick name Untrendy Stalin, just to remind our initial plan was to visit Gori. We will know later that one of those four – a chinese/american guy – is also an incredibly polite one, working as a volunteer teacher in Georgia.

The third row is not less crazy: there is a guy from Holland who is talking for a mysterious reason in russian with the american teacher; I first thought he didn’t know english, but I then heard him using the language with others in the bus. Next to him, there are two people: a woman and a jewish man: this last one looks kinda normal, with just the traditional kippah on his head and a pray book; however, when he starts to dress up as a priest to read it we begin to be a bit worried about the company in the marshrutka.

Finally, our row: I would not consider me and Mzia that normal, but next to us there is a couple that is absolutely less than us. The girl is georgian, very silent and calm, while the man is a foreigner, with a strange haircut and a terrible english. It is when we are on the road that he shows off his nationality: he’s italian, complaining about the driver. He is probably in Georgia for the first time, since the driver was not that bad – compared with the usual marshrutka ones: while we are going up on the road, very good and safe, this man starts to scream that he wants to stop to the next village to take a taxi; of course, telling the driver all the bad words he knows in the best language in the World.

His terrible and angry english is translated in polite and calm one by the american teacher and this polite translation is once again translated in georgian by the girls in the first row. However, since I am kind, I suggest him to avoid going down and spending money for a taxi, since anyway he wouldn’t have found anyone driving better. His angryness seems to have made the driver being a bit more careful anyway, but the swears go on until the end of the road. Good for Mzia to learn a bit better more bad words.

As I said, the road is one of the most beautiful I’ve seen in Georgia so far: almost completely paved, it goes up on the mountains without giving any sense of fear. When we arrive on Stepantsminda, as soon as the marshrutka stops, some women coming from the town are already opening the door, looking at the strange people inside and screaming “house, house!“: they could at least learn some more word in english, in order to get tourists at their place, but they seem to have a good success; as it is in our tradition, the italian angry man accepts to go with them only when he is sure there is a kitchen where he might cook himself.

The road to Gergeti church

View from Gergeti

Survived at the first trip, we are ready to visit Gergeti: the village – or the church, which is what we are interested in – is about 7km far from Stepantsminda, but is located 500m higher. We ask a taxi driver how to get there and he says the road is broken and he cannot bring us to the top; however, if we pass the broken road by foot, we would be able to find other cars that might do so. We do accept to go there with him, but when he asks us 20 lari for the 2 minutes road we get quite angry and decide that is better to do the last (and longer) part by foot.

The road is nice and calm, even if very tiring: we are not in a hurry, so we calmly go up arriving at the church in about two hours. The view is really amazing: the weather is nice, sun is shining, and you can see the whole Stepantsminda town and beautiful mountains all around. The only problem is that the church is under repairment, but anyway worths to be seen.

Gergeti church

There is a shortcut to go back to the town: taking it going up would be crazy, since it will bee too tiring, but we decide we want to take it to go back. It’s faster indeed: in about one hour we are back where we started to walk; this time we decide we also don’t need a (20 lari) car to the bus stop and we go on by foot.

The marshrutka that goes to Tbilisi looks less strange than before, but again some weird people are with us. There are two girls, with a very british accent, some georgians, two turkish guys. Some minutes before we leave from Tbilisi, one of the british girls goes down, searching some food: as soon as the driver turns on the marshrutka, the other one begins to scream to stop, that her sister is down and she cannot leave her alone; she is really terrified by the idea, but the driver calms her down saying he’s waiting for the missing people.

Along the road, one of the turkish guys is trying his luck with a red-hair georgian girl who is sitting in the first row; without success, he also tries with the british sisters, but considering how polite they are, it seems a battle lost in the beginning. They are so kind that one of them sits on the other one’s knees in order to let another man sitting in the overcrowded marshrutka.

As it happened in Tusheti as well, we need to stop to change a broken wheel: thanks God this time is quicker, but the road back takes longer than the outward. In about three hours we are finally in Tbilisi and, as the tradition says, there is only one thing to do after a trip in the mountain: running to the pizzeria, as fast as possible.

Panorama of Gergeti

Tags: georgia, kazbegi, mountains, stepantsminda, travel, trip