Our last full day.

We headed east to Signagi for a leisurely stroll around the upper part of the town, being advised not to go down to the old town because of the steep climb back in the heat.  I bought a birthday present for Colette.

The trip notes don’t say where we stopped for lunch and wine tasting, but I think it was Kvarely. The starter salads included a favourite, aubergine slices wrapped round walnut paste, and an unusual dish which Anna called Georgian sushi, with olive flowers as a major component. The cheese pie was quite different from the one we had on Saturday, much lighter and tastier.

Anna told us a lot of curious facts about Georgian wine-production, and we saw some of the implements used, including a ladle made out of a wild pumpkin for taking wine out of the jar.

The grapes are not washed, as a yeast on the skin plays a crucial part in fermentation and in the final flavour. Juice, skin and pips are fermented together in a special jar planted in the ground. This vineyard has 8km of tunnels, a welcome 12-14 degrees, and we were given glasses of four wines, one red and one white made in the European way and ditto the Georgian. I thought the Georgian red was a serious wine to be drunk slowly over a philosophical conversation.

There was one more cathedral to visit, Alaverdi, which has the following connection with wine.  When the cathedral was built, an old man was put in charge of the keys.  After some years, he passed on the responsibility to his son, with the words “I give Alaverdi to you.”  That is how a toastmaster invites one of the assembled company to expand on a toast in which he or she may have a special interest: “I give Alaverdi to Peter” (or whoever).

The drive back was more interesting than the one out, over a mountain pass, and once we reached the main road we were quickly back at Tbilisi Inn. Goodbye to our Georgian driver Avto, who has negotiated the Z-bends with flair, and to Phil and Judith who are leaving for the airport in the small hours of the morning. Everyone else will be at breakfast.

Spent last night in Bakuriani, a family ski resort near the mineral water producing town Borjomi. Lots of newish hotels spoiling the view. Stopped at a service station to buy snacks for lunch, and then at Mtskheta, the ancient capital, with two famous churches.

The Cathedral of the Life-Giving Pillar commemorates the Christianisation of Georgia in the 4th century, but has even older Christian links, built over the burial place of Sidonia, (according to tradition) the sister of a Georgian Jew present at the crucifixion, who was buried clutching the seamless robe for which the soldiers cast lots.  A copy of the distinctive cross of St Nino stands outside. Anna told us many legends about the conversion, after saying that the real reason was probably political.

The other church, Jvari, has an amazing hilltop location on the site where St Nino set her cross.

It overlooks the confluence of two rivers, a green one (on the right) and a brown one.

Unlike the cathedral, it has no frescoes; but the icon of St George shows him vanquishing not a dragon but the Emperor Diocletian.

We arrived back at the Tbilisi Inn at about 2:40.  I had a long rest, beginning to read a novel about Queen Tamar, to avoid much of the afternoon heat.  I went out at 5:20, crossed the Peace Bridge and found firstly a postbox and secondly a Roman Catholic church where Mass was about to begin.  The first hymn was the Taizé chant Bless the Lord, my soul, sung in English and Georgian, and the gospel and sermon were also bilingual.  I meant to come here on Saturday but was too tired after my walk, so delighted to have a second chance.  Walked up to Prospero’s Books and back through various underpasses – some with small shops, some with street art (aka graffiti), and one crossing the river underneath a road bridge.

Supper was a mixture of kasha, bought by mistake, kefir, and chopped fresh apricots, washed down with peach juice. More of the same tomorrow, when our communal meal will be lunch at a winery.

We started at Bargeti Cathedral. For centuries, it was a ruin, without a dome, and with grass growing between the walls, but still used for worship. It was declared a UNESCO world heritage site, but after various restorations, this status is threatened because less than 70% is original. The photo shows old and new stones.

Gelati Monastery is wonderful, with churches  covered in frescoes.  Does this one show David the Builder with his greatgranddaughter Queen Tamar?

David was a giant, over 7 feet tall.  I lay down to measure what is supposed to be his tombstone.  He asked to be buried at the entrance to the monastery so  that he could count pilgrims on their way in.

We stopped for lunch in Zestaponi, half way between the Black Sea and Tbilisi, and capital of fast food outlets. Not fast enough, when 16 customers arrive at once.

What was advertised as a walk in the forest turned out to be a visit to the Green Monastery, on one route of the Silk Road.

Returned most of the way to Tbilisi on the Military Highway before branching off onto a road linking the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea. Anna had been told that the Stalin Museum was crowded, so we went first to Uplistsikhe cave town. The sandstone hill contained some 700 cave dwellings, of which only about 100 survive, from pre-Christian to post-Mongul times.

Lunch in Goris, Stalin’s birthplace; in my case, a supermarket snack eaten in the gardens behind the museum. I had not looked forward to the museum visit, but our guide was very matter-of-fact and unemotional. The tour finished with the railway carriage Stalin adapted for his own use when travelling.

On to Kutaisai, with just enough time to wash self and some clothes before supper.

On the way north, we stopped at Ananouri, where a church service was in progress.  The bishop – at least, I suppose he was a bishop because he was wearing something that looked like a mitre – blessed the congregation with a set of lit candles in each hand, three in one, two in the other. They were long thin candles, held a few inches apart at the bottom, and tied together near the top.  I didn’t have a clue what was going on, except that God was worshipped.

Back on the coach, I got into haiku mode:

(Zhinvali Reservoir)

Water level falls.
Priests dive into drowned churches,
Worship in the dome.

 

(Memorial celebrating 200 years of friendship between Russia and Georgia, 1983)

Child Georgia hides
In skirts of mother Russia
When war is raging.

(Preface)

Over the mountains
I am sitting on a bus
Pen at the ready.

Lunch at Kazbek, meat pie, veal stew, mushrooms and potatoes with plum sauce, cheese and salad. Then climbed up 500 metres to a hilltop monastery church, built with secret rooms to keep treasures safe in time of invasion. Shame about all the cars. Couldn’t take photos – I think the memory was full and I needed to delete a batch from my world trip 2 years ago.

Back to the extreme sports resort of Gudouri for supper and bed.

Breakfast on the pleasant fifth floor terrace overlooking the capital of Georgia. I could have had soup or spaghetti Bolognese, but settled for cheese, tomato, cucumber, biscuits and a sweet made of grape juice and walnut.

Our morning walking tour of the city included a waterfall by the bathhouses,

two of the thirteen former caravanserai (one with a photo exhibition from war zones)

and a couple of churches in the old town, including the Russian Sioni church covered in icons and frescoes.  Lunch at a café specialising in cheese pies, large and rich. After half an hour in the State Museum, the rest of the day was free time.  I headed for Prospero’s Books, and bought a city map only slightly better than the free one, and a postcard.

My ambitious afternoon walk took me uphill to Mount Mtatsminda, then along a footpath to the Mother Georgia memorial next to the Botanic Gardens and Narikala Fortress. Here I enjoyed a grape-flavoured soft ice-cream cone before the final descent to Meidan Square. All in well-maintained and surfaced paths, but with a lot of steps. I was now close to the hotel, but bought some apricots and a soft drink before returning. Now tired, and after a bit of rehydration, I lay down and slept, to be woken by a thunderstorm.

Awoke from an empty tangled duvet cover to a power cut, so no WiFi.

Haghpat is a monastery where many a swallow finds a nest for her young. (Psalm 84).  Good acoustics, too, with the domed roof. On this 20th anniversary of my priesting, I sang a ninefold Kyrie in the Scriptorium, where clay jars embedded in the floor controlled the humidity and served as a repository for the least valuable manuscripts to discourage pillagers.

This and the next one housed 17th century writer Sayat-Nova: see the film The Colour of Pomegranates.

A remarkable khachkar (stone cross with carvings) shows the deposition of Christ from the cross, with small figures of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.  I didn’t take a photo of it; but I did photograph some of the frescoes in the church, including a Christus Panocrator on the dome of the apse.

The final monastery, Sanahin, gives more of an impression of its life as a university, with a large pillared gavit which could have housed a large lecture, and a long narrow room with stone seats on either side for small-group work.  An illuminated manscript is on display in the Scriptorium, under whose oculus an old Zoroastrian altar stone servers to catch the drips and celebrate diversity.

At the border, we met our Georgian guide Anna and driver Avto who took us to Tbilisi for an evening of free time before tomorrow’s city tour.  I changed 80 euros to 227 lari, and spent 1.50 lari (about 50p) on supper: a sausage roll and two apricots.  Then walked through some quiet backstreets of the Armenian quarter to the cathedral, where some kind of service was going on in front of a large collage of icons representing the communion of saints, and back down a road of little shops, using my torch in the dark underpass back to the hotel.

Our first stop was next to the restaurant where we are last night, to climb 182 steps to a monastic complex on what used to be an island in Lake Sevan before the Soviets lowered the water level. The older and smaller of the two surviving churches is also the more attractive externally.

The larger church has an interesting “Saviour Khachkar” with a central panel showing Jesus on the cross

and the bottom part showing the redemption of Adam and Eve.

Unusually, the walls of the monks’ cells can be seen between the two churches

and above them are ruins of the oldest church, from the 4th century.

We drove through the Dilijan tunnel, coming out into lush woodland, and walked up to the Hagartsin monastery.

A large refectory had a photo exhibition, and the small chapel of St Gregory the Enlightener was illuminated by an ocular window casting a rainbow on the floor.

But the real treat was a church service in progress, with monks in rich vestments (and one in black), a woman cantor and a congregation who joined in the singing.  The curtain was drawn back, and the president knelt on the edge of the raised sanctuary to administer communion. Later there was more singing, and much blessing, and the congregation came forward to kiss the book – at which point I had to leave, trying to walk backwards in the Armenian custom, and feeling much blessed.

Into Dilijan for a large lunch at a smart café.  I was almost the only one to finish the main course of salads and dolma.

We then visited a family in a Molokan village, served with tea from a samovar 130 years old, in the house where the husband had been born.  This Russian emigré community may be so-called because they do not give up milk for Lent. They had neat gardens growing various crops, and a pool full of frogs.

Then followed a long drive along some very bad roads, to reach an isolated hotel at 6. Too full for another big meal, I ate up the remains of food from Yerevan and a potato pie (tastier than it sounds) from the Russian tea table.

Took the cable car from “Wings of Tatev” to the monastery, home to a medieval university with 1000 monks and students.

The monastery grounds contain an “oscillating pillar” which may date back to about 900 AD.  By adjusting the angle of the pillar, monks were able to align the marker stones around it to various constellations.

“When I consider the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and stars you have created, what are mortals, that you should be mindful of them?”

We drove on, round hairpin bends  and avoiding flocks, to a lunch stop for salads and trout against the background of a burbling river.  Then more zigzags to an ancient caravanserai on a Silk Road – a windowless stone building with one chamber for human travellers and one capable of holding 300 horses – or camels if they could get through the door.

We reached Lake Sevan, the largest in Armenia, at the lively town of Martini, the first since leaving Goris. Lots of people about, tending vegetable gardens or walking in the streets, and a wide range of shops including banks with ATM.

We reached Noraduz in a thunderstorm, and debated whether to get out of the coach to look at the famous graveyard.

Luckily I had waterproof jacket and trousers in my day pack and a spare pair of almost dry socks to put on afterwards.

Since we were running late, Rafik suggested going straight to a restaurant before checking in at the hotel. I did not want to eat out, having food in my bag, but was persuaded.

 

One change to the programme: rather than the scheduled wine-tasting, Rafik stocked up on his favourites at the old covered market in Yerevan, to be shared over dinner in Goris.

The next stop was to take photos of the popular view with Mount Ararat, across the border in Turkey, in the background, and the hill of Khor Vihap in the foreground. Then we proceeded to Khor Vihap. Gregory the Illuminator was  imprisoned in a pit here. On his release, he converted the King and Armenia became the world’s first officially Christian country in 301.

“Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today and for ever.”

After exploring the monastery built on the site, I climbed the hill and looked over the border into Turkey. The way down was difficult.

Followed a scenic gorge to Noravank. Best lunch yet, half a dozen salads, honey roasted chicken, and almond tart.

A complex of monasteries, with ruins from a ninth century chapel, and an “academy”, and two main chapels, one by Momik, a famous C13 architect. Both had double tympani over the entrance, one showing God breathing life into Adam whose head he holds in one hand while the other blesses a crucifix (not shown on photo).

Finally, a three-year drive to Goris, in which we were held up by flocks of sheep and goats and a herd of cows escorted by two riders on horseback. And entertained by Rafik telling us some Radio Yerevan jokes from Soviet times:  “Rado Yerevan says, ‘In principle yes, but …’ ”

Evening meal in the hotel, with 4 bottles of wine between 15 (the red was the best), and reasonably priced at 4000 dram (about £6) for starters (including aubergine slices rolled around cheese and asparagus tips), dolmas, and fruit, water and coffee.