Armchair Traveller

Georgia on my mind

‘You’re mad to go there!’ My cousin, a seasoned traveller, wasn’t the only person to counsel against a visit to Georgia. Others told stories of ministerial murder, civil war, torture and abduction. The Foreign Office advises travellers to be aware of the ‘potentially high levels of crime, including kidnapping involving foreigners’. But the advice came too late, the ticket was booked.

‘There are many similarities between Georgia and the Highlands,’ our ambassador Donald MacLaren said as we narrowly missed a giant pothole in Tbilisi’s main drag. It was a wet Remembrance Sunday and earlier that morning, dressed in the family tartan, MacLaren had led a service on his bagpipes to a group of expatriate mourners. The start was marred by the discovery that the Soviets had covered Allied gravestones with a tower block. Luckily Maida, Donald’s glamorous and resourceful wife, saved the day and located a neglected British headstone in someone’s backyard.

We were on our way to lunch with Badri Patarkatsishvili, a man whose natural humour puts the jolly into oligarch. Formerly Boris Berezovksy’s partner and co-exile from Moscow, Badri has returned with a great fortune to his birthplace. His dreams are to win Georgia’s bid for the winter Olympics and to create an international tourist attraction on Tbilisi’s Holy Mountain. In the meantime, he’s commandeered the largest modern building in Georgia, the former palace of weddings, and transformed the dour Soviet-style building into his own personal fantasy. No expense has been spared and every meticulous detail is a testament to Georgian workmanship. The result is quite astonishing. Black and white swans swim on an ornamental lake; a fully stocked bar doubles as a 50ft aquarium teaming with exotic fish; there are two swimming pools, a planetarium, seven saunas and, lest anyone forgets the great man’s origins, there’s an exact recreation of his birthplace, a small hovel complete with artificial rain dripping through a badly patched roof.

Half of Georgians still live like the young Badri, well under the poverty line. The average wage per head is less than £4,000 a year. Georgia’s location is both a blessing and a burden. The country sits at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, between three carnivorous empires — Turkey, Persia and Russia. The arrival of a new westward-leaning president in 2003 has exacerbated problems with Moscow. Irritated perhaps by US involvement and Georgia’s aspirations to join Nato and the EU, Moscow banned key imports such as wine and has removed subsidies on gas. Rebel factions are fighting for independence in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Lack of funds puts great treasures under threat. Eica Japaridze, an art historian who is married to a senior minister, took us to see the Qajar portraits at the Georgian Museum of Art. This is a collection of international importance with some 50 oil paintings, 1,000 miniatures and 400 lacquer paintings. Unfortunately, there is no academic literature and, despite the valiant efforts of the staff, the museum is crumbling. ‘Please,’ the curator said, ‘could you tell someone at the British Museum about us?’

Simon Sebag Montefiore found similar decay in the state archives while researching his important forthcoming book Young Stalin (a Georgian). Familiar with all three presidents and eyewitness to the civil wars, the historian is optimistic about the future. ‘I love Georgia ...now it is calmer and beginning to heal.’

His optimism is shared. There is a young government, full of vim and vigour. Many ministers are under 40, some under 30; attendance rates at universities are rising. Crushed between two mountain ranges, Georgia is one long, fertile valley running from the high mountains down to the semi-tropical Black Sea, thus offering ski resorts at one end and sea resorts at the other. Five major hotels are under construction. Georgia discovered viticulture between 5,000 and 6,000 bc; Georgian vineyards boast 500 different types of grapes and their wine is becoming known outside Asia.

The main danger I faced in Georgia was death by lavish hospitality. The food is outstanding. Formal occasions have an official toastmaster, but at even the smallest party everyone is encouraged to raise a glass to a subject or person close to their heart. It is a wonderfully affirming experience. At the last dinner, I looked around the assorted bunch of students, writers, dancers, politicians and journalists all discussing their country with passion and pride. I took out my phone and texted my cousin: ‘You’d be mad not to come here.’