Apr 08

Courtesy 9C, Kulosaari Secondary School, Helsinki

Sheki is a 100.000 inhabitant city in Azerbaidjan on the foothills of the Eastern part of the Greater Caucasus. Because Internet places are getting rarer all the time, here is a summary of the last four days since Telawi, where we started to explore Kakheti and the Alazani valley plain, main wine growing region of Georgia with several ancient monasteries, such as Alawerdi and Ikalto. Writing from the oil country Azerbaijan, it is even easier to understand the economic difficulties of Georgia, but wine production is a growing business even despite the (now lifted) Russian boycott of Georgian wine. In Kraveli we had a good wine tasting session of the most renowned produces and they even let us taste their cognac from the oldest oak barrel. The vinyards aren't that spectacular in spring time of course.
The same day (Tue, Apr 4) in the castle complex near Gremi we finally met the German group that is cycling from Athens to Peking on a very similar route (www.athen-peking.de). Mit Helm und kurzen Hosen, it was a very beautiful spring day (with summer-like temperatures of close to 30 C), but we have had several rainy nights recently, too. The nearby mountains make the weather very unstable and quickly changing.

Close to the Georgian-Azerbaijan border some of us had a long (most others, including me, only a short) visit to the Lagodekhi natural reserve, which in fact continues on the other side of the border. For the Georgian part, its development is a major investment into the touristcal infrastructure of the area, tourism being the only other growth sector alongside wine production.

Wednesday (Apr 9) was border crossing day to Azerbaijan. With all the bureaucracy linked to our Polish support vehicle it took us a full three hours to be able to start exploring a new country. So for the few hours of the remaining day, an Azeri police patrol 'helped' us with money exchange and finding a good, but expensive dinner place. So here some observations about Azerbaijan after two days: people are just so much more open, betraying that the Azeri people are not only linguistically relatives of the Turks. Where it was tea in Turkey and vodka in Georgia, it's now tea again. To be sure, the Soviet legacy has left behind traces also in the food and drink culture and Russian language is just as common as in Georgia, but we're happy to see the local language written in Latin letters!
Thursday was an exploration of the old road linking the towns of Zagatala and Sheki. Exploration, because it has partly been destroyed by mountain river flooding. So the Caucasus springs not only provide good mineral water but flow down into the plain in braided streams that are difficult to control during snow melting and heavy rain periods. But at this season only small streams flow across the vast gravel river beds and and it took us some stubbornness to ignore the advice of locals to avoid the most damaged part of the road and take a rather long detour. So here is then what we had to do in order to get across:

Track data are uploaded later. The travel map on this blog is also imprecise because it is quite difficult to identify place names for which several spellings exist. Anyway, I hope to write more from Baku.

Leaving Tblisi on Saturday morning was an event. Joint by local racers and their excellencies the Lithuanian and Polish ambassadors on bicycles there were about 50 of us being escorted by Police over the urban and suburban highways out of the city.
The direction is now northwards into the Khaleti region which is famous for its vinyards and monasteries, a combination known from the river valleys of western Europe. To get into the Alazani river plain, the Gombori mountains need to be crossed and on Sunday we made it over the highest pass of the entire journey so far: 1600m, at chilly 6 degrees of temperature. The previous night one of our bicycles fell victim to theft, but was brought back by police after a short time, even though damaged.

Elevation profile Tblisi - Telavi

In Telavi I had the pleasure to meet Beso Kirvalidse who, just stopping his car and wondering about us foreign looking guys turned out to have spent many years working in Tampere and during our conversation thanked God many times to meet someone who could speak Finnish! Besides Jumala he also remembered Perkele, Nokia (the town, not the company) and a couple of other very Finnish things.

Likely this is the last update before Baku (April 13). If you want to be notified about updates, please subscribe to this blog (see right).

There are two things in Georgia that symbolize Georgians hopes: The blue EU flag and of course the Georgian flag with its five crosses. Both fill important gaps left behind by Soviet ideology. Another one, and rather closely linked with Georgian national feeling is the religious revival manifesting itself in the reestablishment of the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate. I think of the (now also changing) role of Catholicism in the political changes in Poland or the new alliance between political power and Orthodox religion in Putin`s Russia when seeing how Georgians are creating a completely new national sanctuary for themselves in the Holy Trinity Cathedral overlooking the city. The building is in fact a whole complex including a ring of chapels and is pretty busy already although still under construction (started in 2003).
Positive or negative development, I can't tell - according to S Huntigton's Clash of Civilizations negative - but certainly Tblisi has another important sight on it's list of attractions.

Brand new Holy Trinity Cathedral dominating night view of Tblisi

What a reception: the vice mayor of the Georgian capital and the combined ambassadors of Poland, Lithuania, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands together with numerous journalists awaiting us in the Town Hall of Tblisi! Lonely me: Finland doesn`t have an ambassador to Georgia (the Dutch diplomat told me; I really wouldn`t have known...) So instead of educated small-talk more time for me to indulge in the buffet with even more delicacies than during yesterday`s dinner hosted by the Georgian bicycle federation.
This is how nationalities are currently represented in our group:
Poland 6
Lithuania 4
Greece 2
Netherlands 1
Italy 1
Germany 1 (no German diplomat either present at the reception)
Finland 1

For pictures and video, check
http://www.tbilisi.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=GEO&sec_id=344&info_id=7163

For track and more photos since Turkish-Georgian border:
http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=17169.
Please ignore the elevation data, because again I had to `repair` some missing parts by hand.

Half a rest day in Mtskheta, because it is located less than 30 km away from our destination of the day, Tblisi.
Mtskheta. A good opprtunity to study a little more the religious and architecturl traditions of Georgia, where Mtskheta is an ancient centre of pilgrimage. Church architecture seems to be a blending of western romanesque elements (massive walls, round arches, basilica type of nave and the Eastern Orthodox building tradition (cross-shaped outline cupola and iconostas that never reaches up to the ceiling like in the Russian churches).

Vault in the Sioni Church in Tblisi