The Long Hitch Home

by Jamie Maslin

  “A little,” I responded, not wanting to appear presumptuous at scoring a free feed, even though the truthful answer was “very.”

  Adil introduced me around and, because he had some work to attend to, got one of his subordinates, Firkret, to take me to the staff canteen. Firkret did the ordering, getting me meatballs and noodles in a steaming bowl of soup, served with a bag of bread, and a bowl of bright pink cabbage-like vegetables.

  “What is this?” I asked Firkret, pointing at the Day-Glo contents of the bowl.

  “It is something to make delicious,” he replied.

  And indeed it was.

  We chatted about his work and my trip, and when Firkret discovered that I wrote books, he was insistent to impress upon me one important point: “Please tell the world that Muslims are not terrorists. This is very important for us.”

  I promised him I would.

  A generous extra lift from Adil got me to a good nearby hitchhiking spot, from where I plowed on through a surprising amount of rain to the Azeri/Georgia border. I reached it in four rides and set off on foot, leaving the truck driver who got me to the crossing behind in a vast backlog of vehicles. Skirting alongside a meandering river, I made my way along a road that stretched through no man’s land. Some sections were properly surfaced, others reduced to mud and slush in the increasing rain. To my left rose a green and scrubby hillside; to my right, spanning the river, was an irregularly arched seventeenth century red brick bridge, for which the border crossing was named: Krasny Most or Red Bridge.

  As a British passport holder, entering Georgia was a breeze. There was no need for a visa, and my nationality permitted me to remain in the country for a full year without additional documentation. From now until London I needed only one more visa, and that was for neighboring Turkey, which I could purchase on arrival. It gave me an instant sense of freedom.

  Before leaving Baku, Jamil’s girlfriend, Ieva, had kindly arranged for me to stay in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, with an Estonian couchsurfer friend of hers, Madis. It was a big help, and as I hitched my way there, through increasingly green and hilly scenery, it was with an overwhelming feeling of calm. I would get there long before nightfall and everything would be arranged and awaiting me on arrival.

  The driver of a clean and modern Volkswagen dropped me roughly twenty miles from Tbilisi, in the shadow of a treeless range of hills. A lone shepherd and his flock roamed nearby, making their way towards a distant peak where a towering metal-framed crucifix stood, proudly announcing Georgia’s dominant religion. Nestled in the lee of the hills was quite possibly the ugliest town I’ve ever seen: Rustavi; a Soviet nightmare of town planning that looked designed for collective anxiety. A sickly forest of neglected gray towers rose from the lower plains in such a depressing and extensive sprawl that it made me feel like popping some Prozac.

  Picking up a ride here with a couple of bearded old-timers on their way to Tbilisi in an SUV, I reclined in leather-seated comfort and soaked in the view. The outskirts of the capital were nothing to look at, but the center was phenomenal. Surrounded on three sides by the Southern Caucasus Mountains, this ancient city branched around, and perched on top of, a haphazard collection of hills, ridges, gorges and cliffs, making for a stupendous setting. Majestic churches with semi-conical, segmented domes commanded the best positions. Ancient fortress walls, proud statues, grandiose public buildings, tree-lined avenues, and an abundance of attractive and historic housing created a feast for the eyes. It had an instantly uplifting effect.

  The odd thing about couchsurfing is that after you’ve done a bit of it, you no longer feel strange rocking up at the door of a complete stranger and settling into their home for the night, often receiving complimentary food and drink, even your own set of keys. And so it was with Madis, who handed me a collection of keys to his place. And what a lovely place it was to spend the night. Large and spacious, if minimally lit and furnished, this once grand building with high ceilings, ornate arched entranceway, wooden floors, and an old piano, was now a charming, student-style abode. The house had communal living areas partitioned by way of curtains and a wall made out of cardboard boxes, and empty beer bottles doing their best to serve as decorative adornments.

  Madis shared the place with a collection of Estonians and Poles, and introduced me around his rabble of house mates, most showing the sort of polite disinterest characteristic of people accustomed to random guests. Madis led me through to his room, decorated with impressionistic Soviet-era tourist-board representations of the Caspian and Black Sea, and an “artistic” image of a woman’s naked torso. Set up in here was a spare bed with fresh white linen, comfy-looking pillows and a fluffy duvet.

  “I know how much I appreciate a properly made bed when I’m staying with others, so hopefully this will help you sleep well tonight,” said Mandis.

  Having crashed on Jamil’s floor in Baku, Timur’s floor in Aktau, Dmitriy’s truck when on the road, in a laundry room in Aktobe, and a chair in Atyrau, this would be my first proper bed since the hotel at the Aral Sea. I was delighted and touched at his thoughtfulness.

  Sadly, Madis had some work to complete, so there was little chance to get to know him or score a guided tour of the city. I left him at his desk and set off to explore by myself, catching a subway train to the outskirts of Tbilisi’s Old Town, where I wandered long after dark without plan or destination, taking in the major flood-lit architectural wonders on the larger thoroughfares, and discovering some hidden gems along its twisting cobbled alleyways: crooked houses, secluded courtyards, naturally heated sulphur baths. It was a city that deserved far more than a fleeting inquisitive browse, but I felt an overwhelming, if completely illogical, urge to move on, as if some invisible force was propelling me to abandon this gorgeous capital come the morning. I’d experienced compelling urges when traveling many times before, and knew from experience that to deny them only ever brought me misery or pain. It might have made no rational sense, but I knew without question I would obey.

  * * *

  “It is like something out of Lord of the Rings,” said my second ride of the morning, gushing enthusiasm for the place.

  “You will never forget Vardzia caves,” added his passenger. “It is special place; a whole town carved into a mountainside.”

  It sounded fantastic, a twelfth century monastic complex with over three thousand caves that, according to a tourist pamphlet I had picked up from Madis, included churches, libraries, barns, living quarters, wine cellars, stables, even antiquated drug stores—all carved out of the rock and encompassing thirteen stories. Located near Georgia’s southern border with Turkey, it was slightly off my intended route but I was confident that I could hitch to it, and still make it out of the country, all in one day.

  There were three others in the car with me, all guys in their twenties, who had picked me up on a highway turn-off just beyond the beautiful riverside city of Mtskheta, the country’s former capital that was nestled among lush green mountains and dominated by a towering cathedral visible from the road. They were on their way to Khashuri, about an hour’s drive to the west, to visit what they described as a “fun reel.”

  “A fun reel?” I asked.

  “Yes, a fun reel,” replied the driver.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is?”

  “You know, a fun reel.”

  “Is it like a fun park?”

  “No a fun reel; when someone’s died.”

  “Ah, funeral!” I exclaimed at the sudden realization, perhaps with a little too much enthusiasm given the circumstances.

  A lush and green rural landscape passed by as we headed towards Khashuri that contained a very encouraging sign: the occasional tree teetering on the edge of spring, its buds swelled, although not yet burst, in preparation for the new season. After Georgia I would continue south into Turkey, where, with the lower latitude, it seemed likely spring had already arrived. Having encountered my fair share of biting cold in Central Asia, savoring the glo
w of the sun on my face once more was going to be bliss.

  Just north of the road we traveled on, at some stages only a couple of miles away, was South Ossetia, a small breakaway region of Georgia that, due to the actions of Georgia’s President, Mikheil Saakashvili, saw it become, in 2008, the center of the greatest crisis in East–West relations since the Cold War, amazingly, even raising the spectre of nuclear confrontation.189

  Having come to power in a George Soros funded “revolution,” the so called “Rose Revolution” of 2003,190 American-educated Mikheil Saakashvili quickly demonstrated his willingness to be a U.S. stooge president of an order that would make even Tony Blair blush. Despite having a population of just 4.6 million people, Georgia’s deployment of troops to Iraq stood, at the time of their withdrawal in 2008, as the largest contribution to the invasion force outside that of the U.S. or U.K.191 Such craven obsequiousness to Washington, soon led to Saakashvili becoming the darling of U.S. neoconservatives and their Israeli allies. High-tech arms, intelligence agents, military advisers and money flowed into Georgia from the U.S. and Israel, with the C.I.A. and Mossad (Israel’s secret intelligence service) running stations out of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.192

  With membership to NATO on the cards, and the backing of powerful allies, Saakashvili decided to pick himself a fight with South Ossetia, located on Georgia’s northern border with Russia. Formerly part of Russia, it was Stalin who first assimilated South Ossetia into his home province Georgia, where it became an autonomous protectorate. When the Soviet Union fell apart, Georgia gained independence and abolished South Ossetian autonomy; but with the majority of South Ossetians being Russian citizens, who have a different history and ethnicity from Georgians, and speak a different language, it is hardly surprising that the overwhelming majority wanted to reunite with Russia. In 2006 a referendum was held in South Ossetia, with residents asked if they supported independence from Georgia. In a ballot that was monitored and approved by thirty-four international observers, ninety-nine percent responded that they did. 193

  On the night of August 7, 2008, the Georgian military unleashed a ferocious and indiscriminate barrage of artillery on South Ossetia, shelling apartment buildings, firing on civilians and razing buildings to the ground.194 With the Georgian army having received training and equipment from the U.S. and Israel—to the extent that these countries’ military advisors were stationed with Georgian forces all the way down to battalion level195—it is inconceivable that the U.S. was unaware before the event, or that Saakashvili launched the assault without the green light from his foreign benefactors.

  Alongside hundreds of civilian deaths were those of Russian peace-keeper soldiers, who had been stationed there legally under international agreement for the last sixteen years. As Georgian tanks rolled into the streets of South Ossetia, the invaders began celebrating their occupation. It was to prove short lived; the mighty Russia bear was about to respond. Scrambling to get organized, it took the Russians two days before their main body of forces arrived, and when they did they swatted the Georgians like flies, liberating the grateful populace, many of whom had been holed up in basements to escape the Georgian onslaught. Briefly rolling on into surrounding parts of Georgia, Russia could have easily taken control of the whole country, but, in a sign of remarkable restraint, or perhaps mindful of not getting sucked into a wider protracted conflict, withdrew.

  Not that you’ll have heard much of the above from reports at the time in the Western corporate media, who—surprise, surprise—responded to Georgia’s aggression and humiliating defeat, by portraying the Russian army as instigators, casting the truth that Georgia invaded first down the memory hole.196 U.S. President at the time, George W. Bush, even had the gall to castigate Russia by commenting, without the merest hint of irony, that, “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century;”197 and 2008 presidential hopeful, John McCain, getting in on the action by announcing, “I’m interested in good relations between the United States and Russia, but in the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.”198 This coming from the hawkish advocate of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and one of the major cheerleaders for an invasion of Iran.

  With U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice proclaiming that the U.S. would “fight” for Georgia, it is extremely fortunate that Georgia’s membership to NATO was rejected by European members of the military alliance. Had Georgia been allowed to join NATO, as was reportedly promised to Saakashvili by Washington before his invasion of South Ossetia (in contravention of U.S. agreements with Russia not to expand NATO’s influence into areas of the former U.S.S.R.), then a state of war would have existed between Russia and the U.S., as well as its other NATO allies. In an attempt to foment as much, when Russia sent troops to defend South Ossetia against Georgia’s attack, Saakashvili announced, “This is not about Georgia any more. This is about . . . American values, that we always ourselves believed in. This is about . . . [the] future of the world order.”199 But faced with a well-armed and capable adversary, the U.S. huffed and puffed but did nothing; Putin had drawn a line in the sand: ethnic cleansing of Russians in South Ossetia would not be tolerated. South Ossetia became a protectorate of Russia, along with Georgia’s other breakaway region Abkhazia, and the two recognized by the Kremlin as independent states.

  I stood at the beginning of an empty road, deep in a mountainous valley cut by the mighty Mtkvari River, a watercourse I had meandered alongside for the last few hours through an astonishing array of beautiful canyons, spanned, every so often, by a precarious rope bridge lurching in the wind above icy waters and rounded slippery boulders. Splashed with patches of green and brown, the walls of these precipitous valleys rose up in a chaos of stone, punctuated by fairy-tale castles, ancient ruins and exquisite churches with distinctive semi-conical segmented domes that nestled among the rock, blending in as if part of the mountains themselves.

  Despite several reasonable rides, and a hell of a lot of hard trekking in-between, by late afternoon I had still not reached the Vardzia Caves, and found myself teetering on the edge of giving up, turning back and heading for the Turkish border. I was exhausted and famished, but my main concern was whether enough daylight remained to reach the caves. As I stood contemplating my options, dark clouds formed behind the mountains, enveloping the area with a ghastly gray light. Trees lining the river began to creak wearily in the increasing wind, as waves spread across the water, and a cold slashing rain descended from above, mocking my flesh and testing my resolve to continue.

  Although only ten miles as the crow flies from where I stood, I was reluctant to set off for the caves on foot. Seriously twisting and undulating terrain lay ahead, making the real distance far greater. The minor back road that led out to the caves diverged from a larger one that I had hitchhiked along to get here, so if I stayed put then at least I had the option of turning back along the larger road. It didn’t possess much traffic, but there seemed enough to offer me a reasonable chance of making it to the border. Were I to continue on foot along the minor road, but fail to pick up a ride on it, then I would, in all likelihood, be spending the night in the middle of nowhere, neither having reached the caves nor being in any position to get back to the larger road until dawn.

  With this in mind, I decided to only accept lifts going all the way to the caves; anything else would be too risky. But then, despite such reasoned logic, after forty minutes of waiting in the rain a semi-full taxi van pulled up, whose driver took pity on my dejected-looking, rain-drenched form, and offered me a ride to the next village—for free. Maybe it was the thought of temporary warmth and comfort, maybe the novelty of scoring a free ride from a vehicle surrounded by others who had paid for the privilege, but it overrode all sense and reason.

  Oh, what the hell, I thought, and got in.

  I traveled with the villagers through more dramatic rainy scenery, deeper into the gorge until I was dropped at the turning for the village of Nakalakevi,
just down the road from an old stone enclosure that had once been a slave market. The van disappeared along the side road, leaving me almost exactly halfway to the caves. I was now fully committed to pressing on. No sooner had I begun than my lungs were heaving and heart pounding like an engine revving into the red zone; my legs went numb and feet felt like I was walking barefoot on hot coals. Twisting cruelly up and then down, the road undulated its way along the rocky hillside, faithfully following the snaking route of a ribbon of icy water, tumbling over rocks in the belly of the valley below.

  By itself the hike would have been manageable, but after miles of earlier hiking and next to no sustenance, I was toasted, and began the walk from an existing position of exhaustion. Then there was my backpack. I had no idea how much the thing weighed, but when I got home I intended to throw it on the scales to find out. After lugging it around for months and sleeping in so many awkward locations, my back was in serious need of a chiropractor.

  I dug deep and labored on, dragging myself forward through a landscape reminiscent of the rugged beauty of the Scottish Highlands, past ancient ruins and a majestic thousand-year-old hilltop castle, the Tmogvi Fortress, until finally the first caves came into view, not the Vardzia complex, but a smaller one, the Vani Caves, visible high above on a craggy mountainside. Among the grottoes hewn out of the sandstone was a small domed church, wedged into a deep fissure in the rock. Unfortunately, there wasn’t the daylight left to climb up, not if I wanted to reach the larger Vardzia Caves down the road.

  Downhill for most of the way now, I picked up the pace, and soon the area’s star attraction appeared before me. Rising up on the other side of the river was an enchanting and arresting sight: a mist-capped mountain, with an almost sheer exposed rock face half way up—a giant step, honeycombed across its surface with hundreds of man made caves, carved over multiple levels; dwellings that would once have housed thousands of monks. Some were embellished with arched entranceways, others with pillars and external stone staircases, a few with flamboyant recessed verandas.