Dizi & Etseri, Svaneti, Georgia

Top three, from Dizi: Someone making k'ubdari (Svan meat pies) for the first time; and Svan ladies (Nodar's sister Tina, a widowed mother; her daughter and sisters-in-law)

Bottom: Mt Ushba from Etseri, just peeking over the horizon

Dizi, Svaneti, Georgia

Top: just outside Dizi, where once much of the marble for Moscow's magnificent Metro stations was mined

Middle: mushrooms - she found many great ones, most of them edible, and cooked up a feast at our hosts' house

Bottom: a nice though small set of horns destined for drinking wine from

Dizi, Svaneti, Georgia

Back to the start of this 25th Svaneti visit - pictures out of order, but never mind.

From the top: 6-year-old Iviko, growing up without his dad, who died when he was a few months old, managing the axe all by himself while I watched with trepidation. We also cut some logs together using a 2-person saw.

Clothes wire.

Someone looking beautiful at the window.

Paper lanterns, similar in appearance to the Cape gooseberries of my southern African childhood but apparently not containing the same fruit at all.

More from Dizi

GRAPPLE tree - grapes and apples growing together

Svaneti Again!

My 25th visit to Svaneti... and Someone's 1st.

My hoped-for internet connection hasn't proven to be so great - needs several more phone consultations with Magti, as it did the first time in December 2007, to make it work. So I'm writing this from the internet cafe in Mestia which, bless it, though down to one working computer, is still functioning - albeit slowly. At least I have my new digital camera, and the laptop to edit photos.

Dizi: Tennis - er, satellite TV, anyone? One of these dishes is obviously dedicated to sports.

People of Georgia

Might as well call this set "Person of Georgia", because there's 1 man in 4 of the 5 shots.

Nodar: in Khevsureti; holding an unusual set of horns in the old Mestia Museum; with children and nieces in Dizi; and (last) with an ancient mortar, also in Dizi.

The 4th shot is of Yours Truly, Tony the Mighty Hunter, in Etseri.

Another pair, Dizi, August 2004

Tough old patriarchs with very different personalities. Both sets of horns could be destined to become pairs of drinking vessels.

Gavrik's 40-day memorial feast, Dizi, October 2002

Nodar's brother-in-law drove off a mountainside in his logging truck at night after 3 enforced feasts and far too much to drink; who let him go in that condition?
A bull was sacrificed as part of the 40-day memorial; here its meat and organs are being cooked.