Etseri, Svaneti, Georgia

Near the village where I spent Easter.  A mineral water spring, with delicious, slightly gaseous water, one of nearly 2000 in Georgia.  Well enough protected from livestock getting to it; but I took these photos of Valya in action after having cleaned up a whole large sack of plastic and glass bottles and metal tins from arond the site.  C'mon, Svans, I KNOW there's no garbage collection anywhere in your whole province; but at least take your rubbish away from such places as this, if you consider them holy!

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Mt Shkhara from Lamaria Church

Ice on the Enguri river

Window onto Chazhashi hamlet and Tamar's Winter Tower

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Ice up close, never-ending source of wonder for me, all too easily missed if you're not looking for it

The village (practically all of it)  from its top church, Lamaria

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Three views of parts of the village from various places.  It's not that common to find points on the ground from which the whole thing is visible, as it consists of 4 or 5 hamlets spread out some distance from each other; indeed, in none of these shots is the whole thing in view

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Ice, just ice

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

More water-ice interactions making beauty

I knew that the electricity guys'd be working on our transformer - that was why we had no electricity in the upper 3/4 of the village for a few days.  I leisurely took a few shots of them digging up the old one in preparation to receive the new one - and then the latter was installed very fast while I was at home, and I missed the great event.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some

This is the effect of flowing water on the snow above it:  splashing up, melting it, refreezing it into ice, which hangs down but instead of tapering it widens, making these fantastic penduli (pendulums?)

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Three views from the place which was my destination when I was interrupted briefly, resulting in the photos which I posted yesterday.  (That area of fascinating patterns was short-lived, melting into plain brown liquid long before I returned from the trek which produced today's photos.)

Here is Queen Tamar's Summer Tower, high above Ushguli (most of the village can be seen in the top photo).  I found the going to it pleasantly easy, considering that I was walking on up to 1.5m of snow.  But the snow was wonderfully hardened from much repeated thawing and refreezing, so I didn't sink into it more than 4 or 5 cm, which was wonderful.  The earlier in the day one makes such trips, the harder is the snow, so morning is better than afternoon.

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Three images from a small patch of ground today.  I discovered it on the way to a more obviously interesting part of the village, somewhere with big landscapes - Tamar's Summer Tower, if I remember.  But I'm usually on the lookout for details in nature as well, so this intriguing little unfolding drama presented itself to me.

What is it, you might ask?  The answer might change your opinion of whether the photos are beautiful or not.  They are formed from interactions between solids and liquids at temperatures just above 0 degrees C... in a place frequented by the village's farm animals; in other words, from their manure and urine freezing and thawing on the ground.  Hey, I walk through this stuff every day from anywhere to anywhere else, in my rubber boots, no longer noticing the look, the feel or the smell.

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Happy

Birthday

Dad.

Happy

Easter

(Orthodox)

World.

Watchtower in window

View of my village

Ice microcosms

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Lamaria Church and a couple of memorial photos of the father of my host in the village, who died before I first visited Georgia

A much older headstone, vaguely cruciform - as "primitive" as they come

Ice doing its thing on a small stream

Self-portrait reflected in a young woman's frosted mausoleum window, Lamaria Church again

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

Back to my main location, though I'm posting this from Etseri, below Mestia, where I'm staying with old friends for Easter.  Internet via cellphone here is slow, though at least it's working.

2 views of Mt Shkhara - from the grave-plots of Lamaria church and through one of its feasting-hall's windows

Icicles hanging in any direction but vertical.  As they get pushed out from the roof by sliding ice behind them, they move away from the vertical.  The result reminds me of nothing more than a mouth full of rows of fangs made for catching and holding...

Lamaria Church's feasting hall, bell and tower seen from the church itself

Zimbabwe

Greetings, at last, to the first visitor from Afghanistan!

A break from Georgia today, as I post some unused photos from my archives while working on new Ushguli ones from the last few days.

Buffalo in early morning dust

Elephant hide up close

Trees drowned at the flooding of Lake Kariba decades ago - don't know what the wood is, but it's at least like ironwood, heavier than water and surviving all this time without rotting

Jart Dealer, Tbilisi, Georgia

"Jart" in Georgian (well, "jarti", to be exact, as most nouns have an "i" added) means scrap metal.  This yard was full to bursting with it - there's even a complete car in there, its roof visible.  What do they do with it all?!  I HOPE they sell it off occasionally.  The other meaning I know of for the word is in Greg Bear's sci fi novels Eon, Eternity and Legacy, concerning a fearsomely alien race seemingly hostile to all others; this was their name, the Jarts.

"Death of Innocence", Tbilisi, Georgia

This strange scene met my eyes near the flat where I was staying in Tbilisi this March-April.  Hanging up to dry?  (They were there for days.) Victims or captured soldiers in some children's game?  It struck me hard, and I had to go back for pictures more than once

Ushguli, Svaneti, Georgia

And 12 hours after my arrival, I was swept up in, not quite a funeral, but one of the many feasts which accompany death in this part of the world.  There's the funeral itself, followed by a feast each Saturday (which today was) until the ormotsi, the 40-day feast; then the year after the death is the final one.  Lots of work for the ladies, lots of eating and drinking for all but especially the men.  This was for my hostess's uncle, and another elderly fellow of the village, both of whom had died a few weeks earlier.  The couple on the headstone are grandparents of one of the men at the feast - their passing was years ago, but I liked the portrait and its setting.

Nr. K'ala, Svaneti, Georgia

Don't mean to scare off any prospective independent travellers - it was only 4 hours from Mestia to Ushguli in the newly inauguratedmarshroutka (public minivan).  Some of the delay was due to a stop for the men to drink at a famous cross near K'ala; and then there was the small rockfall a bit higher up from that, in the section of road which I call "Mordor" for its forbidding aspect.  We cleared the rocks away with hands and shovels, all exited the vehicle, and Mikho drove it across the scary bit on a wheel and a prayer.  Whew, going home.