17/12/2024
The question is: what is Anna — a guide, translator, driver, tour leader, wine connoisseur, farmer, future winemaker, and simply an independent and stubborn woman in Georgia, the South Caucasus — doing in the deep off-season of mid-December? Well, Anna is scouting new, unusual locations. For her own pleasure, of course. But also for future use in her exciting work. And here’s what happened recently. I’ll probably write it down now, or I’ll burst out laughing again.
So, I’m out there looking for a fairly well-known Zoroastrian temple near Nekresi, which is clearly visible from every one of the monastery’s observation platforms. But I can’t find it anywhere. More precisely, I found the path, but it led me through someone’s vineyards surrounded by barbed wire, then a cow farm behind a fence. In short, I needed outside help. But there was no one around, except for the monastery guards: bored, deep into their smartphones. I approached them, expecting nothing to come of it, but I certainly didn’t expect the conversation that followed…
— Hello, I’m looking for a pagan temple nearby. Can you tell me how to get there?
— Good day, kalbatono. There are only two temples in this vicinity: the church over here and the one up the hill.
— Okay, forget about the temple. I’m looking for the ruins of an ancient building nearby.
— I’m not a local. Ask my partner.
I asked his partner the same thing. I deliberately didn’t mention the word “Zoroastrianism” - why confuse people? When he got stuck on the fact that he didn’t know of any temples other than the monastery ones, I rephrased it: I was looking for ruins from the pre-Christian period. I even showed him a photo of the view from above and a map (which, I now realize, was my mistake — apparently, this young man had never seen a map before).
— You’re mistaken. There’s nothing of that sort here, and in general, there was nothing before Christianity.
I couldn’t help it — I burst out laughing right in his face and, choking on hiccups, went to the car…
Eventually, I found the ruins I was looking for, of course, simply by driving around the vineyards and farms on the other side. But by then, the sun was already setting — I’ll have to explore them in more detail another time.
Tailor-made journeys in Georgia, Armenia and the South Caucasus Well, Georgia has it all, and much more.
