Notes From the Caucasus: I Got Drunk on National Television
by Chris Michel

"It’s the most popular TV show in the country, right now.  Every Sunday night at ten almost every person in Georgia tunes in.  It’s called ‘Droeba’ — it means ‘The Times.’”  I was on the phone with someone from the American Embassy.  

“So, what do I need to do again?  This sounds interesting.”

“You’re going to be filmed posing as tourists in three different parts of the country, asking strangers some questions.  It’s to get a sense of where people are nicest to foreigners.”

What you should know is that Georgians — as is explained over and over in all the tourist literature — believe that “guests come from God.”  The theory is, should a person show up hungry and lost on a Georgian doorstep, they would be treated to every last speck of food in the cupboard, have liter upon liter of wine foisted upon them, be given a warm place to sleep, and generally be looked after like royalty.  Droeba wanted to test this theory in the field using real, live foreigners.  So they called the American Embassy, and the Embassy called to see if my wife, Karen and I were interested in participating.

We’d been to a few parts of Georgia, mainly to the East, but had spent most of our time in Tbilisi, the capital, and hadn’t really traveled extensively.  And somehow the possibility of embarrassing ourselves on national television seemed okay, since it wasn’t our country.  

Day One: Gori

We started by heading an hour north, to Gori — a small town of about 60,000 people, known for its beautiful 16th century fortress, two old and venerable churches, a quiet, picturesque river, and a ginormous temple/museum dedicated to its most famous citizen, Joseph Stalin.  It’s probably not surprising then, that Gori is considered one of the least friendly places in Georgia.  

“Least friendly,” by Georgian standards, is still pretty friendly.  After nearly six months of having strangers stop to give directions every time I pull out a map, and being told over and over (despite my two-year-old's vocabulary) how wonderful I speak Georgian, I had a good sense of the welcoming nature of Georgians.  We may not get invited to dinner, but no one was likely to send us to a work camp.

After being hooked up with a less-than-discreet wireless microphone and searching for a little while to find some public space that wasn’t within view of the Stalin Museum (honestly, it looks like someone rebuilt The Met out of concrete in the center of Sag Harbor), we set about accosting strangers and asking them how to get there (you can’t find it? Really?).  

We also asked for directions to the churches, and recommendations for good restaurants using our halting Georgian, under the less-than-discreet gaze of the huge television camera situated directly across the street.

Most people pointed and gave us detailed directions.  A few offered to take us where we were going, and one simply grabbed us by the arms and started leading us — prompting sudden stammering explanations as to how we wanted the directions, but didn’t actually want to go right that second.  No one offered us dinner.

Then the second part of the plan was explained — we would go into one of the neighborhoods, accost a random stranger outside his home, and ask for a glass of water (Only water. Asking for more would be too much).  Would we be invited inside? Would we be shooed away? Would we be invited to a feast?  Oh, the excitement! Our guide from The Times would laugh hysterically as he imagined all the possible humorous outcomes of our request.  Truly, humor is culture-specific.

In the end, one kindly gentleman invited us in and poured a tall glass of water.  A second woman merely explained where water could be found (quite kindly, I thought), which provoked our guide to fits of hysterics.  But there was no “guests from God” experience.

Day Two: Kakheti

The next trip out, we went to the Eastern region of Georgia — to Kakheti.  This is widely known as wine country — every self-respecting household makes their own — and the part of Georgia that both Karen and I are most familiar with.  

When we climbed into the van, there was another foreigner waiting for us — a six-foot tall Indian named Stephan from Kashmir, who has been here upwards of eight years.  This was the first clue that we weren’t going to be doing the same thing.

When we got to Kakheti, it turned out that there was going to be no city-square, or asking directions. In fact, we were going to a tiny village, out in the boondocks, and would only be doing the water-gag.

Our guide from The Times selected a mark — an old man puttering about in his yard, at the end of a lonely little dirt road, and then the cameraman parked his car right outside the open gate and slightly-less than discreetly began filming, as each foreigner — separated by a few minutes, so it seemed we didn’t know each other  — emerged from our hiding place around the corner, walked into his yard and asked for a glass of water.  “Shouldn’t we be talking to different people?” we queried.  No, it turned out: it’s funnier if everyone bothers the same person.  I sighed, as the microphone was clipped to my collar.

The poor guy wasn’t sure what was happening — or why there were suddenly so many single tourists filtering into his decidedly out-of-the-way front yard.  But each time he offered his newfound guest some wine and food.  He seemed to accept it when (by previous instruction) each of us turned him down, only wanting the prized glass of water.  

By the time the third random foreigner (each of us assuring him that we were traveling alone) left, he was entirely confounded.  So he seemed relieved when our television crew showed up with all of us in tow, cameras rolling, to explain the situation.  

The ultimately bemused Kakhetian immediately invited us inside, showed us around his house, and then exacted his revenge upon us, by treating us to a four hour Supra — a feast full of homemade wine, and roasted meat.  He showed us how to prepare the feast; he brought a table out into the open yard.  He asked where each of us was from, and explained that generations of his family had lived here.  The camera duly recorded everything.  And then we began to have our Supra.

And I got drunk.  Supras are equal parts feast, bonding experience, and test of will.  A country supra, even more so. They frequently last for hours, and the best ones include many intricate, beautifully worded toasts, to which everyone must drink.  The more one drinks, the more one signals commitment to the toast (honoring parents, children, family, country, friendship, love, etc. etc.).  Guests of honor often must respond with their own toasts before drinking.

Karen and I were familiar enough with Kakheti and this particular custom.  Generally one can’t go a week in the countryside, as a foreigner, without being taken to a supra (you must come! It is in your honor!), so we knew what we were getting into.  Still, in an effort to not offend, even a seasoned supra-goer can drink past his limit.  Given we’d just harassed this man, on television, and now he was feeding us, I was trying especially hard not to offend him.

So when the drinking horns (large clay or horn vessels, about ½ liter in size, which cannot be set down, and so must be fully emptied for each toast) were produced, and twice pressed into my hand, I drank.  I was drunk before I knew it. Then the drinking and toasting continued.  And continued.  Ad infinitum. Sitting and drinking, and eating for hours on end with newfound friends can be an amazing, life-changing experience.  It can also be a real punishment on the body and mind.

When the program aired later that week, I was treated to footage of myself embracing our hosts in great bear-hugs, repeatedly kissing the men on both cheeks (a traditional Georgian sign of friendship), and clinking glasses over and over again with a red-faced stranger.  All of which I have only the dimmest of memories.


Day Three: Imereti

My head hurt.  We had gotten home fairly late, and needed to get up pretty early for the last leg of our television adventure.  The final trip was to another small town, about three hours to the west — rumored to be the region of the most hospitable Georgians.  Given the hospitality we’d been treated to the day before, (and my resulting headache), I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.  And while we were finally heading to an area of Georgia that was more or less unfamiliar, I was a little worried about what the day might bring.  Still, the car ride yielded some beautiful, fog-strewn scenery, stark mountains and valleys, and the sudden, wonderful appearance of snow, which hadn’t come to Tbilisi.

We arrived at another out-of-the-way house, at the edge of an even more out-of-the-way little village.  Fog covered a field of bare grapevines to our right, and a man slowly whipped a bull up a dirt road, carting a load of hay.  Instead of hiding in a car parked across the street, this time the crew even-less-sneakily set up their tripod and massive television camera on the front porch opposite our mark’s yard. Then, armed with our still-pretty-obvious wireless microphone, Karen, Stephan and I proceeded, in order, to ask an Imeretian for a glass of water, gauging his kindness toward strangers.

It turned out that the Imeretians were far too nice for us.  Karen entered first, guidebook in hand, and a camera on her shoulder.  Immediately, the entire family came out to greet her and began to beg her to come inside, drink some wine and eat some food.  Was she tired? Was she hungry? Come inside! Please, come inside! They will get some wine out! It’s very good! Why can’t she come in for just five minutes? She doesn’t have even five minutes?  

She had to practically beat them back with her camera, and they looked deeply hurt when she finally had to flatly state that she could only stay for a cup of water.  The youngest — a boy of about eighteen — insisted on walking her back towards town.  They rounded the corner only to discover a van, a television crew of about seven people, and two more nervous-looking foreigners standing around.  The boy looked confused, but when Karen separated to head towards us, he seemed to understand that something was going on, and turned around and headed back toward his house.

Despite having seemingly given ourselves away, our guide insisted that we continue.  Stephan went next, and similarly had to repeat that he couldn’t stay, frustrating the family greatly.  When I finally arrived, they stared pointedly at the ill-hidden microphone on my collar, and even more pointedly at the camera aimed their way from the porch across the street.   They gamely listened to my request for water, and did their utmost to get me to come inside.  As I drank from their well, they suggested that some well-aged wine would taste much better.  They asked how long I was going to be staying, and I said I didn’t know.  Then they practically demanded that I not stay anywhere in the town other than their house.  And when I said I absolutely had to go, they refused to let me leave without at least some snacks for my journey — homemade dried fruit and nuts.

When we returned, camera and crew in tow, the Imeretian family didn’t seem to care where we were from, or why we were there.  Were we going to finally come in and have some wine?  Oh, Thank God!  

It was as if, by arriving and refusing their hospitality, we had prevented them from scratching some terrible itch, and by agreeing, at long last, to a Supra, we were finally letting them scratch it.  Here was our “guests from God” experience — they were going to feed us, and they weren’t taking no for an answer.  

And feed us they did: sugared golden cherries, pickled pig fat, hot baked corn bread, pickled beet salad, pickled carrot salad, fresh bread, homemade cheese.  They must have put every morsel of food in their house on the table.  I’m sure if they’d had any idea we were coming, the meal would have been twice as big.  And wine — they unsealed a giant container that had been fermenting for over five years. It was a reddish-pink blush that tasted sweet and dry, and smelled like strawberries.  It was delicious.

And, still slightly hung over from the day before, I was smarter this time.  I had a glass and a half — almost entirely of small sips taken over the course of the feast, and left the big drinking to Stephan, who gamely took the brunt of the toasts for the evening.  When pressured by the host to show a little more appreciation, I mentioned that — not being a Georgian — I couldn’t hold my liquor.  I lost a little face, made them laugh, and saved myself from another day of aching hangover.  

We partied for several long hours, toasting and befriending an ever-growing crowd of people, in this even-more remote village, who had come to see the television cameras and foreigners.  And though I remained sober, I almost passed out from overeating.

After the show aired, I got to see just how ridiculous I looked — a nervous foreigner, asking strange questions to confused hosts.  And it must be a popular show, because many people over the next week — the bread maker around the corner from our house, the women who sell us street food, the guy who comes to check our gas meter — shook my hand, patted me on the back and asked me how I liked the Georgian countryside.

And I told them — I loved it.  Especially Kakheti and Imereti.  You won’t find hospitality like this anywhere in the world.  Here in a country that has endured invaders — Ancient Greeks, Romans, Mongols, Persians, Russians — practically since before history, to have a tradition of celebrating and caring for random foreigners who show up at your door is beyond belief.  And even if it may be tiring and stressful at times to deal with the pressures of being a good guest, the hosts are almost always so heartfelt, so flush with kindness and generosity, that you can’t help but be humbled in the face of such an overflow of human love.  I don’t know if the guests are from God — but I believe the hosts surely are.

Then the bread-maker put his hand on my shoulder and laughed. “You were pretty damn drunk,” he said.

ach.

March 6, 2007