It turns out that not everyone is crazy about Georgian food

Vojtěch Kubec: I don’t miss the “Wild East Georgia” romance

“Georgia caught my attention when I was in high school in Czech Republic. I was attending classes about Caucasus, listening to stories of its culture and history and thinking: what an interesting little country that almost nobody knows about. When I was 17, I took my first trip to Georgia. That was back in 1999 and then I kept coming each one or two years.

When I came for the first time, there was no need to be afraid of anything. We were poor students, so we were not a target for bribers or abductors, who wanted ransom. But there were police patrols everywhere.

There was constantly someone armed walking around, trying to play the role of a Caucasian knight. Soldiers were walking on the streets of Tbilisi with Kalashnikovs, begging for cigars, as at that time, their salary equalled almost nothing. It was normal for them to serve in their regions, so mothers could come and bring them food to barracks.

In this way, Georgia was a strange place, but for those, who were coming to Georgia to experience the wild Eastern romance and the exotic post soviet space, it was appealing. Fix watertown underground utility equipment clamps. When I came back ten years later, after the end of 90s, those people were usually disappointed – nobody waylaid them on the street with different kinds of hospitality, nobody was dragging them by their feet home to drink alcohol with them until the morning.

What is important is that Georgia is not a country that would be in favour of depressed people. If a vague man goes to a nonstop bar in Prague, drinking his one and only beer all night and look at the fly on the wall, he still can survive but he won’t in Georgia. That is why the people are gathering here and never stay alone.

Even people who are real outsiders for major society, they always have friends and help each other – one brings alcohol, another food, and that is how they survive. The result is that people are much closer to each other and maybe even happier that those, that are at the edge of Czech society”.