BLOG
Guria. Perhaps one of the least visited (by tourists) regions of Georgia, it lies in the west, inland from the seaside region of Adjara, but also curling around it to claim its own stretch of sandy beach in Shekvetili (also home of the Black Sea Arena of Aerosmith and Cristina Aguillera fame) and Ureki.
Like Adjara, it has a mix of high and lowland, with the famed summer resorts of Bakhmaro and Gomis Mta, natural spring water Nabeghlavi, and rolling hills of tea plantations. Its main “exports” are hazelnuts and tea, though both have been hard-hit in recent years with the arrival of the Asian “Stink” Bug (when squashed it smells something like bitter cucumber), which has been eating its way through most crops countrywide.
The people are warm, welcoming and the men prone to drink (there’s little else to do of an evening here once the cattle and pigs have been brought home, unless you enjoy the politics and comedy on TV- often one-and-the-same thing!). They will welcome you to their table and not let you leave until you are full!
Guria has the most varied tones in polyphonic singing and its regional accent make fast and musical work of the Georgian language.
They are famed for the annual Easter game of ‘Lelo burti,’ a predecessor of modern-day rugby (earliest noted source: 12th century epic poem Knight in the Panther’s Skin by Shota Rustaveli), but without borders and much more prone to injure or even kill the players! More about that in another article.
In terms of historic monuments, there are few. Most churches were destroyed at the order of an over-zealous Gurian trying to please the Soviet regime over half a century ago- what you see now are the renovated modern versions.
I was invited there with my family to spend Easter weekend in the sun and fresh mountain air. Our destination was Upper Nabeghlavi- a village almost invisible from the main road, perched on the steep sides of the gorge above the Nabeghlavi mineral water bottling factory (which also employs many of the residents). The village, spread across the mountain, with wooden houses connected by unpaved roads, has nothing in particular to offer tourists but its plain originality. There is a defunct community center, now fallen to semi-ruin, which in soviet times had a cinema and social club within. A renovated school serves around 50 children. There is no shop as such- if you don’t grow it and can’t buy it from a neighbor, then the nearest option is Chokhatauri town 19 km away. Cows, pigs and chickens roam at will.
But we were there to disconnect. No Wi-Fi, no computers- just nature and air – and that we had in abundance!
Once we’d debugged our friend’s summer house (collecting around 50 of those Stink Bugs in one room- still dozy from the winter hibernation- and burning them), we made the beds, unpacked what we needed for the night and lit the fire in the old stone fireplace in the kitchen. As is common with old houses, especially summer houses, the toilet is a hole-in-the-ground enclosed by a rough wooden cabin, giving a whole new (or old) meaning to ‘back to nature!'.
We made an attempt to get up to Bakhmaro village the next day, but our Volvo wasn’t up for the still-snowy early-April roads (FYI- well asphalted until 15km before the village). We got to within 12km and had to park, walking for an hour on top of the fast (but not fast enough!)-melting snow until exhaustion and the need for a BBQ turned us homeward. Bakhmaro boasts a horse race in August, so we’ve marked our return attempt on the calendar already.
Inner-Guria is well worth the 4.5-hour drive from Tbilisi, especially in spring and autumn. This weekend it was already a perfect 26 degrees. Mark it on your ‘to see’ list to (re)discover authentic Georgia and vibrant nature before the crowds find out!
By Katie Ruth davies