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Getting Your Bearings GEORGIA: Getting Your Bearings The Basics Gotta Have Faith The Lay of the Land Georgia is a strip of land in the Caucasus region of Eurasia, just south of Russia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, north of Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. It’s a little bigger than West Virginia and home to about 4.6 million people. The Georgian Orthodox Church, which has its own patriarch, Ilia Meore, was the national religion for more than 1,500 years prior to the Communist era, when it was all but eliminated. But since the fall of the Soviet Union, the church has enjoyed a huge resurgence. Today, 84 percent of the population is Orthodox. Georgia is hemmed in by mountains: the Greater Caucasus to the north, the Lesser Caucasus to the south, and the Likhi Range right down the middle. These mountain ranges make Georgia a patchwork of different climates. Western Georgia is mostly subtropical, covered in lush, green rainforests. On average, it rains there twice as much as it does in Seattle. But Eastern Georgia is drier, like California’s Central Valley. 6 • versant
By Haley Sweetland Edwards White People Not the Peach State Gift of Gab The term “Caucasian” can be traced back to a 19th-century German anthropologist named Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. Upon visiting Georgia, Blumenbach claimed to have discovered the origins of mankind. He labeled the race of white men “Caucasian,” after the nearby Caucasian Mountain range. Nowadays, Georgians have embraced the idea that they lent their genes to the whole of Europe. A popular tourism slogan around Georgia claims, “Europe started here.” Georgia the country is often confused with Georgia the US state, although the names are completely unrelated. The US state got its name from King George II, while the country’s name is derived from the Persian word Gurjistan, meaning “the land of the foreigners.” The people of Georgia are barely aware of the confusion, though; they call their country Sakartvelo. Most Georgians speak Georgian, or one of the three languages closely related to it — Svan, Megrelian, or Laz. All four belong to a family of “linguistic isolates,” meaning they have virtually no relationship to any other language. Georgian is also one of the oldest living languages in the world. versant.com • 7
Page 1: February 2017 Volume 15: Georgia A
Page 5: 06 Getting Your Bearings 08 Talk th
Page 10 and 11: Language Talk the Talk: Georgian La
Page 12 and 13: Experience In desperate circumstanc
Page 17 and 18: THE GEORGIAN SUPRA Learning the del
Page 19 and 20: A tamada giving the opening toast a
Page 21 and 22: “To be a good tamada demands clos
Page 23 and 24: A ritualized toast-competition, cal
Page 25 and 26: them in this area on November 3rd.
Page 27 and 28: Putin’s face was graffitied on th
Page 29 and 30: “Repeating every day, day in and
Page 32 and 33: Photo © Corinne Thrash
Page 34 and 35: Culture Traditional winemaking vess
Page 38 and 39: Giorgi checks the modernized kvevri
Page 43 and 44: Roads wind by sharp cliffs to Mesti
Page 46: Photo © Corinne Thrash
Page 50: Photo © Corinne Thrash
Page 55 and 56: It’s one of Svaneti’s bitterswe
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Make Salt of the Earth In the mount
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From the Road Jack and Bebu By Stos
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YOUTH of TBILISI versant.com • 61
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