The writing on the wall

This is a snapshot of part of the memorial 'For United Georgia: Monument to the Heroes who Fell Fighting for the Territorial Integrity of Georgia", ერთიანი საქართველოსთვის: საქართველოს ერთიანობისთვის ბრძოლაში დაღუპულ გმირთა მემორიალი, ertiani sakartvelostvis: sakartvelos ertianobistvis brdzolashi daghup'ul gmirta memoriali - otherwise known as the Abkhazia War Memorial.

The carved letters spell out the names of the thousands of soldiers who lost their lives.  I can't read them, but the cumulative effect of seeing them in their long lists down the marble walls, is moving and deeply sad.  I hear that today's Times has printed lists of names of all those killed through the actions of Osama bin Laden who died yesterday.  Billy Collins' poem about 9/11 similarly lists, alphabetically, the first names of some of the victims of the attack.  This imposition of order, alphabetical, regularly rendered letters, contained on a memorial or the pages of a newspaper or in a poem, help me to feel safe whilst at the same time confronting the reality of losses on a massive scale.  Nata finds the name of her friend.  I've never met him and so it means nothing and yet, the locating of someone specific in the lists, makes sense of all of those individual clusters of letters.

I'm reminded of Anna Akhamatova, 'I should like to call you all by name, / but they have lost the lists'.  I would like to call you all by name but still, in this place of sorrows, I'm unable to read.

Dogs in Tbilisi

This is a sign advertising Caucasian Mountain Dog puppies which, according to our taxi driver, sell for $500 each and are, of course, completely inappropriate for a city flat.  I hear a story of one suffering from rickets from too little exercise.

When we visit the wonderful Georgian artist, Tina Bukia, we are greeted by two dogs, a cat and a kitten.  Her flat has no doorbell but Tuka and Daisy immediately know when someone is at the door of the third floor flat and raise the alarm accordingly. Daisy is an elderly prize-winning Dalmatian and Tuka is a Hairless Mexican Dog - or a possibly a Mexican Hairless Dog. Both breeds are slightly other-worldly. It's impossible to see a Dalmatian without thinking of Pongo and Perdita. The HMD (or MHD) is a new one on me - she is somewhere between a little dark humanoid and a teradactyl, scampering around the flat, flying up on to our laps or squeezing behind us on our chairs.  Wierdly, Tuka is hot to the touch and stroking her skin, not entirely smooth, feels like running a hand up the hairy leg of a woman who has taken to shaving (yes, I've done that).  She has soft, floppy, pointy ears, intelligent eyes and a little top knot that apparently requires coming with a special comb.

At the other end of doggy life in Tbilisi, are the wild dogs that live on the streets.. As Nata and I crossed a city centre park, we met a pair of indeterminately ferocious breed having a stand-off. The one backed into a corner was baring a row of pointy fangs and snarling in a caricature of a truly terrifying dog.

Bakhtrioni Street is patrolled by a gentler wild dog who, with his shaggy coat and waving white fan of a tail, seems to have retriever blood.  His side-kick is a partly Alsatian bitch with a diseased tail and teats that suggest puppies somewhere.  Together they criss-cross the busy road and purposefully case the bins and wasteland round about.  They seem oblivious to the human life in their midst, ignoring pedestrians and at night, howl and bark to their canine compatriots in inner city Tbilisi.

Transparency

In Georgia, the President has declared that police stations should be transparent, to reflect the honesty and transparency of the police force.  This giant structure is on the way to the airport in Tbilisi. The one below, is on the road out to Avchala, the area where Zura lives.

This literal way of translating abstract concepts into bricks and mortar is fascinating. The policemen at work behind their panes of glass are exposed, illuminated and dazzled.

Zura won a prize for Book for the Year in 2010.  As well as a cash sum, he received a table and chair from the Ministry of Culture.  This is another way of translating the abstract 'writing' into something we can see. Nata and I were shown this new furniture, in the hall of Zura's otherwise sparsely furnished home. It sits, black and shiny, ready to play its part in the translation of Zura's imagination into literature.

But what of the translation my friend and I are setting out to do?  It is a simple case of word for word, but more than that, we need to translate one world into another, so that the words themselves become as beautifully transparent as a Georgian police station.

That our services are necessary, I think is shown by the way the title of  Zura's Book of the Year has been translated in the press release online.  I find it hard so far to get a picture of Child's Bite on Goldcrest in October.  We will visit the Bakur Sulakauri publishing house on Tuesday and may get some idea.

In the Beginning

I know no Georgian. To me, the alphabet looks like a series of abstract designs for crochet hooks and vases, although I understand it is phonetic.  I think I might just be able to make out the syllable 'pop' as the local mini-market on Bakhtrioni Street, Tbilisi, where I am staying this week, is called Populis.

So why am I here? How do I come to be sitting eating cake and drinking brandy with a writer called Zurab Lezhava in a little house in an orchard, not far from an area of the city known as Eve's Arsehole?  The answers lie in Cornwall where I met my collaborator, Natalia Bukia, who is a native Georgian.  Further back, the connections were made in Greece and New Zealand where we met our respective Cornish husbands.

Zurab spent sixteen years in prison for 'hooliganism'. That's where he became a writer and also developed his skills in wood carving and embroidery.  Nata and I accept another glass of murky, delicious 'new wine' that he's made himself from his own vines and wonder at the circumstances that brought us together.