Istanbul-Abkhazia

When I was just a high school student, with my best friend we used to pass this road and dream of a future where we could buy this house and repair it. We could live in it if we were rich enough. If not we could repair it to turn it into a cafe where we could have space for people who like to read or study in a cafe but don't have money to eat or drink all day long. We never bought that house. No one did. We changed a lot. We have not seen each other with that good friend for over 10 years. I don't even know where she is, what she does. Istanbul is too big to know, too big to come across on the road, too big even to remember... It needed 15 years to pass before I remember those days we used to walk dancing under an unexpected rain, it needed 14 years before I remembered I learned how to play tennis in the French school on the corner (Saint Joseph). It needed 20 years before my mother reminded me how I had chosen to go to a state school instead of that private French school to protect the economy of my family. And it needed 30 years for me to stop and look at my life- how I came to Abkhazia from Istanbul- from the city of dreams, from the city of my youth, from the city where my father sleeps his endless dream, from the city my grandmother sings the song of silence...
And now looking at my life, I live somewhere which I did not dreamed of. And I have many new dreams, I am not sure if I will see the days they become real. I dream of the days the Abkhazia hotel will be repaired. Now it is only covered with a painted set of cloth!

And I dream of the warm days to come to play tennis in the courts that many tennis players won't count as courts. In those courts, there is no line on the ground- territory is specified by white tread which you stumble upon when you are running, and the ground is so bumpy that after every rain you find yourself all over in mud.

But I like life here. It is a life many fear, many try to run away from it, many do not want to pass near... But for me, it is a life full of question marks, like a matrix I need to find the code of. It is not to master the matrix what I aim, but to be able to see it as a whole. To be able to see what is behind that clothes hanged over a building by the sea, to be able to see what is in the mind of a tennis teacher teaching tens of children how to play tennis in this courts, to be able to see what makes the people so powerful to stand against the will of "others" who wish something different for them, to be able to see myself looking from the eyes of "others"...

Ҽааныбзиала...

(The luck coin from the Greek cake)
Happy new year to everyone!
I feel so tired. There is no other way to legitimize my laziness. Followers may think I am talking about not writing to my blog. However, I mean the last three days which I want to do nothing at all. Sleeping till midday and being sleepy the rest of the day... Even after new year I spent an hour sleepy, lying on the bed. But pushed myself out after 1 o'clock to the private late night party at Anya's cafe (Glitsinia).

(I turned my back when they cut the Greek cake and I was the one to tell who would get which piece)
I did not stay till the end of the party since we were afraid they will rob our house. What is to be stolen if they break in: my computer which became my life in the recent months due to the research projects. Well I would lose only some photos few months ago- but now: posters, photos, reports, questionnaires, the latest version of my methodology book, and many more. That is everything I have managed to build after 3 years. I know it is necessary to backup your most important documents online. The reality is I used to do that very often back in the days when I did not have a laptop but used university computers. I tried to find some docs recently and I managed to find nothing! Some questionnaires for example, or data, or even some reports that I participated in writing. I have no copies of the latest versions. So I decided to load things when they are ready only. But this creates a risk of loosing them- when a computer crashes or gets stolen!

(The late night cooking: shashlik)
Well I know that we are being paranoiac but thats normal after being robbed once. A few years back my grandfather was robbed by armed gangsters. He passed away afterwords. Than they robbed our car when I was in turkey stealing my camera with photos from the first fieldwork on the topic of political participation-bad luck.
Than they tried to rob me on the bus (2 times) - one received the reaction he deserves at least from me (the other people did not react which is a shame) thats why the second time I preferred to play a game with the boy!
Anyway, these events are distributed to the last 4 years so maybe it is really paranoiac but if you have knowledge to lose you care...
Anyway, it is important to tell what new year means in Abkhazia since in every country understanding is different. The new year joy starts mid december, by bombachki (çata pat in turkish, small size explosives) blowing around. The 31st is much more noisy together with thousands of fireworks and gun shots.

Of course the new year is also identified by non-stop drinking, no work (even for shops which sell PRESENTS were closed on the 31st!!!), long tables (no bread in the few open shops for three days-they say "dont you know how to bake achof??"- kind of covered cheese pizza), many calls and messages (luckily the phone companies make many campaigns but sure they will take it from us in the end), and 4 different days of celebration: 24th of DEC-Catholic Christmas, 31st of DEC- New Year, 7th of JAN- Orthodox Christmas, 11th of JAN- Abkhaz New Year-The Day of the Blacksmiths.
The new year is celebrated with family on a long lasting table. Young people ran away to the streets at midnight. Come together and spend time cooking again in the middle of the night.

Bagapsh re-elected

Election results:
59,7 it is 59% for Bagasph, 15,44% for Hacimba, 10,8% for Ardzinba, 8% for Butba, 1,5% for Bganba
Bagapsh re-elected for presidency.
The observers have positive impact- they say it was free and fair, democratic. Will let you know more later...

Bazala TV Ad

Life fast and busy...

Everything is in a period of change. Martha Jonua (linguist-social researcher) has left for Moscow-getting married tomorrow.

From GoodbyPartyforMarthaJonua

Dijin Churey (linguist and ethno-musicolog) came to Abkhazia and got married today...With traditional clothes on her, the groom, the tatsayuza (brides' friend who is an unmarried girl from the family of the boy). I wanted to have something traditional too. But time and economic limits resulted in this creative piece. Of course it is a result of 4 day delicate embroidery work by Trapsh Ece from Shelly.

From Achara/Jeug/Wedding/Düğün

I have also prepared an advertisement for the training that will start on Tuesday but I couldnt catch the advertisement on TV tonight because i did not realized the time after I came from the wedding and missed the first 15 minutes of Abkhaz State TV So I can not makes sure if they published it :(

And posters to be hanged tomorrow.

And though it is after midnight and I am dying since in total i slept 15 hours in the last week I feel like sitting here and writing all about these...

New Visa information for International Visitors of Abkhazia

I frequently hear and read complaints about the problematic entrance to Abkhazia. I had visitors from Hospitality Club before and I fought for them in four languages with all levels of the bureaucracy. I promised them if they arrange the visit of my friend I will never ever again come to their door for an international visitors visa issues. Though, I failed to keep my promise since I value the outside view and the importance of non-Russian speaking/Western visitors' word in the recognition or even increasing the knowledge of Abkhazia's independence.
Ofcourse, the international visitors do not realize that the citizens of Abkhazia can not go anywhere outside of Russia, only a selected few can take visa for Europe or USA with the international Russian passports since they are officially registered, working, studying in Abkhazia- which is an unrecognized country. For repatriants the situation is really much worse since they do not have Russian passports but Turkish or other-which receives Russian visa for really expensive and hardly. Besides most repatriants passports have very likely expired since they are here for over a year (the 2-5 year Turkish passport costs really a lot) and the Russian visas are not given to expired passports. And there is no direct transport from Abkhazia- so nearly all the population has been limited to the small country all their life. Because of many impossibilities, - economic, social, political, security- many did not have the chance to see even the most touristic attractions in their own country like Ritza Lake or Bedia Church till recently.

So please do not complain about the visa and entrance procedures of Abkhazia but make suggestions, tell the responsible personnel how it can be better, easier for them and for you. Give examples from similar situations. But do not compare to Europe where citizens of Europe, USA or Canada can go around however they want, whenever they want. Compare with realistic examples... Consider that that responsible person who is responding to your request my have never been to a country other than Russia which is a land of bureaucracy!

Here new information in English is available for the interested:
Press here or copy one of the links:
http://www.mfaabkhazia.org/en/mfa_chart/visa_to_abkhazia/
http://therepublicofabkhazia.org/pages/contact-us/visitor-info.shtml

Going native!

That is the term used for social scientists (anthropologists) when they start to behave like the people they study. "Why, after about three years I feel like this? Did I felt like an outsider before? What made the change?" can be some of the questions that come up to your mind. But the reason I used this wording is that I have find out myself talking just like on a recent conversation with some strangers in the Botanical Institute. I went there to find out if I can have an appointment or a phone number to make an appointment. I entered the room greeting in Abkhaz. There was a young girl who greeted back in Abkhaz and an old lady who was the secretary who responded back in Russian. I started my sentence in Abkhaz, continued in Russian got different responses from them in both languages, than started in Russian again, continued in Abkhaz and ... I have gone native in terms of language!!!
It really disturbed me when they talked in mixed languages. Maybe it was because I could hardly understand a single one in a long conversation and the combination of the two was very tiring since they were both foreign languages. Thinking a little back I realized I have been doing this for a while.
I remember, back in Turkey as I thought SPSS lectures to the sophomores as a senior, one of the students had critisized my lectures for being discomforting becuase of constantly talking in two languages- Turkish and English. I hated that too but if I talked only in English about statistics and computers, more than half of the class could not follow the lectures. And I had asked which language they would like me to talk at the lectures at the beginning of the year, and people had voted for multilingual lecturing.
Still, I don't like this mumbling and bumbling in many languages at the same time. Since I came to Abkhazia, constantly I talk in 4 languages- Turkish, English, Abkhaz and Russian. Sometimes, I feel like I am going to have a brain emboli. Or as some repatirants will start to create my own language- of mendacious words, ungrammatical mixed language sentences, full rubbish.
This language issue is really interesting. In my life I have met so many bilingual and multilingual people. I think if you are multilingual since early ages it is easier to add new languages to your knowledge. And it becomes less disturbing to talk in many languages in a day. I myself, am not a multilingual child. I learned English with the encouragement of my mother. She was importing English language text books and reading books to Turkey.
My French is a disaster though I finished 4th level of study in high school as electives.
My grandfather was not so succesfull in teaching Adyghe neither to his children nor to grandchildren, though he started to tell the Nart stories he knew from his childhood in Adyghe just before he died... I studied for 3 months in Adygeya but it seems to be lost as I started learning Abkhaz since these languages are really close to each other.
My Russian has tolerated 5 different teachers of Russian language, and seems to survive and even develop in the recent month so I can say the best teacher has been the field work in Abkhazia!
We are doing a research at the Center for Strategic Studies on the topic of Multinguality and Culture. I printed 1000 copies of questionnaires in 6 months from an ordinary printer. (I hated myself in most days that I had to sit infront of the computer for hours just printing!)
For the last month they have been distributing the questionnaires around but the total sample has reached to 37 only!!! So within a year they will finish than I can tell you about the situation about this multilinguality in Abkhazia.